By the way, I loathe going into the bank branch, because it reminds just how staged the entire experience is. They want me to set up an appointment to open a new account. They want me to operate on their schedule, even though I’m a customer. Let’s face it – opening a bank account is not a major operation, yet the bank sets it up to feel like they are doing you a service, taking YOUR money and putting it in an account for you. NOTE TO SELF: Start a bank that actually offers customer service and does things on the customer’s schedule, not ours. Make billions. So I’m sitting in front of this guy who I had opened several accounts with. A really nice guy I’ve dealt with many times before, he was probably around 26 or 27. I noticed on his desk that he had a little business card holder, and of the titles he held was “Mutual Fund Sales Representative”. Thought this might be an interesting time to do some research. He had told me he would be leaving the bank shortly to go back east and get back into physical therapy, which was what he really wanted to do. He’d been with the bank for a few years as a teller, and then was moved into account management and sales of investment products. I asked him, “so Kevin, what does the typical person in a bank that sells mutual funds get paid?” He said it really depends on a few things, but that if someone did a really good job and they were with the bank for quite a while, they could make around $70,000. I asked him, “what mutual funds do you own?” He looked at me blankly, and said “I don’t invest in mutual funds”. Warren Buffett had a great take on this issue of being careful who you take advice from. According to Buffett, “Wall Street is the only place where people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.” Interesting. A guy who aspires to make $70,000 some day giving advice on a product that he doesn’t even own himself. And there you have it — how most people get financial advice. The banks – and all financial service companies in general – love the customer that feels intimidated into never asking questions, feeling ‘stupid’ if they don’t understand what they’re being told. That’s how they build multi-billion dollar profits every year – from customers who don’t know the questions to ask. If you’ve ever been to your bank to buy mutual funds, you’ve experienced this first hand. They spread a bunch of brochures out in front of you, and then give you three options. It’s up to you to choose which one you’ll put your money into. Of course, the bank owns all three mutual funds so they make money no matter what you do. The fees and commissions are never discussed, and you walk out of the bank hoping you’ve made a good decision. One of the things I love about my life is that I get to help people recognize these kinds of crazy injustices that happen every day to investors. I am able to empower people with new ways of looking at things, and ultimately, to create a more successful financial life for themselves and their loved ones. One of my golden rules of investing is, “Only take advice from people that are doing and getting what it is that you want to do and get”. Sure, that seems obvious. So why is it that so few people actually do that? ]]>