Jones to RJFS --THANKYOU!
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Thanks. I may take you up on it when my eyes are opened!
But for now, I will take my lumps and grind through the rights of passage.
At least you have the right attitude. It is good to be king of your own firm, trust me I did it for 9 years.
Anyone know if Phoenix Edward Jones is a good area, lots of retirees and lotsa money here in the valley.
grim,
I like your attitude. If you practice what you preach--you will be successful. ZACKORegarding the P&L, Jones did the right thing on their change. It eliminated the disadvantage that high expense locations had in the past. Back then if you had to do 18k just to cover local expenses (high rent, high staff pay), you were paying a larger amount to the mythical “home office” charge. The branch that covered expenses was paying less in “HO” overhead charge. Therefore to get to dollar 1 of profit, the high expense guy had to get to well over 18k, as opposed to say 10k. The high expense branch had paid WAY more into the coffers by dollar 1 of bonus compared to the low expense branch.
I believe this new system has rectified this.
[quote=zacko]Spiff–
If and when you get your junk bond--I mean LP. You won't be able to keep it when you retire. It's taxable federal and state as ordinary income each year. So, when the tax laws change here in a bit--close to half of what you earn on the LP will go back in taxes. Great deal? no.... but it's dangled like a carrot in front of you your whole career there. The GP's can defer part of their return and the GP returns are far greater. The amount that goes into profit sharing is pretty weak also. Other non-indy firms have much better benefits than Jones from what I have seen. Don't let them tell you what wonderful benefits you have--because you don't. My indy benefits ended up competing fairly well against my Jones benefits, which actually surprised me. I think if you compare with an "open mind", you will find that it will be difficult to stomach a long term career at Jones. You actually work like an independent, but aren't getting paid like one.[/quote] This may be the most blatently untrue thing you've ever said on these boards. You keep LP until you die or sell it. It doesn't suprise me that other firms have great benefits. I don't remember ever bragging about EDJ's benefits. I actually think that a lot of top firms have better benefits than we do. I have a buddy who works for UPS - pension, 401k matching, paid medical benefits. I think his benefits are better than mine. You're barking up the wrong tree with that comment. Nice try though. As to being able to stomach a career at EDJ? As far as I'm concerned right now, not a problem. But would you expect anything different from me?You know, the more I am removed from Jones and the toxic waste dump that was my region, the less bad things I have to say about them.
Spiff - I say keep on keepin’ on! If it floats your boat, go for it.
As for any newbies starting, great place to work. I’ll only tell you what my grandfather told me: when you philosophy and the company’s philosophy are no longer in sync, leave.
To keep the LP you have to meet Jones definition of retirement. It takes into consideration your tenure and age. If you don’t meet their definition then you’ll have to sell it back.
So spiff can you enlighten us please…
If the bonus bracket is 25% (currently what is it?)and you have 10 grids starting with profit computed today differently (you say more fairly) are the grids till at 6500 of profit? Could you illustrate what the grids look like today at the current bonus percentage. I being the skeptic think they might be taking advantage of the FA for their benefit. Prove me wrong!As a W-2 employee--with a 38% average net payout, you would expect benefits competitive with other firms who have similar compensation platforms. I'm glad you agree on the inferiority of EDJ's benefits. I always thought that during my time there. Not a reason to leave, but collectively adds fuel to the fire which will burn you in the end spiffy. I was always told(while I was at Jones)--if you are making a good living, you can afford most of your own benefits..... but then again, I have come to expect nothing less from Jones.
Are you sure you aren’t talking about GP? You can’t keep your GP when you retire or past age 60 or 65 I believe, but you still become an SLP.
There's a big long letter on Joogle that basically says that you are generally allowed to take your LP with you when you leave Jones as long as you don't retire and go to work at another firm or in another capacity that Jones would construe as competition. Also, if you reach the vesting schedule which is 45 years old with your age and years of service totaling 65 years, you can keep it too as long as your not going to work for the competition. So, for me, at 45 if I stay at Jones for the rest of my career, I'll retire with my LP. As far as I know, they've always let retiring LPs hold onto what they've got. That's one of the reasons they get a pass from most Jones employees on not matching more in the 401K.[quote=BigCheese]So spiff can you enlighten us please…
If the bonus bracket is 25% (currently what is it?)and you have 10 grids starting with profit computed today differently (you say more fairly) are the grids till at 6500 of profit? Could you illustrate what the grids look like today at the current bonus percentage. I being the skeptic think they might be taking advantage of the FA for their benefit. Prove me wrong![/quote] It has nothing to do with you being a skeptic and more to do with you outright hating everything associated with EDJ.It has nothing to do with you being a skeptic and more to do with you outright hating everything associated with EDJ
Anyone at Jones care to tell the rest of us (objectively) about the bonus plan... 1- What is the firm bonus percentage currently? 2- What is the initial bonusable revenue necessary to hit the first grid? 3- What are the increments for each grid (there used to be 5 grids now there are 10)? I would prefer anyone other than Spiff respond. It appears he is reading way too much into my question. For the record... I don't hate EDJ. I am skeptical about any plan being in the FA's best interest. I just have a feeling that this new plan favors the owners.Spiff: Those are the restrictions I mentioned. Not that big of a deal, but I started at EDJ when I was 22. I left at 33 with $40k in partnership. I was still a long way off from being able to qualify to keep it.
