Latest news with #salespeople
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
5 important questions to ask your financial advisor
A financial advisor can have a major impact on your finances — both for good and bad. The best financial advisors can help you stick to a long-term investing plan that meets your investment goals over time, while the worst advisors are more likely to put you in investments that line their own pockets, potentially costing you tens of thousands of dollars for advice that was supposedly free. When you hire a financial advisor, you need to essentially conduct a job interview to make sure that a would-be advisor's approach and incentives align with your own. Here are five key questions to ask financial advisors to see if they're the right fit for your needs. Compare advisors: Bankrate's list of the best financial advisors 1. 'Are you a fiduciary?' Many people assume any financial advisor is a fiduciary. Unfortunately, many individuals can hang a sign that says they're a financial advisor without having to give you good advice. In many cases, so-called advisors are really just salespeople in disguise. So you need to determine whether they're going to work in your best interest. That's why you need to ask them if they're a fiduciary, because it helps align their interests with yours. According to the Certified Financial Planning Board, a fiduciary must 'place the interests of the client above the interests of the … professional and the … professional's firm' and 'avoid conflicts of interest,' among other requirements. Instead of the fiduciary standard, many financial advisors are held to a lower suitability standard, which requires a financial advisor to make sure the investment is suitable but not necessarily the best for you. This lower standard means that advisors can recommend investments that make more money for them, even if they aren't the best for you. The answer you want: Ask your potential advisor whether he or she is a fiduciary and whether they're obligated to work in your best interest at all times. If you want the chance at getting the best advice, you need to hear that they are always a fiduciary on your behalf. 2. 'How are you paid?' It pays to keep in mind the familiar phrase, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' It's vital that you apply that wisdom to your choice of financial advisor and ask your potential advisor: 'How are you paid?' If you're not paying the advisor directly, you're probably not getting the best advice. Many financial companies — insurers, brokers and others — can set you up with a financial advisor, but these individuals are typically paid by the firm itself. They're compensated when individuals buy their products and services, so they're incentivized to work in their own interest, not yours. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're getting bad advice, but are you really getting the best advice? So you must know how advisors are paid if you want to understand whether they are incentivized to act in your best interest. The answer you want: Look for a fee-only fiduciary advisor for the best chance of receiving advice aligned with your goals, but expect to pay for the advisor out of your own pocket, often on an hourly basis. Still, the advice may be much better than the free advice from an advisor who is a salesperson in disguise. 3. 'How will you help me stick to my financial goals?' One of the biggest ways that a good advisor can add value to your life is by helping you stick to a solid financial plan. When the stock market falls, many clients get skittish. They're inclined to sell after prices have fallen and only buy back into the market when things feel safe, setting themselves up to sell low and buy high. A good advisor helps clients stay away from this kind of wealth-destroying behavior. So be sure to ask potential advisors how they're going to help you do that. This aspect of a good advisor is highly underrated, but it's so valuable. A good advisor can help you calm down during a market meltdown when stocks are plummeting. Then, the advisor can help you understand how to make good financial decisions amid the panic. That can be especially valuable for long-term retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs. The answer you want: The best financial advisors are able to work with your personality to keep you on track, especially during tough times. Make sure they understand your specific fears and goals and feel confident in their own ability to keep your financial plan in focus. An advisor needs to be part psychologist to keep you on the path to financial success, while ensuring you are pursuing strategies that align with your goals. 4. 'How does your firm measure your performance as a financial advisor?' How a firm measures the success of its advisors should also give you a good idea of how the advisor is incentivized to work on your behalf. If you have a firm that prioritizes only advisors who bring in more money, you should expect an advisor who will try to sell you products. Success can be measured in a variety of ways. Financial advisors should be measured by their ability to give advice to their clients and create positive outcomes for them. Performance can also be focused on acquiring professional designations such as the certified financial planner (CFP), education or client investment performance. Because a financial advisor is supposed to be in the business of giving advice, their performance measures should reflect that. The answer you want: Ask potential advisors how their employment performance is measured by their firm. Ideally, they are evaluated on their ability to give advice and help people rather than their ability to generate revenue for their company. 5. 