Are you the wholesaling reincarnation of the flightless, now extinct, DoDo Bird?
Reminders that I have been in our business for a very long time have hit me recently.
In a conversation with a coaching client who is under 30, and well on his way to killing it in his first external gig, I referenced two things that evoked crickets.
The first was George Thorogood.
He of Bad To The Bone fame.
The second, and don’t ask me why this reference leapt off my lips, was a mention of an IBM Selectric typewriter.
Then I was having a discussion with an old wholesaling friend, from way back in the OppenheimerFunds days (she was founding member Bank Division wholesaler #2, I was founding member #4), and she asked me a great question.
“What makes a wholesaler’s job so tough today – especially as compared to the 1990’s?”, she inquired.
One thought I had was that wholesalers are still rightfully paranoid today.
Not in the clinical sense – but in the I better run as fast as I can, because ever since the Great Recession firms have an itchy trigger finger, and I never know when the hammer may come down on my head due to cost cutting and/or restructuring.
As a result, wholesalers spend more time looking in the rearview mirror – for the grim employment reaper – than they did 25 years ago.
The other observation I offered is that modern technology circa 1992 was the pager that I wore on my belt and the car phone that was mounted in my trunk – with the snazzy handset mounted in the passenger compartment.
Today, wholesalers are wired with smartphones and iPads that enable them with apps that make them more productive, increase their ability to be better organized and offers them a world of insight and information that was once only available on the printed page.
And with this level of hyper-connectedness comes an obligation (if they want to stay relevant) to operate with a sense of urgency that simply wasn’t required (nor even possible) even 10 years ago.
It’s no wonder that the wholesalers I speak to today feel more harried, pressured, and time constrained than ever before.
The bar of great wholesaling has been raised higher.
Your successes and failures can be measured in megabytes.
The strength of your advisor relationships and your ability to move the sales meter can come down to time measured in minutes, not hours – never mind days.
Welcome to lightspeed wholesaling.
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Dean Phillips says
Rob:
I agree with you. Infinite information is at our disposal. But, one thing that is a constant is the need-now and well into the future-for an intelligent wholesaler to
a) Ask the the right questions to get the answers
b) Distinguish the most vital information/tasks from the the minituia
c) Focus on the most important tasks.
I saw Lou Holtz of Notre Dame speak a few years back. He was asked to explain how he became so successful. He said, “I focus on what’s most important. For example, in the morning I’m hungry so, the most important thing is food. And I have a bowl of cereal.” WIN….the acronyn for What’s Important Now.
I think that a seasoned Wholesaler can get down the the essence of most situations. I’m not sure that a less experienced sales person has the ability to do this with such ease-at least yet. Remember the passage from H.G. Well’s short story…it said that in the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King.