Financial Services Specialist
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[quote=Mojo]
maybe the
Cut&paste-negatronizer
[/quote]
SuperMenso (as he fingers another boiled peanut): “Oooooh noooo HE
didn’t. Did HE say negatronizer. I bet he doesn’t know all the
different jobs I’ve done done. He probably doesn’t even know I had my
picture taken with Jackie Chan (well, he looked like Jackie…and it
isnt my fault my Kinder-Portrait employee discount hadn’t kicked in
yet…or I’d have that nega-ga-ga, the proof for proof) Wait til I tell
him that. I bet he hasn’t even taken the time to read all my posts yet.
Dumb ass.”
[quote=joedabrkr]
And are you just another old fool who’s lived in the world of useless
bloated overhead(er I mean Sr. VP of Administration and ordering
pencils) who thinks he has any true grasp of reality to dispense to the
rookies?
[/quote]
Forget me–think of yourself. Could you, Joe, benefit if you
served on an NASD committee that dealt with ways to deflect predatory
lawyers, or joined a roundtable that met two or three times a year to
brainstorm whatever was on your mind?
How about this. If you had been offered a chance to accept the
challenges of a management role would you be a bloated useless
individual, or would you be capable of contributing. Don’t answer
by sidestepping the issue–the premise of my question is if you had
taken the path that I took would you be well rounded, experienced,
knowledgeable? Or would you be nothing more than bloated useless
senior management?
Can you grasp the vacantness of an argument that is based on “The more
experience you have the less you understand” and goes from there?
[quote=Put Trader] Yep, most highly qualfied business women post their picture on hotornot.com--I'm sure Babblinglooney does it several times a year.[/quote]
If you've got it, flaunt it. All my girls are hot.
[quote=Put Trader]WAIT, did you say you have a client waiting in conference room 2? I thought you did all your work at the end of twelve mile long driveways that intersect rural routes thirty miles from town?[/quote]
I did. Followed by one more in conference room 1. Then I had lunch with a key center of influence, and one more meeting in my office. Now I'm finished for the day.
I never said I did all my work in the hinterlands. That's your bad memory failing on you.[quote=Put Trader]What a joke this guy is.[/quote]
Jokes on you, crack boy.
[quote=stanwbrown]You three belong in the DSM-IV [/quote]
I have no desire to join you in your club of wack jobs.
Can you boys stop fighting for a moment to help a new woman who is entering into the finance business? SmithBarney has offered me a position... then AG Edwards calls and says "... we allow you to take your clients with you and remember we allow you to sell any financial products...". Now I am confused. Could someone kindly tell me what would be the better choice of the two? Or is it simply all based on my performance and truly not much more from any company? I am a brand junkie, so I am drawn to the larger firms... am I being foolish?
Thanks
Oh yes... I am an educated business woman and curiousity even got the best of me... I wonder if I am hotornot? Yes we all want to be admired... don't we?
[quote=homesbn]
Can you
boys stop fighting for a moment to help a new woman who is entering
into the finance business? SmithBarney has offered me a position…
then AG Edwards calls and says “… we allow you to take your clients
with you and remember we allow you to sell any financial products…”.
Now I am confused. Could someone kindly tell me what would be the
better choice of the two? Or is it simply all based on my performance
and truly not much more from any company? I am a brand junkie, so I am
drawn to the larger firms… am I being foolish?
Thanks
Oh yes... I am an educated business woman and curiousity even got the best of me... I wonder if I am hotornot? Yes we all want to be admired... don't we?
[/quote]Six of one, half a dozen of another with the choices you offer. Take the one that is going to offer you a more enjoyable environment, cuter guys as co workers, closer to home, near your favorite mall.
You will find that clients won't care, the technology will be so similar as to be indentical, available products almost identical, access to experts almost identical.
If you have friends who you hope will do business with them ask where they do NOT have an account and go there.
[quote=homesbn]
Can you
boys stop fighting for a moment to help a new woman who is entering
into the finance business? SmithBarney has offered me a position…
then AG Edwards calls and says “… we allow you to take your clients
with you and remember we allow you to sell any financial products…”.
