On My Mind: The Internal Who’s Itching to Get Out

Thoughts from Coach Rob Shore about the art, science and lifestyle of wholesaling, for wholesalers and their leaders.

Episode #4: The Internal Who’s Itching to Get Out

Read: 12 Must Read Posts For Internal Wholesalers

What’s on your mind? Email me at rob[at]wholesalermasterminds.com

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Transcription:

Welcome back. Rob Shore here with On My Mind.

This is that occasional series, which is getting to be more frequent than occasional, where I need to share with you some things that have crossed my desk, come into my brain, or have otherwise occupied my thoughts, share them with you, and tell you what’s on my mind and ask you what’s on yours.

So at the end of these episodes, if you’ve not been listening, I say, “That’s what’s on my mind, but what’s on yours?” and I give you my email address, and lo and behold, I got an email, and the email I got was from an internal, and it was a really rather interesting story, and I’ll try to mask who this is as best as I can.

This internal wholesaler was in a different industry, and he was having a conversation with some friends or acquaintances, and for some reason in the course of conversation at this social setting, annual earnings came up. This young man, and he is young, he’s just over 30, this young man had just cracked $200,000 in earnings, which is, well, pretty good for 31 years old, sales in a different industry. The problem was he was standing around with some wholesalers, and they were a little bit full of themselves that they were making plus $400k.

So this gentleman decides he wants to be a wholesaler, and he is fortunate, in my opinion, to get a job as an internal with a Tier 1 firm, and he’s been on the desk for nine months.

He’s taken a significant cut in income, and he wants to be able to get out into the field, and do I have any actionable advice on how he can make that leap?

Wow.

Well, you asked, so here’s what’s on my mind.

As I looked at your LinkedIn profile, I see that you’ve been in the financial services world for a very short period of time, call it two years.

You did a stint as a financial advisor, and now you are on an internal desk.

You’ve been on the internal desk for nine months, and the reason that you say you are feeling compressed in your shorts, (my words, not yours) is because you’ve taken this dramatic cut in pay to be able to eventually grab the brass ring that is external wholesaling.

So being that you’ve got kids and your wife is staying at home, I understand. I understand that you took a cut to have a potential promise of something in the future, but here’s the issue.

You knew, because you said it, that you work for a firm that historically doesn’t put people out in the field for three to five years.

As a matter of fact, you know, if you look at the trajectory of internals becoming externals, yes, there are the outlying circumstances where an internal on a desk gets out in a year or two or three because necessity dictates or they are simply a superstar, or there’s a territory that opens up that aligns with their skill set, but you’ve been on the desk for nine months. In this particular case, I happen to know who runs your channel, and I don’t necessarily know that that individual would be someone who would be inclined to take a nine month internal off the desk.

Now, this may sound harsh and you may not like the answer, but I’m just trying to be real with you.

You said that you’ve gone through our website and that you’ve read the 10 ways inside wholesalers can dominate in their role, paraphrasing the title of the actual post, and I’m glad you did, and I hope you consume everything on Wholesaler Masterminds, but I guess what comes to my mind is, (what’s On My Mind), is internals that want to get outside need a combination of amazing skills, and one of those skills needs to be a balance between antsiness and patience.

You need to be pleasantly persistent, but you also need to understand that there’s only so many jobs.

I guess what’s on my mind here is, you put yourself in this situation. You put yourself in this situation where you left an industry where you were making real money, $200,000 at under 30 years of age is real money. You were making real money, and you decided that you could make more, which is fine, of course, but now you’re antsy because you had to adjust your lifestyle because you took a job that was a pathway to getting outside, but you’re not outside yet.

You’ve got some decisions to make, and the decisions that you have to make revolve around can you wait it out.

Now, if you can’t wait it out, then what do you do?

Well, you leave your Tier 1 mutual fund company and you start a hunt for any wholesaling job anywhere, and that might include some Tier 2 or Tier 3 provider of a product that is not necessarily name brand mutual fund product, or name brand annuity product, or name brand life insurance product.

You might have to go to some obscure asset manager. You might have to go to some lesser known, lesser rated insurance company. You might have to go to some alt firm that is just trying to get their foot in the door, they’re still trying to find selling agreements.

You’ve got a choice to make.

You can go be a wholesaler. You can go be a wholesaler for a lesser organization or you can stay in place, and I won’t say wait your turn because that sounds terrible, but know that there’s a pathway to get you outside, and as long as your management has indicated you’re doing all the right things and you’re on the right path, then the promise would appear to be there.

This happens all the time, this conflict of, “I’m itching to get outside. I have the skills to get outside. I’ve seen others get promoted to go outside, and here I am still sitting on the desk.”

Well, if you’re really that tired of sitting on the desk even though you’ve been on it for nine months, I would say go figure out a place where you can wholesale for a lesser organization, and you work for a stellar organization, where can you wholesale for a lesser organization, but get your timecard stamped as a wholesaler.

Oh, by the way, before I leave you, I will say that there is an extraordinarily high likelihood that that other organization isn’t going to pay you $400,000 a year.

No, you’ll probably start at that Tier 2 or Tier 3 organization at $200k, two and a quarter, and that’s if you hit all your benchmarks.

Well, that’s what’s on my mind. What’s on yours? Send me an email, rob[at]wholesalermasterminds.com.