Wholesalers

A day in the life of a Certified Financial Planner® consists of meetings with fund managers and “wholesalers”. In our industry, fund managers are rock stars. Sometimes they are hard to get meetings with. Some are accessible while others consider themselves elite. Frankly, we will not deal with the latter mucky-mucks.

Mutual fund companies rely on wholesalers as informational conduits or inside technical sales force to distribute their products to financial advisors. Wholesalers are very bright, highly trained, financially savvy, and articulate. They are the gatekeepers of information. I could not do my job without them.

Advisors do a considerable amount of analytical work identifying great fund managers. However, true value isn’t always found in analytics. Great mutual fund managers have a disciplined process, an identifiable edge. Analytical services such as Morningstar® can’t always ferret out that process. Advisors need to go digging for these great managers, and wholesalers are the gateway to the gold.