'What happens if you change companies?' At its best, working with an advisor should be like working with any other professional, such as a doctor or dentist. You'll get the best experience if you can find someone who wants to do right by you for the long haul. You can build up decades of trust and a strong working relationship. But like those other professionals, sometimes financial advisors change firms, and it may not be so easy to transfer your accounts and follow someone you trust. Many advisors, for example, have non-compete agreements with their company so that they can't solicit clients if they change employers. In some cases, advisors may not even be able to contact you to say that they're working at a new company and that you can move your investments there. Your account may simply be reassigned to a new advisor who's not as familiar with you and your situation. At some companies, advisors can take some basic client information when they leave the firm as part of what's called the broker protocol. Under this protocol, an advisor can take key contact information for clients that they personally served. But not all companies are part of the protocol, so you'll want to ask what happens if your potential broker changes their employer. The answer you want: Companies handle an advisor leaving in different ways. In this case, it's more about having full understanding of how your account might be handled in the event that your advisor leaves. Get started: Match with an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals Bottom line It can be difficult to open up your financial life to someone else, making you feel vulnerable. That's why it's important to hire an advisor who is closely aligned with your best interests. Look for advisors who are fiduciaries and are financially compensated and managed in ways that make them more likely to be aligned with your goals and needs. Finally, it's crucial to understand that you're paying someone for an important job — so interview them carefully to ensure they'll do it well. — Bankrate's Lisa Dammeyer contributed to an update of this article. Editorial Disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making an investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that past investment product performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
South China Morning Post
23-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why the Tiffany blue Patek Philippe watch wound up so many rich people
Tiffany salespeople called them the 'watch monsters'. The obsessives. The wealthy shoppers who were sure they should be among the chosen few to get their hands on a rare timepiece from Patek Philippe. They descended on Tiffany & Co. a few years ago, when the retailer began offering a limited-edition Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 with a dial in Tiffany's signature robin's-egg blue. Patek crafted 170 of them, a tribute to the number of years the brands had worked together. Tiffany hoped that the timepiece would help attract and retain high-end shoppers who were not already regular customers. Yet the Blue Dial, as it became known, was never for sale in the traditional sense. Demand was so high that Tiffany executives, including Americas head Christopher Kilaniotis, realised clients would be willing to spend millions of dollars on other jewellery for the chance to buy the coveted watch, which was priced at US$52,635. Salespeople were instructed to guide top prospects toward spending US$2 million to US$3 million, according to people familiar with the sales strategy. No official wait-list. No guarantees. Only 170 of the 'Blue Dials' were made. Photo: Tiffany & Co. When the Blue Dial arrived, wealthy shoppers' desire for luxury watches was in overdrive amid a pandemic-era buying frenzy. It instantly became one of the most talked-about objects in the luxury world.
Bloomberg
22-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Microsoft Offers Some Salespeople Extra Pay Following Layoffs
Microsoft Corp., fresh off a round of layoffs impacting its salespeople, is offering bonuses to some survivors. Additional pay for the fiscal year that just ended will go to workers whose annual payout 'was affected by systemic challenges or financial performance outcomes outside their control,' according to a document reviewed by Bloomberg. These employees will be paid as if they had reached a higher percentage of their quotas.
Fast Company
25-06-2025
- General
- Fast Company
The value of ‘almost.' Why near misses can make or break you
Whether we like it or not, we live in a world that is ruthlessly optimized to reward results. Nonetheless, failure is a part of everyone's life—and an essential part of achievement in fields ranging from sports to science. In fact, high achievers are those who fail more often —not less—than the average person. They take more risks, go outside their comfort zone, set more challenging goals, and engage more frequently and vigorously in improving their performance—and this is how they succeed. You can't lose if you never play—you also can't win. Runner-up But what about coming in second? Is there value to the 'near miss'—to being so close to a win, but falling short? In education, being salutatorian is impressive. But it still means you miss out on the valedictory speech and its attendant scholarship. A high spot on the university waitig list rarely becomes an enrollment offer. In careers, the runner-up performer might earn a congratulatory email but not the promotion or hefty salary increase; the second-best job interview candidate gets little consolation from knowing they almost received a job offer but are still unemployed. Salespeople who hit 99% of their quota still forfeit the Hawaiian-vacation incentive and bonus. In research, the lab that publishes second loses the patent, the grant, and the headlines. And if you are the runner-up in a presidential election, there's at best a slim chance you can run again in the future, and your popularity may actually decrease after losing (in politics, this loser effect leads to a dip in confidence from voters, and there's often no time for a second chance). Near misses as opportunity And yet, near misses are not as disastrous as the above thought experiments suggest. Indeed, finishing a hair's breadth behind the winner still means you've outperformed almost everyone else—be they hundreds of classmates, thousands of job applicants, or an entire electorate. Moreover, the person who edges you out isn't necessarily better on merit alone —factors like political currents, privilege, or just plain luck can tip the scales. Perhaps most importantly, coming up just short can serve as a springboard for growth, offering the chance to learn, adapt, and come back stronger—provided you choose to seize it. Here's why: Lessons learned First, while everyone prefers success to failure, it is often easier to learn from failure than from success. Success tells you that you are great; it is the socially accepted way to provide you with positive feedback on your talents, reinforcing your self-belief, and inflating your ego. While this sounds great—and without much in the way of downside—success is also likely to generate complacency, overconfidence, and arrogance (it's much easier to stay humble in defeat). Conversely, failures are opportunities to learn, especially when you see them as learning experiments that provide you with critical feedback on your skills, choices, and behaviors. As Niels Bohr wisely noted, 