Now I am confused. Could someone kindly tell me what would be the
better choice of the two? Or is it simply all based on my performance
and truly not much more from any company? I am a brand junkie, so I am
drawn to the larger firms… am I being foolish?
Thanks
Oh yes... I am an educated business woman and curiousity even got the best of me... I wonder if I am hotornot? Yes we all want to be admired... don't we?
[/quote]For complete aggregate branding you have to love Smith Barney. In the long successful run, Smith Barney would be my choice on the weft and right coasts. In the heartland, I plead ignorance. I know some hot spots where Indy's swing for the fences. I wouldn't be against asking for region specific advice if I were in your shoes.
Most producers will tell you that an offer on the table ready to ink are the smartest cards to bet on. You have a winning hand right now. Since this is your life "we" are betting on - what's wrong with accepting the opportunity to consider the offer from SB where you pencil in a date in 2 weeks time while you mull it over. This would give you time to meet with AGE management and talk to some 4-5 year players to gauge how they like the firms deliverables. You should do the same with SB. It's not about the money...it's about the personalities and how they match your strengths and weaknesses that will likely drive the results - money, peer relationships, and increasing your competitive edge. Good luck.
Remember Mojo has the emotional age of about 6 or 7.
His advice is worth precisely zero. He is an insurance guy who
prides himself on the fact that he doesn’t know schidt about the
securities industry.
[quote=Mojo]
For complete aggregate branding you have to love Smith Barney. In the long successful run, Smith Barney would be my choice on the weft and right coasts. In the heartland, I plead ignorance. I know some hot spots where Indy's swing for the fences. I wouldn't be against asking for region specific advice if I were in your shoes.
Most producers will tell you that an offer on the table ready to ink are the smartest cards to bet on. You have a winning hand right now. Since this is your life "we" are betting on - what's wrong with accepting the opportunity to consider the offer from SB where you pencil in a date in 2 weeks time while you mull it over. This would give you time to meet with AGE management and talk to some 4-5 year players to gauge how they like the firms deliverables. You should do the same with SB. It's not about the money...it's about the personalities and how they match your strengths and weaknesses that will likely drive the results - money, peer relationships, and increasing your competitive edge. Good luck.
[/quote]
Well written, Mojo.
I'm in the heartland for most of the year. The wirehouse RRs I know around here that are doing the best are with AGE. One of the best closers I've ever known hangs his hat there. There's one Top Gun over at ML, but he's doing 95% fees, which is just plain stupid giving away all that money to ML. There's two big fish at USB, but they get cursed at daily by their largest account (he's a client of mine, I've heard him yelling at them). They lost $30,000,000+ of his money one year. He joked "I need to buy more life insurance, because I'm going to have to die to replace thirty million!" (that was less than 10% of his net worth, to put things in perspective -- he ain't broke).
If you've never practiced in the craft of advice before, do like Mojo suggested, and jump in with both feet. Being an indy from scratch is a tougher row to hoe.
[quote=Put Trader]Remember Mojo has the emotional age of about 6 or 7.
His advice is worth precisely zero. He is an insurance guy who prides himself on the fact that he doesn't know schidt about the securities industry.
[/quote]
The above is more neurotic projection.
[quote=Put Trader] [quote=joedabrkr]
And are you just another old fool who's lived in the world of useless bloated overhead(er I mean Sr. VP of Administration and ordering pencils) who thinks he has any true grasp of reality to dispense to the rookies?
[/quote]
Forget me--think of yourself. Could you, Joe, benefit if you served on an NASD committee that dealt with ways to deflect predatory lawyers, or joined a roundtable that met two or three times a year to brainstorm whatever was on your mind?
Regarding the above, I don't know that I'd benefit directly other than perhaps feeling as if I was providing some service to the broader community in my profession, and perhaps it might be interesting. Unless my 'brainstorms' were truly meaningful, the greatest benefit to participating in such a committee would be that it would provide a couple days away from the office and a nice hotel room on the cuff. Frankly, I'd rather spend that time on the golf course or working ot help my clients....
