Van Mueller kicked off the 2014 Advisor Network Summit in Las Vegas with a bang. In his usual rapid-fire manner, he bombarded attendees with a series of facts, figures, stories and a plethora of sales ideas.
Here are a few of the best takeaways:
"Right now we are in the middle of the greatest opportunity in the history of the industry. Every single institution we think we can depend on won't be there in the future. We're not in a recovery – the government is printing trillions of dollars. Soon, you're going to see crashes in stocks, bonds and real estate markets.
The world just went $100 trillion in debt. The U.S. is $17 trillion in debt, but the rest of the world is $83 trillion in debt – there's no one to borrow from.
We're so close to a calamity and the only people who can help are in this room."
"The attention span of an average American is 12 seconds. No commercial is longer than 30 seconds now because people don't pay attention that long.
Nobody cares about you; it's about them. Customers tell me, 'You're the smartest advisor I know.' But I don't know anything other than how to ask what matters to people."
"Don't you think any politician would fix the economy if they could? But no one knows what's coming next.
Ask your clients, 'If nobody knows what's going to happen, should you take a lot of risk and put your money in danger or develop a strategy that will keep your money safe and every time something bad happens, you take advantage of it?'"
