Advisors find an ally in the branch manager: Includes chart

No doubt that makes the job less controversial — even invisible to some of the firm’s advisors. “We don’t have a branch manager,” says one Ontario advisor.

Wellington West advisors scored their firm a 9.2 — almost a full point better than any other firm.

Advisors care a lot about their branch managers, occasionally calling him or her the best aspect of their firm — and the category is among the top third in importance in the 2005 Brokerage Report Card, with an importance rating of 8.2.

The other exceptional firm is Edward Jones, at which each advisor runs his shop, alone.
Advisors there seem happy to keep it that way — at least according to one Western Jonesian, who cheekily remarked that his branch manager is the best thing about his firm.

At least two firms know they have a good thing going because they’ve recently done internal surveys. For example,
Toronto-based RBC Dominion Securities Inc. national director David Agnew says advisors praised their branch managers during the firm’s own audit. He says advisors frequently told the dealer that branch managers are often in contact, they help build business and they add value to the branch. ScotiaMcLeod’s internal survey showed basically the same result.

A SUPPORTIVE PERSON

At Toronto-based Dundee Wealth Management Inc., the firm is doing something especially right. Advisors there scored their branch managers an 8.1.

“He listens to me and he has 18 years of experience,” says a Dundee advisor from the West. “Best one ever,” says another from the Prairies. “He’s done everything that was ever asked of him and he’s done a very thorough job.”

Another Dundee branch manager, this one based in British Columbia, is described as “a supportive person who is there for anything.”

Don Charter, executive vice president of Dundee Wealth and CEO of Dundee Securities Corp., says branch managers at the firm serve a different role than their counterparts at bank-owned firms, who are often salaried and off the grid completely. “

Our branch managers are also what I would call the business owners of the independent branch. They’re not employees as such; they’re individual agents,” he says.

Charter rates the manager’s role as “very important,” as the chief point of contact between the firm and the advisors. A branch manager generally works both sides of the fence — speaking to head office about his or her advisors’ performance, sorting out compliance issues and also representing advisors’ issues fairly to head office, all the while supporting the branch with clients.
Therein lies the potential conflict.

As Richard Mills, executive vice-president, managing director and national sales manager of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.‘s private client division, notes, “strong compliance skills” is the No. 1 ingredient for a great branch manager. And if an advisor deserves to be irritated by the manager — “That’s OK, sometimes,” says Mills, who was a branch manager for 10 years.

LARGER BRANCHES

Generally bank-owned firms pluck a manager from the firm’s advisor network.
“Smaller branches always have producing managers,” says Dave Pickett, head of practice management for TD Waterhouse Private Investment Advice in Toronto. “But we are moving to bigger centres and we are looking to have full-time branch managers in all of those branches.”

It’s not all smiles and chuckles in the category, however. One TD Waterhouse advisor In Ontario followed his low scoring in the category with the question: “Can we give a minus rating?”

There seems to be a fine line to be walked.
If the manager doesn’t have a book, he or she is deemed to be “sucking up my revenue,” as one Dundee advisor put it. And if he or she has a book, the trick seems to be in managing what one Ontario advisor at First Associates Investments Inc. calls running a “responsibly-sized book” so that he or she has enough time to do the manager’s job thoroughly. IE