Articles Written by Jon Henschen

Is the Grass Really Greener?

by Jon Henschen
December 23, 2013 ThinkAdvisor and the 2014 Career Guide issue of Investment Advisor

Recruiters like myself often get questions from broker-dealer reps considering a move that begin, “Is it normal that my broker-dealer…?” Broker-dealers can be notorious for giving advisors answers that smack of corporate clichés such as, “We’re making these changes to be in line with our competitors” or “Regulators are requiring us to make these changes.” We thought it would be useful to bring to light nine common questions we, as recruiters, get from reps as they try to solve the puzzles of costs, company policies and supervision.

1: Our BD passes through 12b-1 trails on mutual funds in advisory accounts with non-qualified assets,

Are Brokers Greedy Scumbags?

by Jon Henschen
December 11, 2013 featured on ThinkAdvisor

A recent financial news program highlighted a comedy competition held at Gotham Comedy Club in New York called “Funniest Person in Finance.” One of the standout comedians was a financial advisor, Greg Cantone. When commenting about all the complaints there are about how people in finance make a lot of money, Cantone announced, “Well I’ve got news for you Gotham…we do!”

Cantone offers no apology for making a good living. He takes aim at other high-end professionals, everyone from nurses to NFL kickers, for example, “You never hear anyone complain about them making a lot of money, do you? The man kicks a leather meatloaf… with his foot… once a week! But if for some reason,

Making Sense of the Nonsensical Broker Comp Rule

by Jon Henschen
September 18, 2013 featured on ThinkAdvisor

For advisors changing broker-dealers, financial assistance in the form of forgivable loans is standard procedure for regional broker-dealers and wirehouses, but less common in the independent channel. Wirehouses commonly offer up to 300% of trailing 12 months’ production. In the independent channel, for those firms that even offer forgivable notes, the amounts are typically in the range of 10% to 20% of trailing 12 months’ production.

The new disclosure rule will not apply to incentives totaling less than $50,000. While that figure might look reasonable at first glance, applying a static amount as a guideline fails to differentiate between large and small producers.

For example, in the independent channel,