I read Different a few years ago and highly recommend it. I thought about our business and how we are different from “wirehouse brokers” (i.e. large firms), and I made this list:
- We have no idea what the Dow did today, nor do we think it is important.
- We are bad at sales and good at expertise.
- We don’t have any proprietary products, principal transactions, commissions, sales contests, etc.
- We will give tax advice.
- We don’t call clients for permission to make a change in their accounts just to avoid fiduciary liability.
- We know what we don’t know – as far as I know. 🙂
- We don’t segment clients into gold, silver, lead categories and give different levels of service accordingly. Every client we accept is a platinum client.
- We don’t “cross sell” mortgages, insurance, etc.
- We won’t sell clients what they want if we don’t think it is prudent.
- We aren’t pushing the “hot” product just because it has a great story (IPOs, growth stocks, commodities, gold, hedge funds, other alternative investments).
- We won’t let clients draw too much from their portfolios even though it will make them happy now (because they will be unhappy decades from now).
- We want to know the client’s entire financial situation and won’t take them as a client otherwise.
- We won’t buy and sell in client portfolios just to look like we are doing something.
- We won’t provide clients our quarterly performance compared to a benchmark – it isn’t relevant.
- We are expensive for small clients and cheap for large ones.
- We frequently aren’t in the office, and when we are we aren’t watching CNBC or quote screens.
- We make our own decisions.
- We don’t have Class A office space (or expenses).
- We ignore “hot” managers and great track records.
- We don’t sell individual securities.
- We pay attention to taxes and costs.
- We won’t be going golfing with clients (but lunch is great!)
- We have clients all over the country rather than just near our office.