Q: What did you do prior to working for Edward Jones?
A: I worked in a stock exchange for three years in London. But I was young; I was only 18 at the time. So it was hard work. It was enjoyable but I felt I just wanted to experience some travel. So I went and worked for a holding company for three years, and I was a ski guide for them. I was working in France and in the summers in Portugal. I then met my wife and then we decided that it wasn’t sort of a long-term future, and we wanted to get married and have children, so we came back to England and I joined a German insurance company. I worked for them for 10 years, I was an office manager. Q: What made you consider moving to Edward Jones?
A: I felt frustrated. The reason I changed my career was I felt really frustrated where I was. I’d been with the same company for 10 years. The situation with work was that I was always relying on staff. I had about 25 staff. It just became a big, big headache and the company became more and more demanding, and I just thought I can’t do this for another 30 years. I sort of was dissatisfied but I didn’t really know what I could do because I was earning a good income and a good lifestyle and I had to move away from that, and I couldn’t really take a big step back. So that’s what made me really just keep my eye out for opportunities. And then I saw an advert for Edward Jones. Q: Did you have to adjust much in terms of remuneration?
A: I expected after three years I would probably be where I was before I joined the company, but then my expectation was that from there on in it should just get better. In fact, for me it worked particularly well, and even after the first year I was back up to the level of earnings that I was on with my other company. And now, four years later, I mean I’m earning well in excess of where I was and having more time with my family. Q: What qualities do you think make a good Financial Adviser?
A: To be a Financial Adviser with Edward Jones I think you need to have determination. You need to be quite persistent, but politely persistent. I think you need to be consistent in your effort. That’s probably one of the biggest things that differentiates a successful Financial Adviser. What you find is there’s a lot of capable people that can come into this role, but they’re just not consistent with their effort. So some days they’re on fire and they’re doing a fantastic job and they’re building their business, and other days they’re just having difficulty motivating themselves. If you can be consistent with your effort and self-motivated, I think those are very, very important strengths. Q: What advice would you give someone thinking of becoming an Edward Jones Financial Adviser?
A: For somebody who’s coming from a background where they’re in a stable career, they’ve got very steady earnings, they’ve got quite a lot of financial commitments – children, expenses, education costs, that type of thing – changing career can be very daunting. I think with Edward Jones, the opportunity you have is that whilst it’s an unknown leap of faith in many ways. But if you put three or four years of very hard work into it then you’ve got 10, 20, 30 years ahead of you that should be a lot easier work. I mean my experience of most companies is that the more you earn the more demanding they become. That, I think, is sort of a fairly common feature of the corporate world, you know, and you have less time then with your family, you have less time with your wife and such like, whereas with Edward Jones I think it works the opposite way: You put three to five years of hard effort and work in, build something very worthwhile, and actually then it should get easier and easier. So depending on the stage of career that you’re at, to me that’s what prompted me to change. I felt three to five years of hard work, I’ll have 30 years then ahead of me. Q: What is your relationship like with other Financial Advisers?
A: Edward Jones it’s very different than with other companies. We share ideas. We have meetings. At the regional meetings we have people stand up. If things are working well for them they’re going to share that idea - because we’re not trying to beat each other. We all want to be successful. I don’t begrudge someone else’s success because they’ve done the work for it, and I’m sure people feel the same way toward me. Q: Do you think there is something to face-to-face, one-on-one contact with clients?
A: Well, people like to look you in the eye. I mean you’re talking about money, you’re talking about trust. A lot of people don’t trust somebody they’ve not met. It’s as simple as that. So if you’re going to meet somebody, they always say body language; you get a feel, a gut instinct for people, and I think people need that reassurance. Even if they like you the first time, that doesn’t mean they’re going to trust you the first time. But there’s a bond there and that’s really in my view why face-to-face contact is absolutely the best. When we sit down face-to-face over my desk or over the kitchen table, then we’re getting to know each other; I’m getting to know them, they’re getting to know me. There’s a bond, and nowadays the banks and financial institutions are trying to cut that out. They’re trying to save time and the people don’t like it.
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