How to Become a Stockbroker

Video Transcript

"How I happened to get in the profession is probably an accident, and that doesn't help anyone that's watching this at this time. I was in the Marine Corps, was released from the Marine Corps, the Korean War ended. I came home, I had been attending the University of Utah, and I continued to attend the University of Utah, and I was working part time, and had worked in various and sundry jobs. And I frankly was going to apply, or I did apply to become a newspaper writer, because of my previous training, I wanted to be a sportswriter. And I also entertained being a radio announcer, disc jockey. But along the way I was offered a job during the '50s with a stockbroker who was looking for someone to be what they call a stock trader. I won't get into any detail on what a stock trader is, but it's specifically the person who actually takes care of the transactions on a daily, hourly, and minute by minute basis. And that was in 1954, and here I am, 54 years later, still an investment counselor. And so I was very fortunate to fall into that way, and I'm very proud to be as a profession I have. In the early days of the business, I had a very interesting experience. I was calling on lots of people and not having wonderful success. And I had a telephone call, and it was a medical doctor. He called me on the phone, and he said that his stockbroker and investment counselor had moved to Chicago, and he wanted a new investment counselor. And he would like me to come and visit with him. I think I was about thirty-one years old at that time. And so I went to see the doctor. And I was invited into his office, and he looked up and he looked at me, and he says, oh, you're nothing but a kid. And, of course, I immediately felt very small and inadequate, but I continued to talk to the doctor and tell him how I could--what I could do for him and how I could counsel him, and do well for him in his investment portfolio. And he says, sure kid, yeah kid--every time I said anything he said, okay kid. After about four minutes, he said, well, thank you, kid, I'll give you a call if I decide I want you to stockbroker. So I left. And, very discouraged, very deflated, and wondered if I was in the right profession. After about a week I got a little bit over my hurt and decided to write the doctor a letter. And I wrote him a letter, and I told him how much I appreciated him meeting with me, and I told him that I recognized that he didn't think I was very qualified yet, but I told him I was with a firm that had many qualified people and the head of our firm was very qualified and if he had any concerns he would be able to back me up and give him the service he deserved. And I signed the letter and thanked him once again for seeing me. About four days later he called me on the phone and said, kid, I want you to be my investment counselor. And that's what happened. And to the day he died, which was some forty years later, he called me kid. I didn't care. From then on. But that just shows the importance of service and communication."