Larry Wheeler was playing golf with a friend when he asked him what a mutual acquaintance did for a living. He’s an investment banker, was the reply. “Just out of curiosity, how does he do?” asked Wheeler. His friend told him.
“He makes how much?”
From then on, Wheeler didn’t find his job as a national sales and marketing manager in the publishing industry quite as appealing. “Unless the artists produced salable material, I had nothing to sell,” says Wheeler. So he had a talk with the investment banker, who promised him that if Wheeler took the Canadian securities course, he would get him an interview at ScotiaMcLeod Inc.
The rest is history. Five years later, at the age of 46, he’s an investment executive at ScotiaMcLeod in Vancouver with $16 million in assets under management.
It’s not necessarily a new trend, but it seems that this year’s Brokerage Report Card survey is rife with brokers over the age of 45 who are less than 10 years into their careers. Recent studies show the average Canadian is expected to change careers at least twice, maybe three times, before retirement. But these people plan to retire as brokers and probably not too soon. They’re enjoying the challenges and rewards of their new careers.
“Really, it’s much the same,” says Wheeler. “You have to know your client. It’s all about relationship management.”
Donna Neil, 48, agrees. She owned three restaurants in British Columbia before joining Merrill Lynch Canada Inc. in Vancouver seven years ago as an investment advisor. She says these two industries have a number of similarities. “I’m still dealing with people. The hours are just as terrible, only I sit behind a desk instead of running on my feet,” she says.
The restaurant business had already honed Neil’s entrepreneurial spirit. “You’re basically self-employed in both careers,” she says. “You’re used to taking risks. Business owners are usually entrepreneurial people.”
For many, the brokerage industry provides an opportunity few other industries offer. Not only is the investment world a do-it-yourself type of atmosphere, but it values the experience people have gained in previous careers. And, as Neil points out, entrepreneurs make ideal candidates.
Fred Smith is a broker at Raymond James Ltd. in Saskatoon, but he started out in the retail furniture business in his 20s. When his partner asked him to sell his share of the business, he did, which left him “looking for something to do.” He says it was serendipity that his insurance agents turned him on to financial services. The next thing he knew, he’d bought a franchise.
That was 17 years ago. Today, at 53, Smith has seen the effects of consolidation first-hand. His original franchise has been bought and sold more times than some of the products he sells, working its way through the hands of Merrill Lynch, Goepel McDermid Inc. and, now, Raymond James.
Is selling financial products all that different from selling sofas? “Yes and no,” says Smith. “You’re dealing with more important issues than whether or not someone’s ottoman arrives on time, but mistakes are easier to correct.
“If you don’t sell something on time, you can adjust and correct,” he says. “But if you lose someone’s sofa, you will never live it down.”
Some spent their first careers in positions not too dissimilar from what they’re now doing. One BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. broker was working as a marketing consultant when, he says, “I realized the only asset I had was myself. And if I tried to sell it, it wasn’t going to be entirely profitable.”
Others made 180-degree spins to end up where they are today. John Sprague, 45, was an interior designer selling packaged homes in Japan when he decided to make the jump. For Sprague, like Wheeler, money was a definite issue. Now he’s a broker with Raymond James in Vancouver. But even as an interior designer, says Sprague, “I was always the one wearing a suit.”
Tom Ackerman left an architectural design firm for a job at CIBC Wood Gundy in Lethbridge, Alta. He was craving a change of pace and chose the investment world.
“I was getting bored with the architectural side of things, whereas the investment side is an ever-changing world,” says Ackerman, 48. Ackerman admits the money is nice, but it’s the flexibility that makes this the career he’ll retire from.
Greg Smith, 44, of Edward Jones in Mississauga, Ont., went from spending more time in his garden to spending more time in his office. Until 1997, he was a horticulturist, a career he says has surprising parallels to investing. “The rule of thumb in horticulture is that what grows fast dies fast. You can very easily apply that to Nortel.” IE
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