Feb 25 2009
I Sold My Business Today
Today I sold my securities business to Ameriprise Financial. I also had a talk tonight with the Raleigh Industrial Engineering Society.
It was an interesting day.
I have been working as a financial planner for almost 22 years. I started out because I was unemployed. I was laid off from a job as an office manager for Patsy Aiken Designs. Patsy’s husband Joel ran the office and had designed his own accounting program in Microsoft Access.
I had some experience with Access and felt that I could master his “simple” program. I was there 60 days and I don’t think I got one weeks payroll right the whole time. The Aiken’s laid me and two other people, they had hired at the same time as me, off due to limited resources. In other words, they couldn’t afford us and we did not produce any revenue. . . . . .
But I digress!
I got started in this industry by going to a job fair. I don’t remember where it was, but I met some people with a company called Waddell and Reed Financial Services. I remember meeting Steve Stringberg. He was the district manager of the Raleigh office. It was a day that changed my life.
I remember coming home and declaring to my then wife, Karin, that I got a job that day. She said “great, how much are they going to pay you?” I said “nothing, it’s straight commission!”
You could probably fill in the ending to that story.
But I persisted and somehow I managed to make a living at it.
Along the way I met some wonderful people. Some of them I did business with and feel that I honestly helped. Others were great moments to get to know another life traveler and share a little bit of myself.
I just love helping people. I get joy out of doing little things that say “I love you.” Making that physical and psychic connection, even if it is just for a moment, can make a great day out of an OK day.
The many people that I met in seminars, at trade shows and through referrals will always be important to me. They were the basis of my life during this last quarter century.
I don’t mean to sound too “New Age” but I see life as an adventure, something to be enjoyed. I see myself as someone who likes people and likes life and I want people to like me.
The hardest thing for me to get to, in order to make this sale, was the idea that I was letting my clients down. Somehow I was falling short on a promise that I made to some of them, that I would never leave them.
In order to feel that I had done my best I had to find a suitable home for them, and I know that I have with the two planners I found at Ameriprise Financial, David and Adam.
I know that they will be in good hands and that I have done my duty so I can free myself from my own obligation.
I hope, if you are one of those people, that you will give David and Adam an opportunity to share their knowledge with you.
I also shared some of my knowledge tonight with the Raleigh Chapter of the International Industrial Engineering Society.
It is always fun to share my knowledge with people. I did this for my friend Becky Krier. She reminded me, tonight, that we had met at Martin Brossman’s Artists, Healers and Teachers party a few years ago.
They had a small group but there were some good questions and they added some good thoughts along the way. It was an appropriate way to end a day filled with more deep emotion than I have felt in a long time.
So now is a new beginning. I am freeing myself so that I can move forward to what is next.
Some of you know that I am looking at becoming a teacher. This is something I should have been doing my whole adult life. I was on that path at one time in my life, but then, it didn’t feel right.
I am signed up for the NC teach program and am looking at Middle School Social Studies right now.
I am apprehensive but whenever I mention it to anyone they all say “oh, you would be great at that” so I guess I am on the right path.
If you can help me progress in this endeavor in any way, or you just want to share an idea with me, I would love to hear from you. I am truly on a new adventure and will welcome every fellow traveler along the way.
Marc
