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May 01, 2010 at 04:00 AM
Have you ever thought about leaving your broker-dealer? Who hasn’t at some point or another, right? Eventually, every broker-dealer screws up. When they do, financial advisors often start to call recruiters at other firms. Most times though, the screw-ups get corrected, Mr. Advisor forgives and the recruiter suddenly can’t get his phone calls returned. Much like the sun rising in the east, it’s just the way it is.
Typically, an advisor either gets over his broker-dealer’s occasional mishap, or the displeasure never goes away and he or she moves their business to another firm. Every once in a while, however, a broker gets stuck. He or she gets stuck in displeasure and also stuck in the “checking out other broker-dealers” phase. What starts as a simple inquiry can sometimes blow into a merry-go-round obsession to find the perfect BD. And of course, we all know which broker-dealers are perfect (the other ones).
Allow me to introduce you to one such advisor I will call Leo (names have been changed to protect the innocent). I have a feeling Leo was a legend long before I came across him. My first exposure came when chatting with a fellow recruiter, Melinda. She had been working with this successful advisor for the past six months. Melinda told me that Leo had a few issues to settle but he was, for sure, going to join our company in a few months.
Well, a few months turned into a few more which in turn, turned into a few more. About a year later, Melinda (to her delight) went out on maternity leave. While the joy of having a beautiful daughter was reason enough to be thankful, it paled in comparison to the joy Melinda felt about passing Leo off to me.
“Finally” I thought. “I’ll close this guy and have him here before Melinda’s daughter drives her nuts and back to work!” Leo flew in for a visit and was exposed to both barrels of my “aw shucks” Midwest charm. The truth is I actually liked Leo. We had a great dinner and a few drinks. Our conversation was witty. Not a bad guy at all. “Piece of cake,” I said to myself.
