Take the Oath

Working at a broker-dealer that is for sale or going through a spate of bad publicity is no fun.  Instilling client confidence is hard enough without all the unknowns that come along with a sales process.  Now add to that a situation in which your firm asks you for an oath of loyalty and all of a sudden things do become fun (or at least more fun)…

Because you may have some cards to play after all.

My piece at the Wall Street Journal today looks one such situation affecting 1800 reps around the country, enjoy!

You gotta ask for stuff in this world.  No one’s going to give you anything, at least not anything of real value.  So take this pearl of wisdom and multiply it by the number of surgeries undergone by the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – then you’ll be approaching how much it applies to the brokerage business.

With that in mind, I ask you to consider the curious case of the brokerage that asked its employees to take a pledge of allegiance to it while it works out a sale to a larger firm.  Yes, you read that right.  Securities America, the troubled teen broker-dealer living under Ameriprise’s roof, asked its brokers to put something in writing saying they’d remain loyal to the firm under new ownership.

Read More:

But First…My List of Demands (WSJ)