This week I got a call from a client of mine that I've taken great care of for the last 15 years. To put into perspective, in addition to calling him every year on his birthday and sending a Thanksgiving card, I've even driven from my home in Northeast Florida back up to Ohio to personally sit with this person to evaluate and adjust his family's financial needs! In the call, which was spurred by a communication from our home office, I found out that he ran into another Rep of the company I represent who in that Rep's zeal to recruit my client into our business, created the perception that we are more concerned with obtaining volumes of clients than of building wealth of the clients we have.
Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth! What's most frustrating is how someone that works for the same company as I do, in his attempts to convince my client to move his business from me, created doubt in that client who has chosen to move his investments to another company altogether! Lose-Lose!
This is terribly sad since this client has been experiencing above average gains during a terrible run in the marketplace and this move will not only expose him to the risk of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous Reps but also that it will cost him in additional fees and lost returns.
All because a green Rep (and assumably his manager) were too interested in recruiting a person and failed to present the focus of our company to help clients become debt-free, properly protected and financially independent!
Unfortunately this is pattern where overly excited newbies spurred on by their uplines with little training of the big picture are told that their priority is to recruit-recruit-recruit and everything else will be fine. But in my nearly 17 years with the company, I've found that developing new staff can be done without sacrificing attention to clients' needs. Hopefully some day, this mentality will be alleviated from the field force culture for the good of our future clients.
Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth! What's most frustrating is how someone that works for the same company as I do, in his attempts to convince my client to move his business from me, created doubt in that client who has chosen to move his investments to another company altogether! Lose-Lose!
This is terribly sad since this client has been experiencing above average gains during a terrible run in the marketplace and this move will not only expose him to the risk of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous Reps but also that it will cost him in additional fees and lost returns.
All because a green Rep (and assumably his manager) were too interested in recruiting a person and failed to present the focus of our company to help clients become debt-free, properly protected and financially independent!
Unfortunately this is pattern where overly excited newbies spurred on by their uplines with little training of the big picture are told that their priority is to recruit-recruit-recruit and everything else will be fine. But in my nearly 17 years with the company, I've found that developing new staff can be done without sacrificing attention to clients' needs. Hopefully some day, this mentality will be alleviated from the field force culture for the good of our future clients.
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