Boy am I wishing I had gotten my stupid flu shot a few weeks
ago when my doctor offered. And the multiple times I was sitting inside
Walgreens waiting for prescriptions and there were signs all over for it.
I have a fever, runny nose, achy body and headache. I didn’t
work yesterday, so I can’t go home today… I mean I could I just can’t afford
to.
I spent 5 hours doing Northwestern Mutual stuff yesterday,
between new assessments testing and a two and a half hour long 3rd interview.
I’m excited though. I will tentatively start in January. I
have my fourth interview on Tuesday, with the owner and my mentor, to schedule
training classes for the State Licenses and Certifications I will need in order
to be “bonded” or whatever. Basically in order to sell life and health
insurance and investments. Roth IRA’s, 401ks, 529 college funds… There is going
to be a lot of head spinning in my future. The good news is I get four thousand
bucks just to do training, which won’t take longer than a month.
My mentor is a funny, down to earth guy. He used a few curse
words during the interview, which has never happened to me before. But while
arguably unprofessional I wasn’t uncomfortable, it felt more real. Everyone
cusses.
He was telling me about the incredibly high turn over in new
advisors and reps, and why that is. 85% of them won’t make it the first year,
and those people are the ones who, as he put it, are more interested in finding
out how the clock works than finding out what time it is.
As in, the overly analytical, argumentative, I think my way
is best types that can’t just work with a proven method or like to argue with
the boss. I get that, I know some people like that, and unfortunately their
curiosity is often mistaken for ignorance, incompetence or petulance. Of
course, if those types of people don’t sell by the proven method of their
numbers game, they aren’t making money, and not making money leads to
unhappiness and therefore turn over. I told him “I don’t give a shit how the
watch works, and furthermore, I don’t even wear watches.” He laughed. So that
was good. :p
He told me of the owners concerns, because I asked him to. I
want to know any doubts they have about putting me in this position. The owner
expressed his concern over – of course – my lacking education and his perceived
idea that I may not be good at prospecting. I guess we didn’t talk much about the
enormous amount of outside sales I’ve had to do, and building a pipeline of
clientele from nothing. That put my mentor at ease, and as far as the education
I told him I understood, everyone else in the office has a bachelors or higher.
I also told him my zeal for the “referral.” I said, “I know I can sell. You know
you can sell.. But when a customer also sees that I have helped them, done my
best to bring value to whatever I’ve helped them with, and they refer a friend
or family member back to me, it is their direct confidence in me being reciprocated. I live for that. I always ask for a referral.” He liked
that. I like that. I love meeting client’s family members. It feels so good to
be thought of that way, to be trusted that
way.
I told him that I am committed to working my ass off, and to
learning everything I can, how excited I was at the possibility to get the education
paid for, and that all I needed was the opportunity to prove that I am just as
good at sales as anyone with a degree. He told me that was good news to hear,
but to be careful not to get into a pissing contest with the male coworkers. “I
know you feel you have something to prove, but the only thing that matters here
is your work ethic. And that will show in your numbers, and on your checks.”
Music to my ears. I left feeling overwhelmed after going over a 25 page long
compensation packet. Overwhelmed because of how much there is to learn, and
overwhelmed at the earning potential.
He asked me where I saw myself in this job. I told him, long
term. I haven’t felt that way since I started at Wells Fargo, like I could make
a career out of this. I am very hungry for my own success. He shook his head in
understanding. Showing me how a 26 year old can earn nearly half a million a
year doing this, if you work hard… felt like seeing his success mirrored out of
my fantasies.
I know I’ve blogged like 3 or 4 posts about this job… it’s
consuming my thoughts. I have already decided to pursue Financial Advisory even
if Northwestern doesn’t work out or for whatever reason I don’t get the formal
job offer. (Which I was told to expect in the fourth interview, Tuesday.)
My dreams are of a vacation home in the Florida
Keys, and a Mercedes G Wagon.
- I need some chicken cup-of-noodle soup now
You mentioned work ethic.
ReplyDeleteHow about ethics in general? Is the company ethical? Is the team ethical? Is your mentor ethical?
I already know that you are.
