In this section we present key findings and insights from our survey questions on practice management and operations, including services offered, the most time-consuming activities, professional designations, custody relationships and documentation trends.
How high can you go? It's a question all brokers and recruiters should be asking. We are near all-time highs for broker acquisition packages, actually rivaling the money offered in the dot-com craze, and it's possible that packages may improve...
Q: Like many brokers, I switched firms three years ago, joining a wirehouse offering a seven-year forgivable loan as upfront payment. Since hiring on at the new firm, my production has nosedived. I may be fired or, because I'm so frustrated, leave...
Creative thinking can mean the difference between average and superior performance in a number of industries, and the brokerage biz certainly is one of them. Powerhouse producers, of course, tend to be good salesmen and insightful financial...
It's a familiar occurrence these days brokers fighting their former employers over money held in deferred-compensation plans. A group of former Smith Barney advisors recently won a judgment that would return over $8 million in forfeited wages held...
It's a paradox confronting brokers all over the country: In a business climate that calls for ever-increasing advisor-client intimacy, financial professionals are measuring their words more carefully than ever. Consider the case of an advisor we...
In the name of client freedom of choice and the of personal financial information, you won't have to steal client addresses and phone numbers any more when switching firms that is, if you work for Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney or UBS Securities. In...
A large number of brokers labor under a group of myths and misconceptions that keep them from managing their careers effectively. They may want or need to change firms but hesitate to do so out of fear of amorphous that might arise. Or maybe they...
As the stock market is recovering, sales force growth is returning to the top of the management agenda in retail securities firms and life insurance companies. Excluding acquisitions, there are two fundamental sales force growth strategies...
Louis Stanasolovich, a financial planner with Pittsburgh-based Legend Financial Advisors, recently had to scramble to find errors-and-omission insurance when his former carrier, Evanston Insurance, pulled out of the E&O market entirely. He...
In recent years, Prudential Securities has fended off numerous challenges to the legality of its deferred compensation plan, known as MasterShare, but it might have more than the usual amount of trouble shaking Yaakov Holansky's case. The trouble...
