May was a good month for production. I had my best month of the year and now I am slightly ahead of last year's pace. I am still not bringing in any new assets yet, but that may change soon.
A struggling financial advisor in the office came to me for help. His production was down and he is in the penalty box, which means his payout on commissions is cut to 25% from 37-40%. He didn't like the trend that was developing in his business and he had been doing some research and asking management for help. He discovered that a Bank of America business banker was looking to form a partnership with a financial advisor team. This banker specialized in working with medical practices. The financial advisor, Scott, asked around and nobody in town was holding themselves out as specialists in working with doctors.
With that in mind, Scott has set out to build a team that will look impressive enough to Jon from the bank that will give him the opportunity to work with these clients. Scott has asked me and another financial advisor, Carol to help him form this team. I have met with Jon and came away very impressed. He has a lot of good clients and is very knowledgeable about the Medical field.
Jon has been impressed with our team and has already agreed to send a letter to all the doctors in one practice (approximately 30)asking them if they would like to meet with a financial advisor. That of course will be our team. Now I don't think that 15 doctors are going to take him up on the offer, but I am excited that Jon is already comfortable enough to recommend us.
It will be an interesting political dance to see if this whole plan comes together. Currently if a doctor comes to Jon and says he needs help with his portfolio, then Jon is supposed to submit the name into the referral system in which it will randomly come out to a qualified financial advisor somewhere in the valley. Jon does not make any additional money for making the referral and he is hesitant to just hand off his client to some random advisor. That is why he wants to set up this partnership, so he can feel comfortable that his clients are well taken care of.
Meanwhile, our Regional Manager has said that eventually financial advisors will have to stake out a claim as an expert in certain niches and they will receive the referrals from the bank that fit in those niches. This is not official policy yet, but he says it is coming.
Therefore it is our objective to stake the claim for Doctors before anyone else gets to it. Plus it may also be delicate if we start to have success that others notice. I can definitely see other advisors being jealous of our referral source and making complaints if things really start to roll.
There are also internal issues with setting up the team. Carol, Scott, and I are still feeling each other out and deciding who will perform which roles. Right now we have decided that Carol will handle customer service, Scott will handle the investment portfolio, and I will handle the financial planning. We are not combining our existing books yet, because I want have a trial relationship before we get "married" into an official team. So for now we will set up a joint number and put all the new doctor clients into it. If things go great, then we'll talk about combining books.
As for the Strategic Alliance program with Estate Planning Attorneys, things are still slowly progressing. I have a second meeting with Phoebe, an attorney in the East Valley who may have potential next week. I also received a referral from T.J. who I also have a 3rd meeting with next week. Mark, a member at the country club, came up to me last week and said T.J. told him that he should talk to me about rolling over an old 401k. I gave him my card and I hope to hear from him soon.
I have fallen a little behind on the Attorney program due to all the new team activities, but I see myself picking it up again this week.
In other big news, my manager, his assistant, and the last 3 compliance managers I had, were fired two weeks ago. Nobody knows why, but the best guess is that a disgruntled client sued the firm and during the lawsuit something probably came out that showed a lack of supervision. Personally, I thought my manager was on his last legs anyway because our office production had been dismal last year. I felt bad for the others that were let go, because for the most part I thought they did a pretty good job. None of this affects me personally now, but it may in the future depending on who is the new manager for our office. We could probably use someone who is more of a ball buster, but that usually has not been the style of the last six managers I have worked for.
Hopefully my business will heat up along with temperatures this summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment