“Long ago, a brother-in-law of mine, Homer Rogers, was a commission agent working in the Omaha stockyards. I asked him how he induced a farmer or rancher to hire him to handle the sale of their hogs or cattle to the buyers from the big four packers (Swift, Cudahy, Wilson and Armour). After all, hogs were hogs and the buyers were experts who knew to the penny how much any animal was worth. How then, I asked Homer, could any sales agent get a better result than any other? Homer gave me a pitying look and said: “Warren, it’s not how you sell ’em, it’s how you tell ‘em.” What worked in the stockyards continues to work in Wall Street.”
Homer is Warren Buffets brother-in-law. It’s difficult to find the best wealth manager, (by the way, there isn’t one!) the one you end up with is the one with the best stories. Not the best results or best investment performance or best service…but the best stories.
Whilst we all buy stories, sometimes we need to stop, engage, think and put stories into perspective. Otherwise, the stories told become as indistinguishable as all the wealth managers! The stories become blah blah blah…. instead it’s important to look for substance.