Did you go to a new firm or leave the industry?

Eight is VIII, not IIX.

[quote=Philo Kvetch]Eight is VIII, not IIX.[/quote]

That says it all.

Keep preachin’ the truth and then some brotha…

If Jones was such utter misery, why did you stay as long as you did?  I’m not saying your reasons are invalid, just trying to understand how it was possible to stay long enough to build up the venom you spew.

Sounds like you decided you didn’t want to work at Jones anymore, so you went indy or to another company.  Sounds pretty reasonable to me.  Why do you think anyone else cares?

Another Firm. I do not want to give up my time frame when I left. The reason I am so mad is the EDJ attitude once someone leaves, the ability for easy fixes for edj and the hypocracy of the firm. The idea of these posts is for EDJ to improve. Apparently things have not changed much however because in the last two week I have had three unsolicited calls from current EDJ employees (this is not my job anymore). Some of when I left was timing. Of course personal and professional. Market at high, not alot of reasons for clients not to follow.

[quote=STL Sucks]Another Firm. I do not want to give up my time frame when I left. The reason I am so mad is the EDJ attitude once someone leaves, the ability for easy fixes for edj and the hypocracy of the firm. The idea of these posts is for EDJ to improve. Apparently things have not changed much however because in the last two week I have had three unsolicited calls from current EDJ employees (this is not my job anymore). Some of when I left was timing. Of course personal and professional. Market at high, not alot of reasons for clients not to follow.[/quote]

Wait a minute...thousands at Jones seem to be happy (or at least not upset enough to leave), but you were unhappy and left.  Fair enough, you're right so far.  But suddenly God (or whomever) gives you the mission to start posting to improve Edward Jones.  Your words: "The idea of these posts is for EDJ to improve." 

Who appointed you savior of the firm that you don't like?

Don't get me wrong.  I see plenty about Edward Jones that's not to like.  That's why I don't work there.  But geez...you're over the top. 

It’s good to be over the top, when warranted!!  If this person has a beef with the firm (he’s right on with everything), he might as well voice it here and get it off his/her chest.  Don’t like to read about EDJ, go to another thread.  Look at the other threads, and you will see not very much attention given.  Add an EDJ’s tagline to a Smith Barney thread and the eyeballs will triple.  Its like watching video of a plane about to crash…you can’t turn away.

This was really a reason you left Jones?  Or are you getting to IIX, IX, and X and struggling for legit reasons. 

Why would the successful guy down the street want your unproductive clients?  If he's doing well, he'd probably tell you to keep them.  He can bring in $5 million in new assets that are meaning ful to him quick enough and not have your baggage to tote around.  The purpose of the goodknight is to bring a rookie broker into your office, teach him how to do the job the right way, give him some assets and send him on his way.  The roookie doens't care who they are at first.  He's just happy he has real people to talk to other than prospects.  Home office doesn't pick your goodknight candidate by the way.  You do. 

Don't feed us a line about caring about your original/small accounts.  They're red clients and you don't call them anyway.  Otherwise you wouldn't be wanting to give them away. 

Vet brokers looking to retire don't just let the company pick their replacements.  You're right, they don't want their work to go the new kid.  So, they hand pick the replacement.  Sunset plans like that are different than goodknight plans in that you can basically pick anyone you want.

Weak, weak, weak.   

I'm all for stopping bashing Jones.  He's right that there are a lot of easy fixes for them to do, but frankly doing some of them would make my job harder. 

Keep limiting insurance and annuity choices, wrap accounts, private REITs.  Keep jacking around brokers on their insurance and other petty problems so the IR's (or whatever they are now) can stew about them and fight with St Louis and recruit the guy selling them a soda at the quickie mart instead of calling my clients (and their clients).  Keep pushing 30 year bonds.  Keep paying new IR's less than their BOA so they starve out of the business and we have prospects scared of EDJ because they don't think the rep will be around in a couple of years, none of the others were.

