Is that off a cold call?

and, how many calls have you made before you found that one?

Just wondering.

L

Whattup Lawrence. Love the name/avatar.

That was off a warm call. He was listed as a beneficiary on one of my clients. I've cold called him a few times with high yield Build America Bonds. He mentioned the horrible service at Bank of America's Wealth Management team. I distincly remember him saying "Wealth Management" so I asked for a ballpark estimate of how much he had over there. He actually just straight up and told me the amount. Then, I faxed him a few sample portfolios of options available to him with his huge money market (he actually timed the '08 correctly). He liked what he saw and just transferred it all. Side note - Merrill Lynch had trouble transferring the money market, apparently that's a difficult asset to transfer

Before the transfer, I've probably talked to him a roughly 4-5 times.

Now I get to coast for 2 months and take a break from cold calling.

[quote=gethardgetraw]

Whattup Lawrence. Love the name/avatar.

That was off a warm call. He was listed as a beneficiary on one of my clients. I've cold called him a few times with high yield Build America Bonds. He mentioned the horrible service at Bank of America's Wealth Management team. I distincly remember him saying "Wealth Management" so I asked for a ballpark estimate of how much he had over there. He actually just straight up and told me the amount. Then, I faxed him a few sample portfolios of options available to him with his huge money market (he actually timed the '08 correctly). He liked what he saw and just transferred it all. Side note - Merrill Lynch had trouble transferring the money market, apparently that's a difficult asset to transfer

Before the transfer, I've probably talked to him a roughly 4-5 times.

Now I get to coast for 2 months and take a break from cold calling.

[/quote]

Common rookie mistake.  Don't shut it down.

[quote=gethardgetraw]

[/quote]

You forgot to put RR breaks on there!  With all of that coffee you will need some of those!

The Greatest Salesman in the World

"... the rewards are great if one succeeds but the rewards are great only because so few succeed. Many succumb to despair and fail without realizing that they already possess all the tools needed to acquire great wealth. Many others face each obstacle in their path with fear and doubt and consider them as enemies when, in truth, these obstructions are friends and helpers. Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better... or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future."

Just fired a $600k client for complaining about commissions lol

You did not...

You are an idiot..

What kind of assets are guys bringing per year calling on product?

Squash - She literally sat next to me and asked what the commission was before we placed a trade, and said "I'm not going to pay that." And I pointed to the door and out she went. No way in hell I'm doing $50 trades which have no commission payout. You're literally working for free at that point.

Otane - It's hard to tell. You open the account with a $5k - $10k bond sale and afterwards you bring in everything else after running FAST and Morningstar hypos (everything else being their stagnant accounts, 401k rollovers, new money from selling land, house, etc) . In the past year, in terms of bond sales, I'd say... $300k new AUM. However, transfers after those bond sales have brought in roughly $3mm, which I've heard is average during your first year. Nearly all of my new AUM have come from the cold calling and making the small, initial bond sales. Otherwise, I've had 4 walk-ins totalling around $250k new AUM.

Journal update: What do I think about this career choice at this point in time? I absolutely love it. I'm past the first-year stage of working solely out of fear of losing your job and being more mindful about who I bring on as a client. I'm worlds apart of when I first started in terms of facing rejection. It really doesn't phase me anymore. I have no problem asking exactly how much money is in their CD coming due or how much they're able to invest when we're discussing a bond during a cold call. No more "Do you have a ballpark estimate of roughly how much is in that CD coming due?" I'm now asking point blank "How much is in that CD?" If they don't feel comfortable answering, "Thank you very much" and hang up. I've also noticed it's the people with little to no money that don't feel comfortable discussing their finances whereas the million dollar client has no problem letting you know exactly how much is coming due and when it comes due. Cold calling to disqualify the prospect has worked wonders, and it makes cold calling enjoyable in a tongue-in-cheek way. They have no idea that you desperately want the commission but you speak as though you couldn't care less. Haha. It seems the less I give a fck about whether or not they say yes, the better I perform. The ball's in your court after ask how much money they're able to put to work. If they give some BS about a $1200 rollover, "Thank you very much" and hang up. Jones needs to teach that one $100k client is far better than ten $1500 clients. The $100k client says "Ok that sounds good let's do it," whereas the $1500 clients say "How much commission will this cost me? Ok what's the expense ratio? What's the P/E ratio? What do you think of Vonage? Hmm I don't know let me talk it over with my wife."

Edit - Jones will tell you, "Yeah but the ten clients with $1500 can refer their friends and family to you. They may even come into money in the future." But that's exactly the case with the $100k client, and he'll refer other $100k clients to you in just the same fashion.

I understand how their business model works - Most FA's don't last their first year and they get a ton of new households that slowly trickle up to the bigger FA's. Which is why they have the Ted Jones prospecting award. However, the Ted Jones prospecting award doesn't mean sht for your checking account.

I refuse to do stocks. Big money is put in mutual funds and bonds. Play money is put in stocks.

The three million dollar producers in the area have all built their businesses on muni bonds, which has got to mean something. Sell them that first bond and later transfer in their mutual funds to collect the trails and build your AUM.