I once worked in a sales and service (emphasis on service) position for a division of a company with leadership ethics that ran counter to my own and it was really challenging at times for me to meet my quotas while adhering to my own more restrictive principles. Many of my peers did not have such restrictions and were free to bend the rules as far as they would go without actually breaking them, and some actually did break them without drawing attention to themselves. I always put the customer and the company's reputation first above my own needs and desires to pursue short term compensation (pay per performance bonuses). It held me back in many ways. Fortunately, I was finally able to put my skills and strengths to use in a different capacity at that company. I left a year or so before the company imploded under the biggest corporate bankruptcy and malfeasance case in history up to that time -- bigger than Enron.
I hope for your sake that the company is ethical and that you are taking advantage of these interviews not only to prove your fitness for them but also their fitness for you.
I absolutely hear where you’re coming from. I experienced the EXACT same thing at Wells Fargo, and it resulted in my ENTIRE branch being laid off because the majority of loan underwriters, FAs, AND the assistant manager were all doing incredibly shady stuff to make their numbers, including falsifying documents/ID’s – I shit you not there was one banker accused of using false SSNs and attaching them to names from a cemetery to open accounts with $1.
ReplyDeleteI don’t get the impression that there are questionable ethics in place with NWM’s employee culture, though as I may have mentioned before one of those dirty FAs that I used to work with at Wells now works there.
I know there are people that will always put their commission before the client. As in, there are always going to be bad apples.
I personally only want to make good money WHILE finding the clientele that actually COULD benefit from the products. As most of my network is friends and family I really respect and love, I couldn’t imagine selling them an expensive product I knew they couldn’t afford even I thought they needed it.
That being said…
One of the attractive aspects of this job is that I will be an independent contractor, not an employee. This means while maintaining an average sales goal, I get to choose who I want to work with, and I do not ultimately answer to the company in that I won’t be “Fired” for not hitting numbers. Now, I will have a contract to work for the company but as far as I’ve read and reread throughout it, the sales goal (a meager 40 products for the probation period) if not met does not mean my contract will end.
I asked Phil about this today, there are several FRs and FAs that are “slow workers” (a PC term for lazy, I guess) that aren’t heavy hitters in the business and don’t reach their projected sales goals and therefore their projected income, though they still work there.
I will get a feel for the company culture more and more as I go on, but so far I get the idea that there is a lot of autonomy given to us. I hear a lot of entrepreneurial terminology, and while there was total transparency in my up front costs (I have to pay for office supplies, for instance) they are making it feel very much like this is “my” business, and I run it.
The three women I’ve met in the office – the only women – were secretary and administrative support and they’ve all been a little creepy-nice to me, inviting me for coffee so we can “get to know each other better” and going out of their way to make nice.
It feels a bit odd that there are no other female reps or advisors that I’ve met yet. Another reason for intimidation and excitement I suppose.
I’d love to talk about this in person some time! I’ve never worked with an FA as you mentioned you guys have one, I’d love a clients perspective on things.
Thank you for reading btw =)
Listen to Bob Brinker's MoneyTalk show on KSFO 560 AM out of San Francisco on Sundays from 1 to 4 PM.
Deletehttp://www.ksfo560.com/showdj.asp?DJID=60042
He's been doing the syndicated show for over two decades. He really knows his stuff. He teaches average people not to rely on commissioned financial advisors. The stories people tell of how they've gotten taken for a ride are horrifying. Many call with questions not realizing what a bill of goods they were sold.
There's so much churn and burn out there in this industry. Even our current guy was pressured when he was an agent of Lincoln Financial to sell high commission products even if the customer was not benefitting from them or would benefit as much or more by products with low up front commissions. He truly is independent now with LPL and is able to provide the service that I know you will want to.
I'd like to add that the whole "do you want to know how the clock works?" analogy really bothered me. Perhaps it's not what you or he meant, but it sure seems like they are looking for people who won't question the process as long as the result is people buying their luucrative stuff. There was a whole lot of that happening in the mortgage industry in recent years and those "don't ask questions or raise objections while we're all getting rich" folks did more damage to our economy than even a world war could cause. That's why I raised the question of ethics. It really struck me. If I were a person with diminished ethics looking for salespeople I could manipulate to my way of selling to unsuspecting clients, that's the sort of thing I think I'd say. I really hope that I am wrong and if I am right then I have faith in you that you will discover it very soon and act as you feel you must, so I'm not afraid you would BECOME that -- but I know it would be heartbreaking for you and I really hope that doesn't happen. Consider me cautiously optimistic. Very very VERY cautiously...
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