'An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.' In short, a near miss can act as an inherently, if brutally honest audit of your assumptions and strategies—uncovering blind spots that success tends to conceal. By forcing you—or at least inviting you—to diagnose exactly why you fell short, a near miss suggests you refine your mental models; rethink and tweak your tactics; and build new, better tested, decision-making muscles. Failing enthusiastically Second, failure increases the gap between your aspirational self (who you want to be) and your actual self (who you are, at least from a reputational standpoint). This uncomfortable psychological gap is only reduced through hard work, grit, and persistence, which together strengthen your chances of succeeding in the future. At the very least, they help you become a better version of yourself, even if you don't succeed in achieving a sought-after prize or goal. As Winston Churchill famously noted, 'Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.' Importantly, near misses can be a powerful form of failure precisely because they hurt the most. Being so close to a success can reaffirm your determination and reignite your ambition. Every extraordinary achiever (across fields) differs from others in one important way: they are less likely to be satisfied with their achievements. Indeed, the most common reason people fail to learn from failure is that they are too wounded or hurt by their lack of success, to the point that it extinguishes their drive. In contrast, extraordinary achievers will not give up or let go—even when their failures are hard to digest. This ambitious mindset helps them seek to understand the factors leading to their near misses without getting deflated or depressed by them. Instead, it makes them even hungrier for victory, resilient, and focused on bouncing back stronger. Emotionally resilient Third, the way you respond to any form of defeat or failure, and especially the painful near misses, sends a powerful signal to everyone around you—investors, bosses, or teammates—that you're emotionally mature, resilient, and coachable. Humans have a general tendency to attribute their successes to their own talents and merit, while blaming others, or situations, for their failures and misses. Avoiding this tendency makes you an exception to the norm. This will be noticed and will impress others. While resilience is largely a function of your personality (the more emotionally stable, extroverted, curious, agreeable, and especially conscientious you are, the more resilience you will show), we can all work to increase our resilience if we truly care about achieving our end goal, by becoming grittier and harnessing whatever mental toughness we have. When you dissect a near miss with curiosity and humility, you demonstrate a growth mindset that invites collaboration and sparks confidence in your potential. Visible resilience often earns more credibility (and resources) than a flawless run, because it shows you're willing to learn in public. Over time, people who witness your thoughtful rebound become your strongest advocates, eager to back the next iteration of your vision. Life, despite how it feels in disappointing moments, is not a final exam but a continuous assessment; what matters most is not brilliant one-off successes but reliable, steady, determined excellence. As Aristotle pointed out, 'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.' Greater legacies To be sure, there's no shortage of prominent historical figures who confirm how near misses and other kinds of failures in their early career stages were poor indicators of their actual talent and potential but instead unfortunate or unlucky episodes, uncharacteristic of their brilliance. Consider Roger Federer: after six runner-up finishes on tour, he finally lifted Wimbledon's trophy in 2003 and would go on to amass 20 Grand Slam titles. The Netherlands of 1974, whose Total Football lost the final, rewrote soccer's playbook. J.K. Rowling, turned down by 12 publishers, went on to sell over 600 million Harry Potter copies. Barbara McClintock, whose 'jumping genes' work was ignored for decades, earned a 1983 Nobel Prize for the discovery. Meryl Streep, whose first Oscar nod in 1979 went unrewarded, has since racked up 21 nominations and 3 wins. The Beatles were rejected by Decca as 'yesterday's sound' before selling some 1.6 billion records. And Alibaba, once dwarfed by eBay in China, now serves over a billion annual active consumers. Each of these (and many other) examples provide evidence that near misses can herald even greater legacies. Ultimately, the sting of 'almost' is less a verdict on your potential than an invitation to hone it. Near misses aren't life sentences—they're signposts pointing to gaps in your strategy, fuel for your ambition, and a live demonstration of your character to the world. While it is tempting to ruminate about what could have or should have happened, the truth is we never know. We all indulge in counterfactual fantasies—those 'what if' spirals where we picture an alternate universe in which we married someone else, took the other job, or moved to that city. Psychologists call them sliding doors moments: innocuous-seeming forks in the road that, in hindsight, feel like cosmic turning points. But while it's human to ruminate, it's wiser to remember that we're not omniscient authors of our own lives. The illusion of total control is just that—an illusion. More often than not, the best way to recover from regret or disappointment is not by obsessing over the road not taken, but by taking a different road. Que será, será. Life is less about scripting your destiny than adapting to its plot twists. In other words, how you react to failure matters, but failure is too brutal and negative a word for simply not getting what you think you preferred or wanted, especially when it may not even be what you actually needed or ought to have preferred. When we embrace each narrow defeat as data, not destiny, we are able to build the very habits and resilience that turn 'almost' into subsequent undeniable success. As the saying goes, experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. We add that experience can be more valuable than the objective success of getting what you wanted. In fact, enjoyment of objectives successes including of awards and victories, tends to be more short-lived than we expect. We need not define ourselves by our past and present achievements. Who we are also comprises our future self, including our possible selves—the parts of our character and identity that are actually the only ones we can influence.
