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 investors information and see exactly what has 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...