My EDJ Rant

Ah. And so it begins…

Are there any other small towns around you with no EDJ guy/gal?

Yes and two much larger towns with only two reps.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why the guy would subject himself to prospecting a small town that a new guy started in less than a year ago.  Sure it impacts me but it’s going to be that much tougher for them.

Volt - I’ve seen instances where newbies don’t have that much of a choice. This is what they do. The people in market research are morons. And the regional leadership follows the “we could put twelve more offices here!” party line.



I hate it for you buddy. Elbow him out. Offer to host him at your office and take his prospects when he quits.

Don’t worry about it.  Prospect where you think it makes sense. Don’t let this get between your ears.
Competition is everywhere in this job – banks, independants, DYI-ers, wirehouses. So look at it this way – how much competition will this new guy really be?

This is where our model is limited…there is some paper-pusher in the home office that reads a spreadsheet of questionable asset figures and decides without much, if any, research that a town can support more than one FA.

I actually work in a small city next to a large city where there is more than one other broker. I just cold call and prospect in every area that does not have a Jones broker specifically attached to it. I circle out about 30 minutes from my branch. I have found that there is a lot of business that we (EDJ) have never really touched because Jones has never put a broker in the town and most of us are too myopic to prospect outside the city that’s on our business card.

Anyway, don’t panic. As you and I both know, new people (if they make it) aren’t skilled prospectors. If nothing else, you will be able to have a head start stealing business from that whale across the street from you.

[quote=voltmoie]On Friday my Regional Leader was kind enough to call and inform me that
they would be placing another FA  into my very small
town of 8000. He told me to draw a line in the town and suggested I
concentrate my prospecting efforts in preparation for the new guy.  I asked the logic behind such a
decision and it’s all based on their assets model for my area.  Such is
life but now I have to make steps to ensure I’m the only game in town,
I know it’s dirty but what else can I do.  It’s a dog eat dog world. To
this point I’ve been lazy and pretty deliberate in my prospecting
methods, hitting the towns around my area but not my town until my
office opened.  I’ve got a 6-8 month window to prospect the shear hell
out of this place. 

I plan to start knocking on every door within the area I’ll abdicate
and call those houses that no one is home and work my way back into my
"new" area.  I know, I know, I’m a jerk but I’ve already knocked in the
majority of the houses in town and it’s still my area for at least 6
months.  Blame Jones for using numbers rather than logic.

The asset base that Jones comes up with is complete suspect, but I have heard recently that they don’t even look at assets anymore… The new goal is population(5,000/advisor) and that is not households but total population. So for example town of 15,000 would get at least 3.



I agree with previous posters that it shouldn’t affect you, however i think mucks up the EDJ image of the existing broker when they higher a new guy.

Here is the best part of the story…  My buddy gets a call on Wed. from his RL, he calls to offer him a nice 15mm office.  When mine calls I start thinking, hell yeah … I’m getting an office too. hahaha Needless to say, I was disappointed!

I’m taking it in stride and really did need a kick in the ass.  This has provided it but I can’t lie, it’s annoying and needed to rant a little about it. Thanks for the advice.

Don’t think of it too much bud. Just whoop some ass and everything will be fine. I do, however, like the idea of hosting him in your office. I grew up in a small town of 1200. 8000 is not much larger., so I know how those small town people work. Let’s face it, if you do well and get in an office, there are not enough people to support that other FA because they will assume that he works for YOUR office. When he says “Edward Jones”, they’ll say, “Oh ya, the office over yonder”. When he quits, you’ll get all his accounts. Just rock it out and by the time he starts doorknocking, he’ll quit because he’ll realize every house he doorknocks has Volt’s name stamped on it.

Definitely, tell the RL you are splitting the area. Also, reach out to the new guy and tell him how you would propose to split it. Then absolutely pound the area you have proposed to give him to grab any low hanging fruit before he starts. It is your business and if Jones doesn’t want to think logically then screw them. If they want to play games you will beat them at their own.

That’s my plan, at least part 1 of 5.  After watching the history channel I’m calling  it: Operation OVERLORD

I wouldn’t feel quilty about any prospecting methods you use now or later.  Chances are he wont be with Jones in 3 years whether it be from failing or switching companies so why worry. 

Don’t think of it too much bud. Just whoop some ass and everything will be fine. I do, however, like the idea of hosting him in your office. I grew up in a small town of 1200. 8000 is not much larger., so I know how those small town people work. Let’s face it, if you do well and get in an office, there are not enough people to support that other FA because they will assume that he works for YOUR office. When he says “Edward Jones”, they’ll say, “Oh ya, the office over yonder”. When he quits, you’ll get all his accounts. Just rock it out and by the time he starts doorknocking, he’ll quit because he’ll realize every house he doorknocks has Volt’s name stamped on it.