How about this. If you had been offered a chance to accept the challenges of a management role would you be a bloated useless individual, or would you be capable of contributing. Don't answer by sidestepping the issue--the premise of my question is if you had taken the path that I took would you be well rounded, experienced, knowledgeable? Or would you be nothing more than bloated useless senior management?
Perhaps you have a point. Truth is as the owner of my own indy branch-as of about 30 days ago-I am now in 'management', though for the time being I'm managing only myself and large stacks of paper, whilst studying for my series 24. (66 out of the way as you may recall) In reality, not sure I would have ever accepted an order to be in management in a traditional wirehouse or regional format. Too damn much politics, too many directives from above by folks trying to shove inferior products and artificial goals upon you. Too many damn conference calls. I just don't have patience for that, and don't know how you put up with it.
Can you grasp the vacantness of an argument that is based on "The more experience you have the less you understand" and goes from there?
Put I'm merely suggesting that you don't know what life on the front lines is really like any more....you've been too far away from too long. How to best prepare for the series 24, however, or waht the failure rates might be, or what the NASD's latest stance might be on reforming annuities or the arbitration process...you know far more about that than I.......
[/quote]
[quote=Put Trader]Remember Mojo has the emotional age of about 6 or 7.
His advice is worth precisely zero. He is an insurance guy who prides himself on the fact that he doesn't know schidt about the securities industry.
[/quote]
Actually Put I thought his advice was pretty accurate and well presented.
IMHO, AGE is superior ethically and a more pleasant place to work.....SSB is better though if you think you're going to pursue the really big fish.
[quote=joedabrkr]Actually Put I thought his advice was pretty accurate and well presented.
IMHO, AGE is superior ethically and a more pleasant place to work.....SSB is better though if you think you're going to pursue the really big fish.[/quote]
Another great post, Joe.
[quote=joedabrkr]
Actually Put I thought his advice was pretty accurate and well presented.
IMHO, AGE is superior ethically and a more pleasant place to work.....SSB is better though if you think you're going to pursue the really big fish.
[/quote]What draws my point of view is often the ridiculous nature of another's point of view.
Mojo and Roger are NOT in the securities industry--they're in the insurance industry. They came from that ridiculous site--all they know about AG Edwards and/or Smith Barney is that they are brokerage houses where they might have been able to go to work had they not dropped out of school.
The reality is that asking for advice regarding which firm to join is ridiculous--even within the same firm there are huge differences since so much of what is experienced is driven by local managers and the "esprit de corps" of the local branch. In a great many ways this career is what you make of it--if you come into the office, snarl good morning at a few people and ignore the rest, and then go hole up in your area you're going to find it an unpleasant place to be. But it's you not the place.
As for the idea that wirehouses force product down client's throats---nonsense. It is true that things are invented to be sold, and that selling them is encouraged. But to suggest that a place like Smith Barney ever behaves as if it were a pump and dump chop shop is nothing more than rhetorical nonsense.
Small producers feel "pressure" because their managers are getting pressure to maximize the return on their branch. A common thought among the guys who are not making it, or barely making it, is that there are empty desks in the office so their job is secure--therefore a manager who is "on them" is simply being an prick.
Of course that may be true, but more often than not it's far more benign. Very often the manager actually likes the guy a lot and cannot understand why he's not performing--so as the go about trying anything and everything they can to help them they adopt what appears to be "pressure." It's not, it's just a technique that may or may not work.
Those of us who have been through basic training encountered individuals who kicked ass and took names on a daily basis. Concluding that the guy who was in your face did not like you as a person was easy to do--but wrong about 95% of the time. If your manager really doesn't like you--and it happens--it's nothing more than a traditional conflicting personalites deal. But the reality is that most managers do like their gang of guys and gals a lot.
But I digress, back to this forum.
It is actually worthless in many ways--as is the entire idea of internet support groups. None of us know each other, so why in the world would you listen to what a complete stranger has to say about anything?
Yesterday a woman asked if she'd be better off at AGE or SSB--sort of a typical question. No doubt she figured that people who know about the two firms would answer.
What she got--so far--was a "take whichever one is closer to the mall" response from me because I've been around since 1971 and know that that is about as good a piece of advice as a stranger can give.
