Caller ID of Death
Summary:
As a broker,
there is an unwritten rule that you don't steal clients from a co-worker
because we all work on commission. Our office phone system works in such a way
that if a desk is unmanned, the call will be transferred to another desk until
it is picked up. When I get a call of this nature, I can pull up the investor’s
information and see exactly what his portfolio holds and who he normally deals
with.
Keywords:
Telephone,
telephones, phone, phones, telephone systems, telephone system
Article Body:
As a broker,
there is an unwritten rule that you don't steal clients from a co-worker
because we all work on commission. Our office phone system works in such a way
that if a desk is unmanned, the call will be transferred to another desk until
it is picked up. When I get a call of this nature, I can pull up the investor’s
information and see exactly what his portfolio holds and who he normally deals
with. If the client is long-term and has a preference for a particular broker,
I simply tell them that I'll have their broker call them right back. The one
time I decided to ignore this rule, it ended up causing a big scene.
Although we all have stocks to push, there is a degree of flexibility in what
we recommend our customers buy that differentiates each of us. Therefore, what
I recommend may be in stark contrast to what the guy sitting next to me might
recommend. One day a call comes across my desk from a big client. This client
is so big, in fact, that he is the primary bread and butter for one of my
co-workers. The day the client called was the last day of a weeklong vacation
my co-worker had taken, so I knew he wouldn't be able to call him back until
the next day. By coincidence, I was pushing a stock that had just reached its
one-month low, but that I knew was primed to resurge. I was as sure of this
stock as any I'd ever recommended before. Still, I knew I would catch major
hell from everyone for making a commission off of another broker's primary
client. I decided I couldn't let the opportunity pass the investor by so I
simply told him that his broker had instructed me to tell him about the stock I
was sure of if the client called, and that his broker would be back tomorrow.
The client bit on the stock and made a major purchase. I thanked him, filled out
a commission sheet with my co-worker's information on it (so that he would be
the one to benefit from my work), and forgot about it. I figured I might get a
nice "thank you" upon his return...especially if the stock performed
as I expected and the client was happy. At the end of the day, I checked the
stock to find it had climbed an astounding three points. I wasn't thinking of
the sale to my co-worker's client as I, myself had made several sales of it to
my clients and was happy that they were going to profit handsomely from my
recommendation.
The next day, I came in to find my co-worker (yes, that co-worker) standing at
my desk. He had seen his client on my caller ID and proceeded to throw a
"class A" fit in front of God and everybody. I simply stood there
while he lit into me as though I had just devoured his firstborn. Not only did he scream at me, but several others
joined in, thinking I had sold to his client on my behalf. I didn't say a word.
I knew that he, nor they, had discovered that I put the sale under his name and
that the stock had performed extremely well. He said his last and stormed off
back to his desk.
Every morning, we get a printout of the previous day's activity around 9:00 am.
That's usually about the time I go down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee.
When I returned, there was my co-worker, standing at my desk and smiling from
ear to ear. Not only had he made a nice commission without even being at work, but his client called to thank him while I was getting coffee. I just smiled right
back, knowing he had to be feeling about two feet tall. I had lobster for lunch that day, and guess
who paid.
I love caller ID.
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