Volt, I have been with EJ for almost six years, and the first couple of years it used to bother me when they would put another newb in my area. However, since I started approximately 71 FA’s have been hired, trained and quit in my direct marketing area. My region has opened only two offices in six years, only one of those was a newnew and currently we have 12 FA’s out less than 16 weeks. I have learned over the years that doorknocking is more advertising than prospecting. EJ hires anyone with a pulse knowing that 90% will quit or get fired within three years. Whether they stick for three months or three years they will be getting in front of hundreds of people telling them about EJ and when they leave at least one of the people they talked to is going to walk in your office and drop a big rollover at your feet. All because someone whose name they cannot remember left an EJ brochure at the door 18 months ago. Just remember, you are playing King of the Mountain, chances are the newb will quit after the salary runs out. How is that for a recipe!

Spiff,

This can’t be good for your LP buddy! 

Spiff you know those numbers are crap… They include checking accounts and all sorts of garbage.



They may go off the TLIA initially but the new goal also takes into account population.

Not to mention that the bulk of those TLIA assets are not Jones target market.

Spiff, two points…

Here’s a different perspective…

Oh, and our region’s top producer has about 190mm AUM, and is in a town of 4200 households.  Of his 190mm, 52mm is from his town (I assume most of the “Jones Assets” in his town are from his office).

You are talking about 3 different groups. Wires, Indy and Jones… Three different clients.

Strange, I have pulled clients from all three office types.  So I am not sure how they differ.  Yes, maybe your typical Manhattan wirehouse client is different from a suburban Jones client, but in my area, we are all after the same clients (with some exceptions).  I find it very hard to believe that in my area, I am the only one among all those FA's going after age 50+ clients with 250K+ in investable assets.  The exception would be the old wirehouse advisors that are at the tail-ends of their careers.

What i meant was, WIRES don’t pay on accounts under $100K on average… Jones has an average of less than $100K accounts

Jones as a whole has an average of under $100k per household, but that doesn’t mean B24 does.  His may be way higher than that.  In my metro market there aren’t a lot of people who are looking for only the HNW crowd.  They’re out there I’m sure, but from what I can tell, the indy and wire guys are going after the exact same clients I am, just like B24’s competitors. 

What is Joogle??

What is Joogle??

No that is great… from now on when someone asks a repeated questions(more than 10x) I am just going to type Roogle…



WTF is wrong with you Jones people…

Don’t hate on our new Joogle search engine. It’s awesome.

Don’t hate on our new Joogle search engine. It’s awesome.

No that is great… from now on when someone asks a repeated questions(more than 10x) I am just going to type Roogle…

WTF is wrong with you Jones people…

Did they ever redo the bond trading system… they had been talking about that since I left, wondered if they ever did it…

Back on topic…

Did they ever redo the bond trading system… they had been talking about that since I left, wondered if they ever did it…

It’s a nice system.  One piece of info that I read today was that they’re going to start giving us access not just to our physical inventory, but also to the inventories of other companies.  I guess that would effectively take away the knock that our bond traders aren’t any good or that they only put long bonds into our inventory.  If we can see the inventories of other firms too, then we can basically buy the best on the street.  They did say that they won’t be showing all of the inventories of the other firms, because a lot of it is junk.  Not my words, direct from the Suggbox.   

Yeah… sure they are… I think they will show you want they want you to see.

They always do…

If volt is in a town population 8,000, this is probably 3,000 houses.

After KYC, this newbie needs to make 25 contacts a day…from my experience, this means this guy will be knocking on at least 125 doors (every day) for 8 weeks (total of 5,000 knocks)…and, you guys need to split your town!!!

Sure there are other competitors in town, but there’s not enough doors to knock on…

I had a new guy start in my town in my week #4 of production…sh*t pissed me off!!! I think Jones is putting their partnership success ahead of your (volt’s) individual success. 

As annoying as it is, I have seen no evidence, emperical or annecdotal, that more or fewer Jones FA's equates to more or less success.  I would agree that the cities with FA's on every corner may be tougher to start in (i.e. St. Louis), but something tells me that a town of 8000 with 2 FA's should not be an impediment to success.

My issue has more to do with the prospecting methods we utilize more than the additional body, which Still illustrated well. 

