A Halloween Sales Scare

For years I have self managed our personal portfolio of liquid assets. I have a decent financial background, so felt comfortable with the task. As we near retirement and need more detailed planning with less risk, I began looking to work with a financial planning firm. This scary journey highlighted that companies large and small still need to avoid dangerous mistakes. Not life threatening, however, opportunity threatening. 

I'll spare the narrative and simply net out the foul ups:

The company where we've held the portfolio for years (and a name you'd recognize):

• Long time account manager leaves - we get zero notification.
• When I call in to get help on their financial planning services, looking for our account manager, they assign a rookie in training (simply because he answered the phone).
• The rookie commits to following up on a specific date. He fails.
• He explains in an apology note (not a call) a couple of days later that he was in training. You might as well put up a poster - "Internal activities before customer activities".

Needless to say, I cut loose faster than Jason could.

Small and local firm:

These guys were local, and although small, provided a good fit with our needs.

• Did not review deliverables on PAID financial plan. Presented a much rosier scenario that is realistic.
• Did not disclose all fees associated with their services when I asked - they only showed all of them on the contract.
• Did not check their Docusign process. They had about 100 optional fields in the workflow, when they only needed to send me to signature.
• After I signed, they said they did it wrong and we needed to do it again.

Another cut and run - Freddy would've been impressed.

Medium sized firm 

A trusted friend pointed me to these guys. A true blue bird - I had never heard of them before. They too were a good fit with their approach.

• After a good initial call with the one of the portfolio managers, they had a sales person send an email. There was no context, no introduction and worse, no value added. Just a waste of his time and ours.
• On the second call, which was to take our details and give a more detailed approach, they showed up unprepared and regurgitated the same generic first call information. Another waste of time.
• On that same call, they committed a sales cardinal sin - disparaging a competitor. He basically critiqued the company that did the initial financial plan. The very first thing they taught us at IBM - NEVER disparage a competitor.

At this point, I need to see Michael Myers' psychiatrist.

Just like a horror movie where the next person on the list is about to make an obvious mistake, the examples above should never happen. All of these are easily coached and implemented, and more effective than yelling at a screen in the theater - "Don't go in there!". I don't spook easily, however, now I'm afraid to open that next door.