Q: What do you think when you hear the words structured flexibility in terms of Edward Jones?
A: There are a couple different types of people. There are entrepreneurs, and they typically want to recreate the wheel or invent new wheels. And then there are those people who say, “Well, if the wheel’s been created, I wanna maximize it and use it.” In other words, use the structure that you’re talking about. Edward Jones has realized that we’ve created a structure that enables someone to come in and say, “If I don’t want to do all the administrative work and I don’t to worry about setting up a compliance and back office and all those various functions,” we’ve got a great structure that’ll let you use that and leverage your own abilities to be successful. There are really only three requirements: be profitable, legal and ethical in running your business, and leverage the infrastructure that’s there ready for you. Q: What appealed to you about Edward Jones?
A: My career really got started at Edward Jones because I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing in a prior career. And I sat back with my wife and two kids and made the decision for a career change – and it was a big decision, given that my wife was looking after the kids and we wanted to continue to make that possible. I started my career with Edward Jones as a Financial Advisor in Mississauga, Ontario, and just like everybody else, I went out and met people in the community. I knocked on thousands and thousands of doors, and met people who needed help, and grew a business and was fortunate enough to have a very successful, profitable, legal and ethical office. Q: Talk a little about the training at Edward Jones.
A: The training that’s provided to new Financial Advisors is key to their success. Because for most individuals coming into this career, they’ve not gathered business for and met new prospects in a manner that takes them outside their office. We ask people to go door-to-door and meet people, and that takes people outside their comfort zone initially. And best we can tell is - that’s a good thing, because nothing great happens unless you leave your comfort zone and learn some new skills. In our minds, training is an investment, not a cost. If we invest resources, and time, in new Financial Advisors, we know that they can become much more successful much more quickly. Q: What’s so special about being a Financial Advisor at Edward Jones?
A: I would say it really is the opportunity to truly be a member of the community and to help people and run a business with the support of one of the best companies in the world. And that makes all the difference in the world. It allows people to be in their community, go home and watch their kids play baseball, go home for lunch. Because the time is defined by you; you’re not in an office tower somewhere. You’re in your community, working with your clients, running into them at the grocery store. It’s great to be connected to the community. Q: You’ve worked in the field and in the home office – what makes the home office so unique?
A: Peter Drucker has had a major influence on Edward Jones. His tenets around the structure of a corporation are something called responsibility-based management, and Edward Jones is an absolute follower of this approach. The beauty of it is that it basically says, good people don’t need to be managed. They can manage themselves. They’re empowered, they have the training and the tools and the intelligence to do the jobs and to deliver on their responsibilities.
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