I have knocked on doors in every viable corner of my town with the exception of three / four streets.  A  new guy will go back over every inch of the community I touched trying to reach his numbers which was tough for me and I was the only game in town.  His prospecting of the same people I’m prospecting hurts our image as a company and to some degree my credibility.  Those prospects will begin to wonder if I’m still there, is this person replacing me?  There will also be fatigue on the prospects part.

It’s my opinion my town CAN handle two FAs, at some point.  It’s just not logical to pop them back to back. Especially after you see that someone is growing a viable business. Let it grow to a certain level, nurture it, and then grow.  Growth for growths sake is silly.  That’s there the logic fails…   It’s done though, I’ve moved on mentally.

If Volt were 3-5 years in and doing pretty comfortably for example spending 1/2 his time with existing clients/service and 1/2 his time prospecting using mainly networking, referrals, targeted cold-calls or cold-walking businesses, etc then it might make sense to bring in a newbie to pound the pavement and pick up the stuff the established advisor (volt) isn’t aware of or won’t get because he’s working smarter now rather than harder.

Having two people spending 100% of their time prospecting a town of 8000 using the same method is just stupid.

I think Jones puts two new FAs in one town so that when one quits, the other is ready to take over their book. I’m sure this makes sense in St.Louis…but for a new FA trying to build a book, it makes it harder to succeed. I think Volt is getting screwed…

Think of it this way…I would expect 300 clients/households is a good number for a Jones office. If Volt has to split his town, he and the other FA get 1,500 houses to knock. With these numbers, they need to convert 20% of those contacts into clients.

Didn’t Jones say 3% of contacts will become clients…he’s getting screwed!!!

I don’t think Jones is that devilish.  I honestly think they just have thier big market penetration map, and anywhere that doesn’t have X number of FA’s per X $$'s and households is an available location.  It’s a bit more complicated than that ( they factor in demographics, density, etc.), but generally, a location either can or cannot accomodate another FA per their metrics.  The country and company is much too big for them to go one by one saying “Oh look, Still@Jones is only out 6 months, and this guy is brand new, let’s put him there so if Still fails, the other guy will take over his accounts”.

Volt - the guy might not even end up in your town.  Didn't you say there were a few towns around you that didn't have anyone there?  If it were me, I'd have lunch with the new FA, tell him that you've already doorknocked the entire town, recently, and that his best shot for new prospects would be to go to one of those other towns during KYC.  Then, tell him to call the RL and tell him that you've done so much prospecting in that town that he keeps running into your prospects.  Tell the new guy that he needs to ask the RL if he can put his office in one of those other towns. 

I think Jones puts two new FAs in one town so that when one quits, the other is ready to take over their book. I’m sure this makes sense in St.Louis…but for a new FA trying to build a book, it makes it harder to succeed. I think Volt is getting screwed…

Think of it this way…I would expect 300 clients/households is a good number for a Jones office. If Volt has to split his town, he and the other FA get 1,500 houses to knock. With these numbers, they need to convert 20% of those contacts into clients.

Didn’t Jones say 3% of contacts will become clients…he’s getting screwed!!!

Volt-

When I was at Jones, this topic used to drive me up a wall. I wanted the firm to stop trying to add folks until I was a solid Seg 4 office and then I would help add persons that would be successful. The philosophy is to continue to throw people at an area until one sticks, once one sticks keep throwing people at it until two stick. And so on and so on. I don’t believe there is any malice there it is just the way they do business. In a town of 8000 if you have 2 jones reps, there are probably 10-12 other reps that are licensed to do investment business in that town. I would not worry about the Jones people I would be a lot more concerned with the other reps. In my town I had a seg 3 office while another office turned over 4 times all in a year and a half…I finally asked them to just fold that office and roll the assets to me as I got tired of explaining why there was no one there again…they wouldn’t do it. After you get a certain number of reps in a area who wash out at some point the next person will be successful no matter who they are because of the work done in the past.

I think a portion of your time should definitely be spent on people you won’t get today. The HNW clients require a longer gestation period of interaction, as still and E24 have said.

volt - no offense, but have you ever heard the term “backfill”? Or possibly, more appropriately, “Potential Backfill”?

To be honest, I needed a kick in the ass ... this provided it.  My business will profit from it.  Don't think Jones is evil, just stupid about this. 

Along those lines, someone on here, can’t remember who, segments their clients into three segments:

volt - no offense, but have you ever heard the term “backfill”? Or possibly, more appropriately, “Potential Backfill”?

Total growth numbers for a region are dictated (with some input from the region) from St Louis. Where to actually place the number provided from above is mostly a regional decision. That’s the way it works in our region anyway.