Motor 1
16-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
Toyota Salesman Finds Thousands of Dollars of 'Missing' Keys. Now He's Exposing Dealerships for Failing to Give Buyers the Spare
A car salesman is calling out his fellow salespeople for not giving car buyers both sets of keys with their purchase. As proof, he shows the purported back room of a Toyota dealership. There are dozens of keys on a desk in the room. He claims these are all keys that go to cars that were already sold and says this is a direct result of the dealership dropping the ball on customer service. Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . TikTok account Cars 4 Sale (@toyota4sale) is purportedly run by a Toyota salesman. In a video posted June 16, he shows viewers a desk covered in key fobs. All the keys appear to be for Toyotas. 'What happens when the salesperson won't do their job and check for a spare key for the customer?' he says. 'This is what happens.' Next, he explains the significance of what the audience is seeing. 'We end up with thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of keys,' the salesman says. 'There's even a key for a 2024 Toyota RAV4 Limited.' He attributes these 'missing keys' to a very specific cause: Lazy or negligent salespeople. 'There's no salesperson to give the keys to the customer. It's amazing,' he says. 'Just because they forgot to check or they don't want to check.' His post has nearly 215,000 views as of Monday morning. Do You Really Need a Spare Set of Keys? A missing second key is potentially problematic for a couple of reasons. The first is financial. A new car key can cost up to $1,000, depending on the make and model of your vehicle. Car owners have also expressed concern that the second key could get stolen or misplaced and later used to steal the vehicle. This would require the would-be thief to not only have access to the second key, however, but also to be able to track down the vehicle. Not having a spare could also strand you if your first key's battery dies or if it's lost or misplaced. That's why car owners generally prefer to have at least one spare. The difficult truth when buying a used car is that you may not always get two keys. That's because the car might've come into the dealership without a spare. If you're concerned someone may use a missing key to access your vehicle, you can ask the dealership to deactivate the lost key fob remotely. In the event the dealership can't or won't deactivate the key, you can also contact a locksmith to reprogram the codes that allow the fob to start the vehicle. An Expensive Mistake or a Money-Making Scheme? Trending Now 'I'm Absolutely Doing This:' Arizona Man Shares Little-Known Sunroof Trick to Stay Cool. Then He Slides It Open to Show Off 'Thought I Was Doing Him a Favor:' Woman Tries to Tow in Husband's Ram Bighorn. Then She Makes a Common Mistake One person who commented on Cars 4 Sale's post accuses dealerships of having a nefarious reason for retaining one set of keys: So they can charge the customer for a new one. 'And it's totally intentional so they can charge $600 for a new key,' they wrote. If true, this would be a sneaky way to make a buck. Edmunds reports that costs for replacing a basic key fob range from $50 to $100. For more expensive keys, such as a smart key, AutoZone says the costs can be as high as $1,000. Still, it doesn't seem overly likely that a dealership would run a racket of keeping one just to charge a customer for a replacement key. It's arguably more likely that dealers end up keeping a set because staff either didn't know there was a second key, couldn't find it, or didn't bother to check, as Cars 4 Sale suggests. Viewers Weigh In Several people who commented on the post agree that the problem is with the dealership's system. 'All spare key should be with all the paperwork/books who's gonna look for keys like that no one,' one person said. A second person agreed that the blame is misplaced. 'Sounds like a management problem,' they wrote. A third said they don't leave a dealership without a spare key. 'I won't buy a used car without two keys,' they wrote. Some people offered solutions to the stockpile of keys at the Toyota dealership. One suggested, 'Mail them to the customers. Take the cost out of commission.' Motor1 reached out to Cars 4 Sale via TikTok for comment. We'll be sure to update this post if he responds. More From Motor1 'Never Knew This:' Honda Civic Driver of 3 Years Reaches for Key Fob. Then She Realizes It Has a Little-Known Feature Tesla Fails Cybertruck Owners Again, Cancels Key Upgrade 'Why I Hate New Cars': Man Tries to Replace a Headlight Bulb on His 2022 Toyota Corolla. Then He Learns Something Unexpected It Sure Looks Like GM Is Copying Lucid's Homework Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