If you don't like them, stop venting and trying to improve them.  Just take your ball (the clients) and go home (across the street).

Spiff,

I might be misunderstanding the intent but when I was at Jones, there were a couple of reps who were bringing in 2 million per year (not bad for a former soda jerk).  These guys would hit their 4th year and need to be producing 12-13,000 / month on 7-8 mill in assets (A share and Bonds).  These folks failed out, not because they weren't working and selling but because of the system that Jones has of hiring unqualified people as new / new, s/a a former english teacher or home sterio salesman.  Granted these people shouldn't have been giving the job in the first place but this is also the person who might have made it if they were given 5-10 million at that point.  They proved that they were there to work but they ran out of time. By design these people aren't allowed to be given assets as Jones knows that when that person leaves, they will go back to working the job before Jones saying "well I gave it my best shot and it didn't work out".  The assets move on to a couple of reps who have been around or the goodnight rep gets the transfers back to their branch.  There is very little risk of Jones losing the money due to the advisor moving to another firm.  An interesting observation I have had is every rep in my region who was licensed before Jones (only 3 out of 20 hired during my tenure), all moved to another BD and took assets with them.  All of the other reps moved on to a different career.  This is a long term career and Jones makes it short term with a 4 mo rolling ave and 2 yrs to hit seg 2 and so on and so forth.  This may not be the case where you are at but it sure was in my city.

I will leave you with a parting thought, I was in a large city that had its own region and I asked a vet about the people who came and went so frequently, he told me that he loved it when reps near him left because he usually received 1/2 of their office to transfer to his office being the nearest office with a warm body.

JONES SUCKS!!

Thanks for the brilliant observation spears. 

J&O - As a guy who used to see those guys come through his training class every week, I agree with you on the people Jones tends to hire.  My question is this.  What did you, or spears, or anyone else on this board do before Jones?  I did see a lot of people that made me scratch my head.  But some of those have turned out to be great brokers.  My favorite was a guy named Ben from LA.  Used to sell cars.  No college edumacation.  He was too smart for that.  Could sell ice to eskimos.  Seg 4 in 2 years.  Went to UBS a while ago and is doing very well.  According to your logic he should have never been hired.  Funny, but some of the hotshots that came out of college with a finance degree couldn't cut it.  I can't say I always agree with Jones on who they hire, but I'd say they do a pretty decent job. 

I also think that Jones lets people hang on too long sometimes.  I saw a chart once on a woman I trained who was red for an entire year (that's not meeting production for those of you not accustomed to Jonespeak).  That's way too long to let someone flounder in my opinion.  Five years later she's still at it, well below standard, but making just enough to hold on.  

How long do you think Jones should give you to hit Seg 2 ($8K 4 month trailing)?  4 yrs?  Maybe 5?  Not me. 

In my area, STL, we don't really have to think about what happens to the assets in an office when an FA leaves.  There's always someone in the pipe to take over the office.  Either a new FA or someone from the home office wanting to come out.  I can see how that would work in other parts of the country though.  I think I've also heard that it works that way at other firms too.  Brokers leave and the assets just get split between other people in that branch.  Either way it pays to outlast everyone else.  

[quote=Spaceman Spiff]

I also think that Jones lets people hang on too long sometimes.  I saw a chart once on a woman I trained who was red for an entire year (that's not meeting production for those of you not accustomed to Jonespeak).  That's way too long to let someone flounder in my opinion.  Five years later she's still at it, well below standard, but making just enough to hold on.  

[/quote]

Spiff, during my 5 years at jones, if you were anything, but a male Caucasian. You could hang out like that guy on Staples commercial where everyone in the office is needing the IT guy, He just strolls on in and shuts the door. I think he gives them the bird when they want him to do something. Jones is simply afraid the rainbow parade will show up or that Womens magazine will take them out of the top 10 list to work for.