Then Mojo--a guy who settled for being an insurance agent because he's missing something--chimes in with completely worthless drivel. Oh sure, he's as good a wordsmith as I've ever read on message boards and I am veteran of some great ones--but the reality is that he knows nothing about the industry the woman was asking about. As they say, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" so reading a guy giving advice regarding a job he could not qualify for is--as Bill O'Reilly is fond of saying--ridiculous.
Then this morning I see the that Tweedle Dee praises Tweedle Dum. Tweedle Dee is even less qualified. It appears to me that he's a complete and utter wannabe. I believe that Mojo is successful in whatever niche market he's in out there in the bay area--but this Roger Thornhill character is a loser of the first magnitude.
Start with the picture of Cary Grant to play on the Roger Thornhill name--right in line with that ridiculous Rick Blaine and Humphrey Bogart deal that's going on on the website. World class childish.
Add the "You're a failed planner" or "You're a piker" or "I'm a Top Gun" nonsense off that site and you have the picture of a guy so unsure of himself and his skills that he reverts to crap like that. Intelligent people do not find themselves being impressed with "Motivational" programs of any type--but are especially turned off by those which resort to cliches.
Add the protestations of pride that he is a college drop out and you have the picture of a real moron. Even stupid people know that finishing school opens doors, and getting advanced degrees opens more doors. Therefore those who brag about being a drop out as if it were a worthy objective paint themselves as less than stupid. I always ask, but they never answer, if these drop out types would advise their own sons or daughters to drop out too.
There I go again--off topic. Back to the silliness of asking for advice.
Not only does a questioner get responses from people who have no clue--like insurance guys answering questions about Wall Street firms--the other common response is from children who have not yet taken their exams. What I actually think is happening is there are college kids reading this forum because they think they might like to go into the business--they're simply doing some research and that's great.
But how valid is it when a guy pursuing a degree in finance at someplace like The University of Texas at Beaumont offers advice as to whether AG Edwards is better than Smith Barney?
That leaves people like you. It appears that you are in fact pretty much what you say you are. But I've been around the track a few times and know that people with your anger towards guys like me are angry at yourselves because you have not broken out for whatever reason. You sit there and look at the gap between your gross and your net and decide that you're "paying" too much for overhead.
If you were doing numbers that draw positive attention you would not feel that way--but you're not. So you rail about things beyond your control. "Too damn many layers of management............too damn many product managers.........too many perks.........blah, blah, blah."
Yesterday John Mack tossed Steve Crawford overboard--and Steve took millions of dollars with him as a parting gift. The media is filled with "The rank and file are irrate" stories--and the rank and file is irrate. Perhaps they should be, but the reality is that there is nothing you can do about it and any given producer's share of that severance package is very very small--for most producers it's a matter of cents.
I know, I know--guys like me abuse the system too. We're not going to leave with tens of millions, and our departure does not make the WSJ--but we ride in the front of airplane to a vacation destination and then make some business calls while we're there to justify the trip.
Well, before you rail about that perhaps you can tell me if the trip was necessary to comply with regulations. You're studying for your Series 24--how often is a branch office supposed to be inspected?
If somebody is going to inspect the office in Frankfurt is there something inherently wrong with that individual then staying in Germany for some sightseeing? It's not like the firm paid was not going to buy a plane ticket anyway--all he did was set a return date that was a bit delayed.
What does not--again does NOT--happen with those of us who enjoy perks such as that is to bill back any of the hotel bill for days that we would not have been out of town had we simply done the job and returned home. So there is no reason to whine.
That's enough for an early morning. I dare anybody with an open mind to conclude that what I had to say is either wrong or poorly written. I do wish there was a spell checker, but there's not.
Whew!
Thanks... I'll go with my first instinct as it usually proves fruitful.
Hate to pick sides here, but the only reason I am being offered positions at highly reputible companies is because of my education... it opens doors.
[quote=homesbn]
Whew!
Thanks... I'll go with my first instinct as it usually proves fruitful.
Hate to pick sides here, but the only reason I am being offered positions at highly reputible companies is because of my education... it opens doors.
