You have some valid points.  This business isn’t a fair one.  People in the field sometimes play by the rules they make up themselves rather than the ones that Jones makes.  A lot of your experience seems to be a direct correlation to your RL and his group of FAs that he relied on.  I’ve heard some of those stories too.  And it evidently sucks to be in one of those regions.  I’m not, so I don’t have any of those stories.  I’m not going to go back and reply to all of your comments again, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree. 

  noggin - those seg 3 people in your region who thought that once you hit seg 3 you were free and clear to make whatever you wanted without regard to the performance chart were fooling themselves.  I've personally never heard anyone, HQ or otherwise, say that once you hit seg 3 Jones won't put you on goals and fire you.  I'm under no misconceptions that if I hit 40% of standard, which at this point in my career is about $10,800 that Jones wouldn't in a heartbeat put me on goals.  There are a huge number of Seg 3 advisors who are red right now.  Some guys who just a few months ago were exceeding expectations.  It sucks for them to be in that situation.  But they didn't get there overnight.  It shouldn't be a suprise when someone gets put on goals.  You have to know what you need to produce to keep your job.  If Jones will term one of their largest producers for an HR violation, they'll certainly term a seg 3 guy for not hitting his production goals.  It is after all a business.   

[quote=Spaceman Spiff]

 noggin - those seg 3 people in your region who thought that once you hit seg 3 you were free and clear to make whatever you wanted without regard to the performance chart were fooling themselves.  I've personally never heard anyone, HQ or otherwise, say that once you hit seg 3 Jones won't put you on goals and fire you.  I'm under no misconceptions that if I hit 40% of standard, which at this point in my career is about $10,800 that Jones wouldn't in a heartbeat put me on goals.  There are a huge number of Seg 3 advisors who are red right now.  Some guys who just a few months ago were exceeding expectations.  [/quote]   It pays to stay over that 40% line.  Obviously we all want to do well and make money.  That's why we joined this business.   The all or nothing aspect of this business can make you crazy.  It's great when it's great and it sucks $%##@ when it's no good.  There is a luck and timing element to this business as well that nobody wants to talk about.   I don't care how anybody slices it - this isn't a good time to be Segment 3.  You got the high quota line and a small book.  You want to have your trails built up precisely for markets just like this.   The Segment 3 brokers who were exceeding expectations a few short months ago didn't suddenly become bad brokers.  I know there are guys out there who act like they never made a mistake or missed a quota.  I wish they'd send me a slice of the loincloth so I could make it a prayer cloth and walk on water.