I started this firm over a decade ago, and the idea was pretty simple: I wanted to strip away a lot of things in this business that I do not like, that I think are rubbish for clients and create conflicts of interest for advisors. I was genuinely at a point of professional crisis and considering leaving the industry altogether. Instead I decided to try to cut my own path through the mess, and many years later, here we are.
I don’t really blog anymore (in case you didn’t notice) and I’ve deleted the firm’s social media accounts. We aren’t currently taking new clients and have tried hard not to grow for a few years now. We’re focused on taking care of who is already here, and happy to do so. But every once and a while something gets under my skin and I dust off the keyboard.
I’ve never really been a sales-oriented person. When I quit my old job my boss was flabbergasted that I was going to try to build a practice because I hated sales. And it’s true, I still hate it. What I tried to do all those years ago was just tell my story, and hope that the right people would come along. But boy, this is still a sales-driven industry. My least favorite part of this aspect is product wholesalers.
The financial world is swimming in product, which will never end. There are always new funds, ETFs, private accounts, tax-loss-harvesting strategies, personalized indexes, alternative lending funds, private equity feeder funds, private equity replica derivatives, non-traded real estate programs, etc. And the overwhelming majority of these products don’t sell themselves. They need massive sales programs and massive sales budgets to get the hottest new thing in front of advisors who feel the need to get the hottest new thing in front of their clients.
As a rule, I don’t meet with wholesalers. I very rarely will meet with a rep from a company whose products my clients already own, but generally I pass on those too. What we’re doing here simply does not require reinvention every 12 months, unfortunately for wholesalers with meeting quotas.
In the last year I’ve had an experience so absurd and, quite frankly, irritating, that I’m going to open the curtain a tiny bit so people can know what it’s like.
First, you should understand that financial advisors are constantly being asked to meet with wholesalers from companies we have never heard of. To sweeten the deal, companies will try just about anything. Sometime in the last year I opened a box at the office and found a Yeti tumbler inside. Oh boy, I thought. Here comes a new one.
Immediately, the phone calls and emails started. Did you get our mug, did you see it, can we get a meeting. Over and over and over again. The emails and voicemails get deleted. (No, I don’t answer the phone when I don’t recognize a client calling). What is incredible in all of this is the sense of entitlement this wholesaler had. That there is some sort of quid pro quo here: I sent you a trinket, now you have to listen to my pitch. Here’s the last email:
Lemme tell you: I didn’t ask for your trinket, and I don’t owe you a thing. I’m not sure if I am more insulted that this person thinks that I’m for sale, or that I’m for sale for a $20 coffee mug. Someone is going to say, surely I could give them the time. But I’m not going to.
I get fruit baskets and bottles of wine, coffee mugs and pens with my name on them. I have been offered tickets to the Nuggets, Avs and Broncos. I’ve been offered theater tickets and free entry to industry conferences. In 12 years, I’ve never taken these things.
My time, resources and attention are not for sale. But most importantly: the integrity with which this firm makes decisions about how we invest client money is absolutely, without question, not for sale. I am not going to tell clients to invest in your fund because you have a box at Ball Arena. I’m not even going to allow for the possibility that I will be influenced by your box at Ball Arena, because I am susceptible to bias just like everyone else.
I’m sure that this sort of influence-buying is not limited to financial services. Certainly it happens in pharmaceutical sales, auto parts, dental supplies, you name it. But I find it quite gross, and it is not something this firm is going to participate in. Feel free to stop sending us junk.
PS – I didn’t go to Indiana University. 😘
Bason Asset Management 