[/quote]Now don't go getting all uppity.
Somewhere Mojo wrote that if you’re trying to land huge business your
chances would be enhanced if your business card said Smith Barney
rather than AG Edwards.
That indicates a lack of appreciation for the similiarity of the nation’s larger firms–including AG Edwards.
What Mojo’s statement suggests is that sophisticated investors are
swayed by the name recognition factor on a business card–which is
nonsense.
Among sophisticated investors the name AG Edwards quite possibly
carries more gravitas–a slightly smaller firm that would
(theoretically) be more responsive to the needs (demands) of a client.
If there is an impression conveyed by the name on your business card it
is among the retail investors–where Merrill is lead dog and virtually
every other name in the street is an also ran.
[quote=Put Trader]Somewhere Mojo wrote that if you’re trying to land huge business your
chances would be enhanced if your business card said Smith Barney
rather than AG Edwards.
That indicates a lack of appreciation for the similiarity of the nation’s larger firms–including AG Edwards.
What Mojo’s statement suggests is that sophisticated investors are
swayed by the name recognition factor on a business card–which is
nonsense.
Among sophisticated investors the name AG Edwards quite possibly
carries more gravitas–a slightly smaller firm that would
(theoretically) be more responsive to the needs (demands) of a client.
If there is an impression conveyed by the name on your business card it
is among the retail investors–where Merrill is lead dog and virtually
every other name in the street is an also ran.
[/quote]
Homesbn, take my advice and get to know both places…keep asking questions and evaluating answers.
Putsy, did you ponder the probability that when I take every advantage
of charitable gift tax benefits, its parts and sum are more then you
make each year. My strategy will replenish itself about every 10 years
. Unlike yourself.
Out of coffee. What kind of rennaisance would allow that. The blowdryer
started up again. There may be time for another game of checkers,
champ. Tiddlywinks?
In reference to a childs education and the summary effects of love:
My wife and I crunched the numbers for the public school district in
our 'hood. The pro’s were cost and standing. The local schools rank in
the top 1 percentile in the country and continue to be off the charts
for the state. One of the advantages of living on my street. When
everything was weighed, we opted for the private school ($16K a year
starting from K-8 for the first child – btw, they do offer needs-based
scholarships for those with low 6 figure incomes - let me know if the
foster parenting thing works out - I sleep close to one of the board
members). The essence of what we boiled down was that the amount of
time we would have to spend on private tutoring and lessons would
outstrip the benefit of saving a few sheckles. The reward is that we
pay a fee to assure our quality time is free of the stresses that cloud
some peoples judgements. Our worry, is as always, the parents of highly
driven children and the true motivations for their childrens best
interests. I am sure you can relate like logics to your time spent
calculating the benefits and risks of table scraps, dry or
canned, and the scoopable consequences for your loved ones.
[quote=Mojo]
Homesbn, take my advice and get to know both places…keep asking questions and evaluating answers.
[/quote]
Let me make a note of this. Mojo is suggesting that somebody
considering a job should get to know both places and ask questions.
That’s so insightful that perhaps it should be embroidered onto pillows–I’ll bet that Homesbn never thought of it.
Let’s say it again, "Get to know both places and ask questions"
We are lucky to have been here today to learn that.
[quote=Put Trader] What draws my point of view is often the ridiculous nature of another's point of view.[/quote]
Incorrect. You're just a very disagreeable person. You prefer conflict. This is why you hever have been, and never will be a Top Gun Producer. You may be a dinosaur in age, but you're a rank amateur in experience, because you've repeated your freshman year of failure, over and over, Dilbert.[quote=Put Trader] Mojo and Roger are NOT in the securities industry--they're in the insurance industry. They came from that ridiculous site--all they know about AG Edwards and/or Smith Barney is that they are brokerage houses where they might have been able to go to work had they not dropped out of school.[/quote]
Incorrect. I've been in the securities business a long time.
And I didn't come from any site. I was posting on this forum before you learned how to use your lobotomy box, chiam yankel.
The drop out drivel is pure neurotic projection. This happens to people who smoke too much crack.