Untitled

He set up the interview process and away I went. I left a $35,000 job with a wife and two kids and a mortgage to go to work as a broker for straight commissions.

I made it with them. I was a stock jockey, transactionally oriented initially, but I very quickly realized that if I was going to have staying power in this business I was going to have to specialize in something. So I chose to specialize in retirement planning and de-emphasize the transactional aspect of the business. I became a retirement planning financial expert.

In 10 years, my assets under management grew to more than $100 million.

Then, like that, it was all gone because there was a dispute and I chose to testify on behalf of the NASD and the SEC, along with a couple of other brokers.

I was permitted to resign from Dean Witter. As a big fish in a big pond, I figured I'd have no trouble landing in another wirehouse in no time. Wrong! I was blackballed from the wirehouses. And they weren't about to let me take too much business away with me.

Fortunately, I stumbled across The Investment Center. The thing about The Investment Center that really meant everything to me was their affiliation with Prudential Securities. They cleared through Wexford, which is a Prudential company. Since I had grown up as a wirehouse broker and that was the only thing I knew, and they had this affiliation and that was the closest I was going to get to a wirehouse, I really needed them.

So I limped over to them with maybe 30 accounts and maybe $6 million or $7 million under management. They welcomed me, took a shot on me and supported me in every way.

When I would go out and compete for business in the retirement community, I was still competing against the Merrill Lynches, against the Dean Witters, against all the big wirehouses. Having this Wexford/Prudential affiliation enabled me to continue to operate as if I was still a wirehouse broker.

If my clients want to see their accounts they can pull them up right through Prudential. All the amenities a wirehouse can provide, I can provide.

Since I wanted to appear like a wirehouse broker, I needed the trappings of a wirehouse broker. So I took the half a million bucks in my deferred compensation plan from Dean Witter, paid the taxes on it, then fully automated an office and hired a full-time assistant.

Today, I'm still in the same office. And today I have more than $100 million under management again.

How do I get my leads today? To this day, I make 30, 40, 50 cold calls a day. At any given time, along with my VP of marketing, we will have 60 to 80 active files of people who are going to be retiring soon. Where do I get those names? One, I burrow my way into corporations. Two, I have a tremendous referral network. I just have a strong word-of-mouth business.

And I'm better than a good salesman. I'd say that out of every 100 prospects we identify, 90 will meet with me. And I'll close 80 of them. Today I'm well ahead of the commissions I was earning at Dean Witter.