Q: Can you talk a little about the Edward Jones investment philosophy?
A: The investment philosophy of Edward Jones is really to focus on the serious long-term investor and to be sure that what we have is a strategy appropriate for that client. And that’s to own quality investments, to take a long-term perspective and to be sure they have diversified* portfolios. Those are really the key points that you want to have if you are going to be a long-term serious investor. Q: Is it about products or service?
A: Edward Jones offers its clients a wide range of investments, and the ones that we particularly recommend are those that we think are best suited for long-term individual investors. That means we don’t offer things like penny stocks or commodities that we think are much more trading vehicles. But beyond that, except for very specific things, we offer a wide variety of investments. We have some that we think are more appropriate, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a decision to offer others to your clients, if you think it’s in their best interest. Q: Talk a little about the role of the Financial Advisor at Edward Jones and how it relates to the home office.
A: The Financial Advisor is the sole profit center, and that means that everything we do in the home office is to support the Financial Advisor. Whether it’s answering questions over the telephone or trying to go research something where the client asks a question, or just providing more general information, basically, Financial Advisors have a lot of things to do, and their job is really to understand what the client needs. Q: Is it the long-term idea that makes Edward Jones so different?
A: I think there’re two things that are really different about Edward Jones. The first is that we solely serve individual investors, and our primary goal is to serve the serious long-term investor. That doesn’t tend to be the typical client of any of our competitors, so we think that’s the only customer we want to serve, and everything’s aligned around trying to provide the best advice to that client. The second thing is that because we don’t have proprietary products – because we don’t have things that you must sell – it really makes a big difference in your ability to choose the right products to help your clients achieve their goals. Q: Why did you choose Edward Jones?
A: When I came to Edward Jones, it gave me the best combination of being able to talk about how to invest, make it simple, sensible and talk to a lot of different individual investors who, I think, receive overall very poor advice. A lot of people talk about hot stocks or what to buy today, but most other firms don’t really talk about systematically building portfolios and being sure that you’re diversifying. Those, to me, matter a lot more in building wealth over time than picking the right stock today. Q: How does the home office contribute to building client relationships?
A: I think that everybody in the home office has a big impact on clients, because what we’re doing is helping the Financial Advisor choose the investments and identify the process that’ll help clients be successful over time. So even though the impact is indirect, I think it matters a lot that we help the Financial Advisors make the right choices for their clients. Q: If I’m unhappy at another firm, why should I come over to Edward Jones?
A: I think the most important thing is that there’s a large amount of choice at Edward Jones, that we’re not trying to restrict what you can do for client portfolios, but we do believe that since our clients are the long-term serious investor, that there are more appropriate investments and there are less appropriate investments. So if you’re somebody who wants to come to Edward Jones, what you want is to build the right portfolios for long-term individual investors, and we provide the right products to help you do that. Q: If you just met me and I told you I had never heard of Edward Jones, what would your advice be?
A: I think if you haven’t heard of Edward Jones, what you need to do is talk to current Edward Jones Financial Advisors. The best way to find out what we do, what we offer, is to talk to people who currently are doing it. Many of them came from other parts of the industry, and I would say that’s the best place to get additional, credible information on what’s different, what’s good and what’s not good. *Diversification does not guarantee a profit, nor does it protect against loss.
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