Um…what?  Did I turn this into a race/gender issue?  No.  And I’m going to guess you didn’t have much other than male caucasian’s in your region.  I’ve seen several women and minority brokers terminated for poor production.  I don’t really think Jones is afraid of the “rainbow parade” or Women’s magazine. 

Spiff,,calm down....your getting angry..I can feel it through the computer.  As for what I did previously...Director of Training for a college. We developed training programs for Corporate clients and implemented with staff or outsourced.  Thanks for asking.  I'm white Spiffy...so watch how you correspond with me or Imus will be at your door!!

[quote=Spaceman Spiff]Um...what?  Did I turn this into a race/gender issue?  No.  And I'm going to guess you didn't have much other than male caucasian's in your region.  I've seen several women and minority brokers terminated for poor production.  I don't really think Jones is afraid of the "rainbow parade" or Women's magazine.  [/quote]

You better believe Jones is afraid of these organizations. The commercials and postcards portray this company as made up of a diverse group of individuals. It is so far from this.

You know and others on here know this must be one of the hardest industries to break the color barrier. You didn't specifically turn this into a race/gender issue. You gave an example and I have seen many examples. Jones would go out of there way to find anyone other than a male Caucasian. My RL/GP must have had his butt against the flame only 2 females, the rest were male Caucasian out of 63 Ir's, he begged us to find minority candidates.

If I remember correctly the AFL/CIO protested (protested at HQ)against Jones in '05 for Jones being part of one of Bush's/republican councils. Which they had been on since 98. Guess what, they immediately withdrew from the council from the heat of the protests.  It didn't get much news because Jones wanted it that way. While this is not an example of the rainbow coalition it does show how quick jones will react to stay out of the news.

I don't have to worry about recruiting anymore. Jones as a company like most others must walk a fine line or they will be news. Thats why some IR's are given break after break. Then someone like you see's a person that has obviously been an extended poor performer. You wonder why Jones let her hang on for so long. I would wonder if I would be given those same tolerances.

Spiff,

Thanks for asking what I did previously, to start with MBA with undergrad in Finance/Econ during which I held an assitants role with the Branch manager for a local wirehouse, moved on to an insurance co as an internal wholesaler, went to small regional bd and started off doing entrylevel work, ACATS, New Accts and eventually took 24 and did compliance work including branch audits.  After about 7 years of back office work I started advising clients.  During all of this, eyes and ears open, questions to advisors in the field, etc, etc, etc, I picked up a lot more than how to sell, I learned how to plan.  I can only tell you that from what I saw at Jones, this experience put me way above anyone in my region.  I even had my RL transfer an account to me that owned Wash Mut and LA Affiliated in the same IRA.  Granted he hit 100,000 breakpoint in the two fund families but why own two funds that do the same thing.  You can be a great sales person but that doesn't mean that you are a good advisor.

Ben is the kind of person that I fear in this business (although it is profitable for me to clean up messes from people like him).  I'm sure Ben has made a lot of mistakes both portfolio building as well as issues s/a registration, beneficiary planning, proper estate planning, ect.  Jones always told us that people needed us but I saw so many stupid things people would do and recommendations they would make, but they made seg 3 in two years so they were great.  Never mind the fact they put Mr. Johnson into a new tax bracket or created an ungodly capital gains tax bill for him.  The last thing advisors I new would ask for is cost basis on shares they were going to liquidate rather they would call me up and brag about taking this guy who had worked for Dell for the last 20 years and they are going to move his 500,000 from Dell to a much safer place.  Never mind the fact that the cost basis is at a minimum 1/2 of the value of the position.  I guess the best part about the equation is the maximum account size at Jones is 100,000, any one with clients with values higher than that are supposed to immediately move indy.

When I first graduated from college and "knew it all", I asked the branch manager at the wirehouse for a job and he said, "J&O, you are a bright kid but work in the business for a while before you start helping people out with their hard earned money, both you and them will appreciate it a lot more"