I can only comment from my experince.  I dictated where I’d go based upon the assets to advisor formula Jones had in place.  My RL could careless where that was as long as he got another body.  Have no reason to suspect they are pushing someone into my backwoods market to backfill but you never know and it does not change the situation on the ground.

[quote=B24]Along those lines, someone on here, can’t remember who, segments their clients into three segments:

I like these ideas, I decided to only work with #3 (although at Jones they aren’t really fee based). But clients with money, that I like to work with and like to work with me. I don’t see even bothering with the others. The way I see it is, if you build your business the way you want it (only dealing with good clients), you’ll only have those clients when your book is large. You can also decide later on, the number of clients you choose to have in your office. Ex: 100-200 Cleints with $200,000 or more or whatever number you choose. #1 & #2 (to me) shouldn’t even be a consideration unless you are going for a commission today (Which just causes conflicts of interest, when you are just trying to get a commission from em. #3 clients are going to be clients you get close to and always wanna do whats best for). I don’t see a reason to work with anyone, that doesn’t value what I have to say or causes alot of stress at my office. In my opinion, and this is just ME, if you focus on #3 ONLY, you’ll be alot better off in the long run. It’s worked for me.

I like these ideas, I decided to only work with #3 (although at Jones they aren’t really fee based). But clients with money, that I like to work with and like to work with me. I don’t see even bothering with the others. The way I see it is, if you build your business the way you want it (only dealing with good clients), you’ll only have those clients when your book is large. You can also decide later on, the number of clients you choose to have in your office. Ex: 100-200 Cleints with $200,000 or more or whatever number you choose. #1 & #2 (to me) shouldn’t even be a consideration unless you are going for a commission today (Which just causes conflicts of interest, when you are just trying to get a commission from em. #3 clients are going to be clients you get close to and always wanna do whats best for). I don’t see a reason to work with anyone, that doesn’t value what I have to say or causes alot of stress at my office. In my opinion, and this is just ME, if you focus on #3 ONLY, you’ll be alot better off in the long run. It’s worked for me.

Let me re-phrase that. If someone has below $100,000 and wants to do business, go for it. Just don't expect me to continually prospect someone with less money than that. I may do a repeat contact by phone, but after that I am finished. People with less money than that take forever to transfer over and usually become a problem child because they have $25,000 and think they are your biggest client. My clients with over $200,000 don't require that much work. they understand how things work.

Yea, you can usually tell early on if someones gonna take 3-4 meetings to roll over something. For $50k or less, forget about that.

I like these ideas, I decided to only work with #3 (although at Jones they aren’t really fee based). But clients with money, that I like to work with and like to work with me. I don’t see even bothering with the others. The way I see it is, if you build your business the way you want it (only dealing with good clients), you’ll only have those clients when your book is large. You can also decide later on, the number of clients you choose to have in your office. Ex: 100-200 Cleints with $200,000 or more or whatever number you choose. #1 & #2 (to me) shouldn’t even be a consideration unless you are going for a commission today (Which just causes conflicts of interest, when you are just trying to get a commission from em. #3 clients are going to be clients you get close to and always wanna do whats best for). I don’t see a reason to work with anyone, that doesn’t value what I have to say or causes alot of stress at my office. In my opinion, and this is just ME, if you focus on #3 ONLY, you’ll be alot better off in the long run. It’s worked for me.

I established new client rules for myself after I finished PDP:

- Must net me at least $500 unless
 - They DCA money and/or
 - Buy Insurance and/or
 - Are willing to sit down with me after one call and/or
 - Might be a potential referral source and/or
 - I like them and/or
 - Have a nice rack

Just found I don’t have enough time or patience to chase the others.  Once my office opens and I have my Advisory Solutions where I want it my restrictions will increase.

[quote=voltmoie]

I established new client rules for myself after I finished PDP:- Must net me at least $500 unless - They DCA money and/or - Buy Insurance and/or - Are willing to sit down with me after one call and/or - Might be a potential referral source and/or - I like them and/or - Have a nice rackJust found I don’t have enough time or patience to chase the others. Once my office opens and I have my Advisory Solutions where I want it my restrictions will increase.

[/quote]



good luck with that, if it works youll be set



id be thrilled to net 500, lol

I established new client rules for myself after I finished PDP:

- Must net me at least $500 unless
 - They DCA money and/or
 - Buy Insurance and/or
 - Are willing to sit down with me after one call and/or
 - Might be a potential referral source and/or
 - I like them and/or
 - Have a nice rack

Just found I don’t have enough time or patience to chase the others.  Once my office opens and I have my Advisory Solutions where I want it my restrictions will increase.