Positive Psychology

Nowadays, Hulett finds himself, increasingly, helping FAs beef up their marketing campaigns.

“The financial crisis led a lot of advisors to say, ‘I really need to re-strengthen my marketing muscles.’ They had allowed them to atrophy. Now, because they aren’t bringing in enough assets from referrals to make up for the loss from the recession,” he says, “they have to get out and market again.”

Similarly, a drop in asset level has gone so far as to prompt some FAs to question their business model. “They say, ‘That was too easy for me for too long….Now I need to get new strategies,’” Hulett notes.

Much of his consulting work centers on coaxing FAs to think of themselves as CEOs. “They’re independent advisors but also business owners. They have to run their business like a business, and become managers and leaders,” he says.

On the corporate side, Hulett takes care of HR services and training for Securities America and, as chief strategist, formulates plans that he measures and monitors year-long. Also, his team of five administers the BD’s popular Practice Management Loan Program, in which it lends advisors up to $500,000 to help them acquire other practices. Now the firm has arranged for a regional bank to kick in an additional $500,000 in financing.

Today’s No. 1 challenge for broker-dealers? According to Hulett, it is “the ability to maintain a strong margin so they can reinvest in their firms and be rewarded for the risk of being in this business.” An allied hurdle is “the increasing regulations that they must interpret and deliver to advisors. It’s very expensive and complex. If you don’t do it right and have a slip-up, you can find yourself in trouble.”

A native of tiny Lyndon, Kan., Hulett was working on a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Washburn University when he took a part-time job to pay tuition. Almost instantly, at age 19 he became project manager on the multi-million-dollar renovation of an old office building housing the Department of Revenue for the State of Kansas. The gig would determine his career focus.

“Some employees weren’t used to change and didn’t want any,” he recalls. “And here was this kid coming in telling them, ‘We’re going to tear out the walls.’ A lot of people were extremely upset. But that intrigued me, and I got very interested in why people behave in different ways in the workplace.”
At the same time, he was taking a class that turned him on to the industrial/organizational wing of psychology, which applies psychological and social science principles to behavior on the job. He earned his masters of science degree in the discipline at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Hulett came aboard Securities America in 1994, when the decade-old BD had only 84 employees, 1,100 affiliated advisors and was doing about $80 million in annual revenue. Now the firm boasts 400 employees, 1,900 advisors and $500 million in revenue.

“Things have changed a lot!” Hulett says.

Well, some things never do change. Take the top two issues FAs grapple with: “How to be more productive to break through a ceiling of growth and, on the other end of the spectrum,” Hulett says, “how to get more balance between work and personal life.”

In the first, “advisors can’t get past a certain point because they’re not able to adapt new behaviors and new business models.” In the second, “they’ve become very successful, but the business is overwhelming other aspects of their lives.” Anything here sound familiar?