>> My name's Terrence McDonald.
I am a senior representative with
First Investors Corporation in Atlanta.
First Investors is an 84 year old
Wall Street based investment firm.
What we do is we sit down with
our clients on an individual basis
and create a personalized
investment strategy for them.
So whatever their goals they're
trying to accomplish are,
we create a plan to achieve those goals.
Whether it be retirement, tax
sheltering, college planning, etcetera.
Well, basically, you know, I work with
individual clients like you and me.
I work with some institutional
clients like 43B plans, 401K plans,
creating overall retirement
strategies for larger groups of people,
but mostly I do work with
individuals and families.
>> Okay. And could you run me through
what a busy day would look like for you?
>> Yeah. A typical busy day is going
to be, you know, up in the morning,
meeting or maybe planning
session in my office in Atlanta.
And then at that point lunch
and out to meet with clients.
I typically like to meet with, in
a full day, 3 to 5 clients a day.
Sometimes I'll spend an entire day just
meeting with clients from morning to evening.
Sometimes days run long.
Generally I meet with people in their homes.
I find it's where it's most
comfortable for them.
Also if we need to lay hands on statements
and things like that it's really easy for them
to get those or pull up documents
on their computers.
And so a lot of times people
want to meet with me
after they've gotten home from doing their job.
So sometimes, you know, my most important
or most extensive meetings don't even begin
to take place until after
6 o clock in the evening.
So the days can be long.
So a busy day -- That's a
pretty typical busy day.
>> And what's the life cycle of a client like?
So you know garnering new business,
finding -- So what are you --
>> When you say life cycle, do you
mean, you know, from start to finish
or from how do I find my clients or --
>> Yeah. Let's start with just that.
>> Sure. So I use various different methods
for finding new clients, meeting new people.
The best I've found and most reliably successful
is introductions from existing clients.
We -- While we are the largest non publicly
traded investment firm in the country,
we're not a huge firm on the
scale of maybe some of those
that you would see advertised
on TV or billboards.
We don't feel like we have to do that because if
we're doing right by our clients they're going
to put us in touch with other
good clients like themselves.
And so some of my best clients
have come from that sort
of just natural marketing, if you will.
A lot of times also -- Most recently I
did an event up in Atlanta last weekend.
It was a Halloween event.
We set up a table.
We did face painting for the kids,
made some student IDs for the children,
and just talked to the parents a
little bit about what we do, you know,
with a particular focus on college
planning for that demographic.
And then, you know, I've begun calling those
people and scheduling appointments with them.
So marketing, networking, and then
just referrals from individual clients.
Yeah.