So I sold back my $40k, went to LPL and 14 months later I have a business that can be sold for greater than $500k.Just a couple of points:
Most of the vets I know that are bonused said the grid pretty much works out the same way now as it did before. The calc is different, but it ends up about the same. Trust me, they all scrambled to compare pre-change bonus to post-change bonus, and they were all fine with it. I think the only people that would see a significant change (more than 5% up or down, and that's 5% of their previous bonus, not 5 bonus percentage points) were the people that had really high branch costs (they would make out better), and people that had really low branch costs (they would make out worse) compared to the average at the firm. But most people were going to be within a few hundred dollars up or down, depending on whether you fell above or below the average cost line. Bascially what they did was eliminate the Home Office allocation based on office size, and just require a straight $23K in positive "Location Gain" each trimester (so 8K per month) before your bonus kicks in for all branches. I have no idea what their true intentions were, but as I said, I have not heard a single complaint about the new bonus structure from anyone. Of course, I live in a high-cost area, so it's possbile that most of them ended up the same or better. Firm Profit Margin Firm Bonus Level Location Margin $0-$23,000 $23,001-$33,000 $33,001-$43,000 $43,001-$53,000 $53,001-$63,000 $63,001+ 5.00% 1 0% .5% 1.0% 2.0% 3.0% 4.5% 5.75% 2 0% 1.0% 2.0% 4.0% 6.0% 9.0% 6.50% 3 0% 1.5% 3.0% 6.0% 9.0% 13.5% 7.25% 4 0% 2.0% 4.0% 8.0% 12.0% 18.0% 8.00% 5 0% 2.5% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 22.5% 8.75% 6 0% 3.0% 6.0% 12.0% 18.0% 27.0% 9.50% 7 0% 3.5% 7.0% 14.0% 21.0% 31.5% 10.25% 8 0% 4.0% 8.0% 16.0% 24.0% 36.0% 11.00% 9 0% 4.5% 9.0% 18.0% 27.0% 40.5% 11.75% 10 0% 5.0% 10.0% 20.% 30.0% 45.0% This chart is per tri-mester (4 months), not per month. So just roughing it out, a $1mm producer would see a bonus of about $85,000 per year in the 6th bonus bracket (we have averaged about the 6th bonus bracket for the last 18 years, with some wide swings).Ice-
You right on the money. LPL is no better. B- It seems like the bonus has been reduced. I remember when bonus represented 25% of pay. In your scenario 85K bonus and 380K its a little over 22%. Before I hear from you know who...its not down that much!!! What about the 500K producer, do they feel the same? I try so hard to be balanced. Really I do.[quote=zacko]
grim,
I like your attitude. If you practice what you preach--you will be successful. ZACKO[/quote]By definition, every word that comes out of my mouth is a promise, - Brando, the Freshman.
Thanks Zacko. You are right, our actions define who we are. One may talk a good game, but do they play it the same?
[quote=BigCheese]Ice-
You right on the money. LPL is no better. B- It seems like the bonus has been reduced. I remember when bonus represented 25% of pay. In your scenario 85K bonus and 380K its a little over 22%. Before I hear from you know who...its not down that much!!! What about the 500K producer, do they feel the same? I try so hard to be balanced. Really I do.[/quote] I honestly don't know either way. But I am telling you the honest truth when I say I have not heard anyone complain. I was simply picking a bonus bracket out of the air. If you were in the 8-10 brackets, it would clearly be much higher. And who knows, profit on a $1mm office might be much higher. I was doing some REAL rough estimates (based on wages and rents in my area, which are in the highest bracket in the country). And the producers I am referring to, most are under 650K. But who knows, some of them seem too dumb to bother comparing, so maybe you're right. But if it's down, it's VERY slightly. Even when the change first came out, I did the math on various production numbers, and it was almost identical. Trust me, if I felt it was a real downward adjsutment, I'd have no problem calling them out on it.You know who is going to keep quiet on this one and hope that rank or ytrewq or hulk shows up to shut him up one way or the other.
In regards to the Jones bonus system: In 2002 I had a great year at Jones. I did close to 900k that year because of a few large accounts that came in. I worked very hard that year because of the market conditions. It was a rough bear market–so there was no bonus–that’s right ZERO. My branch had approx 300k profit. I was stuck with a 38% payout. Doug Hill made slightly more money in 2002 than he did in 2001. Some of the vets will remember this… It was then when I decided enough was enough. There were articles written about “Mass Exodus” at Jones.
They also postponed the LP because of the legal troubles and the bear market. So after ten years at Jones and grossing over 500k for my last 5 years, I had 30k in LP. I probably mentored half a dozen or more FA's, interviewed a couple, and was a mentor trainer for the region as well. I participated in conference calls to help the region, called individual reps who were struggling. Basically, I let myself get taken advantage of and do hours of work for Jones for free. So, excuse me if I speak out a bit.... And, I will tell my tale of woe and despair wherever I go.