[quote=gethardgetraw]

 If they give some BS about a $1200 rollover, "Thank you very much" and hang up. Jones needs to teach that one $100k client is far better than ten $1500 clients. The $100k client says "Ok that sounds good let's do it," whereas the $1500 clients say "How much commission will this cost me? Ok what's the expense ratio? What's the P/E ratio? What do you think of Vonage? Hmm I don't know let me talk it over with my wife."

[/quote]

Haha!  So true.  That's why small clients drive me crazy.  I have very few small clients that I actually like as clients.  I also stay away from younger clients in general.  Age 50 is sort of the magic number to me.  It's the age at which you've now developed enough wisdom to know what you don't know, that you don't know everything, that you don't WANT to know everything, and that you have enough assets that messing up bad will REALLY fukc yourself over.  So to me, it's sort of like the pro baseball player - Age 50, $250K investment assets, 100K income is sort of like .285, 20 HR, 85 RBI's - the low end of "good".  Personally, I prefer .300, 35, 100 (age 55, 500K, 150K income).  Of course, you can throw in them having a pension with lump-sum provision, that helps.  Maybe a "no-debt" situation so their expenses are low (thus small withdrawal rates). 

The age 35, $8500 rollover, $62,500 income ("Hey, maybe he'll buy insurance and refer his parents!") is the same as the Center Fielder that hits .242, 9 HR's, 42 RBI's but "steals a lot of bases!".

GHGR check your inbox.

FA86 - The PM system is all crunked up for me right now. These new forums are pretty ghetto. Anyway, you asked what led me to cold call and why I've decided to go the route I have in regards to the investments I'm using.

My response: I went into this business pretty much blindly. I had not even considered cold calling until stumbling upon this forum. What originally led me to cold calling was the fact that I absolutely hate door knocking. I don't believe it's effective in today's world. It definitely worked 30 years ago for brokers in rural Joplin, MO, but it's not as effective as cold calling these days. That comes from a dose of common sense as well as experiencing both for myself. When I would door knock, I'd come back with 15-20 prospects. WEAK prospects at that. It's difficult to be taken seriously when you're going door to door and asking about their finances. With me being in this industry, there's no way I'd discuss that info with a stranger in a suit at my doorstep. In the time it took to gather those 20 prospects (all day), I can get that in half the time through cold calling. Those prospects are also better qualified b/c I'm calling about a product. I suppose you could go door to door with a bond idea, but it's definitely more difficult. As far as the way I'm shaping my business, that too comes from common sense and a bit of experience. I've never seen real money in these bogus investments, nor have I heard my +$500k clients talk about these bogus investments. They're all in mutual funds and bonds. When I say bogus investments, I'm referring to variable annuities, stock trusts, individual penny stocks, etc. Warren Buffett says to invest in what you understand. People don't understand annuities. When it takes a wholesaler an hour to explain a VA to a FINANCIAL ADVISOR, something's wrong. A lot of these products are over-engineering at its finest, and totally unnecessary to boot. Twenty years down the road, what kind of book do you want to be dealing with? A grab bag of different investments or quality bonds and your preferred mutual funds from the fund families of your choosing? I choose the latter.

Seriously, these Jones computers are so bad. eMachines, 512 mb of ram, satellite internet connection, INTERNET EXPLORER 6.0

It takes my desktop 5 minutes to load after logging in.

The problem with these busto computers is that it makes it very difficult to establish and maintain momentum during your day. JonesLink has way to many links. The equity screen is on a java platform, which also takes way too long to load, the navigation through bondnet is a joke. The layout to practically anything on these computers is horrible, plus once you find what you're looking for, it takes 4-5x longer than it should to load. Can you still get the job done? Yes, obviously. However, it definitely negatively impacts our performance through frustration and a terribly disjointed and slow software system.

Plus we pay over $100/month for these computers. A slap in the face.

At least give us Mozilla Firefox. Adblock + tabbed browsing

Variable Annuitiy - "But it has guaranteed income for life, and it starts at 5%!"

The total cost of a VA is around 3%.

How do you outlive a 40 year, 6%, AA-rated bond if you're 50 years old? Which costs 0% annually. Which has far more liquidity.

Variable Annuity: "Yeah but if the market does well..." blah blah blah

Mutual funds + bonds = There's your variable annuity and it doesn't take 20 pages to explain it and it doesn't cost the client 3% each year. You actively manage your mutual funds and bonds and earn your wage. A VA is selling, not advising. I can't believe VA's exist.

Variable Annuity: "Well you're right, which is why we say they're appropriate for A PORTION of your money." REALLY, REALLY?! YOU BELIEVE THAT?! What does that even mean?! If an investment isn't good enough to put all your money into, and please note: Diversification issues aside, how is it appropriate at all? That's like saying smoking a cigarette is fine as long as you don't smoke the entire pack.

How did your mutual funds survive the 40% "correction" in '08. Have you ever lost 1/2 million dollars? The VA is an insurance policy for butter and eggs money. You are much too young to realize the fear in experiencing a waterfall financial event right before retirement. 3% is a bargain to a 55+ customer when that occurs.