Danny Sarch: How firms should treat top-performing financial advisers
If you want to keep top advisers happy, you have to set up a different way of treating them, according to recruiter Danny Sarch, president of Leitner Sarch Consultants.
“I’ve seen very little change. I think that there’s a frustration amongst the best producers, and when I say best I’ve got a number of criteria to put in that column, it’s not just their revenue and it’s not just their assets, though obviously that’s the way we measure these people. But they’re always compliant and they also have the best customer service ratings. So you have, and the best performers, we obviously measure best performance evaluations.
So when you have these absolute superstars they rightfully say ‘why should your policies and procedures that are designed to protect the institution be applicable to me if you don’t have to worry about me. There seems to be not the level of trust.’ I think it’s similar to having children who are now 21 and 17, you know I trust them in a way that I did not when they were 10 and 6. So it’s juts something that they gain some wisdom and I imagine that I am going to trust them more when they are 30 and 26, at least I certainly hope so!
So it’s amazing to me when I have a 30 year old veteran, who’s never had a complaint, who has a wonderful, consistent clientele and that person is treated with the same policies and procedures against the person who is 3 years out of the training programme. It doesn’t seem logical. Add yet the firm insists on cutting costs, and when you cut management and supervisory staff the only only you can manage people is by creating the same rules for everybody. And that just makes them unhappy.
So if you want to keep them happy I think you have to set up a little differently the way of treating them, and so far the big firms have not shown the will to able to do that.”
