Articles Written by Jon Henschen

Waiter, There’s a Fly in My Soup! Looking for Nice People

by Jonathan Henschen, CFS and featured in Broker-Dealer Journal
January, 2007:

A functional back-office that delivers good service to advisors must be nurtured by management. No matter how much they produce, advisors who are rude and condescending to support staff should be weeded out before setting a dangerously negative tone.

Recently, I started a weekly 30-minute radio show through ProducersWeb.com interviewing broker/dealers. It wasn’t long before I discovered a reoccurring pattern among my guests. When asked what kinds of advisors they target, instead of “Advisory focus,” “Big producers” or “Financial planning Approach,” as I was expecting, their first reply is usually: “We want them to be nice!”

But that focus made perfect sense the more I thought about it, since the alternative to “nice” can have dire effects on a firm’s back office,

Top 5 reasons advisors stay at BDs. Creating “Hooks” to improve retention

by Jonathan Henschen, CFS and featured in Broker Dealer Journal
January, 2007:

Last year I wrote an article detailing the, “Top 5 Reasons Advisors Leave a Broker/Dealer.”  The more I researched the topic, the clearer the differences between advisors who move on and those who stay became. For advisors to consider changing broker/dealers, the pain threshold must be sufficiently high to motivate them to make that drastic move. Nonetheless, though many advisors have mixed emotions about their broker/dealers, usually ranging from disappointment to apathy, most stay on.  Why is that?

I look at the reasons reps stay with broker/dealers in fishing terms (can’t help myself; I live in Minnesota!).  That is, I see these reasons as “hooks” holding advisors to their firms.  The more hooks a firm has in its reps,

It’s not what your say, but how you say it – and how well you listen!

by Jonathan Henschen, CFS and featured in Broker Dealer Journal
November, 2006:

I’ve been in this business a long time and have had the privilege of knowing a lot of people–broker/dealers and others–involved in recruiting. I’m also routinely bombarded with feedback from Advisors about what they like and dislike in broker/dealers (some of which is very revealing about both parties!). The point is, how broker/dealers communicate with Advisors—on the phone or face-to-face–can cement these relationships for years to come—or derail them before they ever leave the station!

We all have quirks and idiosyncrasies when we communicate. These may be family or regional traits, or simply poor speaking and listening habits picked up over the years. But because communicating is of such major importance in our business,