Let's talk about the lure of being a transaction oriented broker instead of an asset gatherer.

What often happens is this.  You find the sledding to be very rough, you're not making enough money to justify the time you're spending.

Then one day it hits you.  A guy with $10,000 could buy a mutual fund and you'd get a few basis points as a one time reward, but that money is buried.  Probably forever.

Then one night, while staring at the ceiling in the dark, wondering if you're cut out for this or not, you hit on the idea of taking that guy's 10 grand and putting it into three or four equities at about 25 or 30 per share each.  One hundred shares of four stocks--you convince yourself that that's enough diversification and you will be able to move that money around as if it were a shell game and each time you move it you'll get a commission.

No more one time fees for you, you're going to be a stock jockey just like back before the Internet and discount brokers took control of that segment of the business with $8 trades.

So, the next time you find a guy with 10 grand you put him into 100 of this and 100 of that--gotta get at least three or four of them in order to diversify, so you only buy 50 of something else.

Now think.  If your client owns 100 shares of a 25 dollar stock and it doubles how much will he have?  Answer, another $2,500.  That is not getting rich slowly, much less fast.

I realize that a mutual fund is not a get rich quick idea either, but hear me out.

When you open a stock trading account you convey upon your client the right--the God Given Right--to phone you as many times a day as he cares to call.  There are people who will call you every thirty minutes--it's their money after all.

Everytime you take their call you are wasting precious time--you get distracted from the task at hand, writing that letter, making that prospecting call. Whatever.

Another dynamic sets up, you begin to think like this.  I owe it to myself to get out of here and close that prospect, but I also owe it to my clients to be here when they call.  The market could cave in at any minute and if I were not here to help them they'd move their accounts somewhere else.

That is not good.

Don't be lured into the trap of thinking that you're a stock jockey.  The reason that the average production is significantly higher in 2006 than it was in 1976 is not inflation. 

The biggest factor is that individuals have control of their own money to a much greater degree--401(k)s, rollovers, all that were not part of the picture in 1976.

But also a major factor is that the transaction oriented clients are using the Internet.  Be glad they are, they'll such the very blood out of a broker.

That blood is time, you never have enough of it.