Get Rid of Training Programs
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Seriously, now at my 6th year in production and I am the only one left and successful. The other trainees worked hard and were good people, they could not hit the ridiculous goals set by the firm. No problem, their accounts were happily gobbled up by the big producers.
Unless you are someone's kid (yes family only---not some really good buddy) it is next to impossible to break in to this field. Thanking God I made it.Seriously, I sort of wonder why most firms even hire scratch starters anymore. I mean, at Jones, lots of people make it, but it’s mostly those that took over an office, inherited a book, or did a Goodnight. In my opinion, that should now be the ONLY way people start. And I mean this from a corporate perspective. There is now reason we should have an army of recruiters, trainers, mentors, etc. so that 15% of scratch starters make it. If they want to start from scratch, the firm has to be VERY clear on the chances of survival. This is one big area where I think Jones falls flat on their faces.
I agree with you that Jones should really cut down on the number of new/news they put in the field. However, it wasn't always this way. It used to be that there weren't enough FAs ready or able to do a GKN or Sunset plan or FAs leaving Jones to give everyone a shot at AUM right out of the gate. Today with 12,000 offices, if only 10% of the existing FAs do a GKN program, that's 1200 new FAs who don't start from scratch. Throw in another 10% in attrition and retiring FAs, and you've got the 200 new FAs a month that they're hiring right now. It just simply wasn't an attainable goal with 2000 offices to have everyone start with some sort of AUM.Seriously, I sort of wonder why most firms even hire scratch starters anymore. I mean, at Jones, lots of people make it, but it’s mostly those that took over an office, inherited a book, or did a Goodnight. In my opinion, that should now be the ONLY way people start. And I mean this from a corporate perspective. There is now reason we should have an army of recruiters, trainers, mentors, etc. so that 15% of scratch starters make it. If they want to start from scratch, the firm has to be VERY clear on the chances of survival. This is one big area where I think Jones falls flat on their faces.
I hear you. And I am really refering to now. I guess the other challenge is that plenty of people want to open offices were none exist already. I will say, that is one of the beauties of the Jones model. In the wirehouse world, there is just a lot of asset churn (and I don’t mean churning of client accounts), with new advisors just displacing assets of other advisors (from retirement/firing/moving, etc.). At Jones, we have a lot of assets in places where the wirehouse world will never go (small rural and suburban towns). So if we lose assets, it will generally be to other Jones people, indies, or the bank. In big cities, assets just move around between existing wirehouse brokers, institutions, and wealth management firms.
I think the problem isn’t the training programs but in the hiring process…
Firms don't want their people to prospect traditional "dirty" ways, they want them to network and be socialable. The problem is that the people who built the wires up where not those people.. Ace Greenberg said he wanted, Poor Smart with a deep desire to become wealthy to be brokers But now as you can tell from this forum, people think they can just show up and make $75-125 without doing anything or putting in the hours.That is it in a nutshell!!! And those producers who “inherit” books think it is all allright.
[quote=AGEMAN][quote=chief123]I think the problem isn’t the training programs but in the hiring process…
Firms don't want their people to prospect traditional "dirty" ways, they want them to network and be socialable. The problem is that the people who built the wires up where not those people.. Ace Greenberg said he wanted, Poor Smart with a deep desire to become wealthy to be brokers But now as you can tell from this forum, people think they can just show up and make $75-125 without doing anything or putting in the hours. [/quote] I have seen some poor hires in my area. Most of them are people I would have never hired had I been the one with that decision. So there is a problem with the hiring process. I would hate to have to try to start over now with more and more people on the DNC list. My experience from my training class at Edwards was the ones who said they were going to network to build the business were the first ones to fail. [/quote] Agreed. It is harder today, but still possible. Networking just takes too long. Unless you already have a network of people(even then would they really give you any of their money if you were just hired). The only way to get off the ground quick is calling, walking or seminars.I don’t think companies care if the newbie makes it or not. Particularly at Jones where they pay next to nothing. Over time whatever new business a new-new brings in will amortize enough to cover expenses. The trouble is that experienced FA’s don’t have time to train, so you end up with professional trainers that teach a recipe that they have no experience with. The sad thing is, the Jones model may be the best training out there, yet must have a 90% failure rate. At 90% failure rates, if a training system were a medicine, it would never get FDA approval. So the original post may be correct.
Folks, you need to have at least $25 million in assets under management to survive, and you need that by year four. Think hard about it.