Raymond James has been as steady as any firm can claim to be over the past five years when comparing recruiting success. RayJay has never had the biggest deal on the street, never announced any special incentives for recruiters or ‘blue light specials’ for recruits that ‘join this quarter.’ No gimmicks, no wild spending, but rather a focus on culture and consistency.
That is exactly what they have delivered and continue to focus on with respected advisors of scale. While competitors have taken to either publicly announcing massive payouts for specific transitions, or simply overpay for what they may deem is an essential headcount number – RayJay keeps plugging along.
Culture, being the ever-elusive framework to define in recruiting, RayJay has remained the inaugural winner of ‘culture is king’ within wealth management. Others have taken to the cultural narrative, but few have done it just as well. Raymond James has landed advisors with books in the $100M-$500M space for nearly a decade. Slow and steady could appropriately apply to how they have succeeded.
Recently (via AdvisorHub) their CEO spoke about the continued importance of advisor recruiting to the firm’s growth:
“Raymond James will occasionally pay more to land large producers but remains “disciplined” in controlling hiring costs, he said, repeating a mantra of his recruiting philosophy.”
“Our offers tend to be substantially lower than [some] other firms and yet people still join us,” he said, emphasizing the greater autonomy Raymond James says it gives to advisors to run their practices. “We are low bidders, but we are the first choice spiritually.”
Being able to attract advisors of scale on the ‘cheap’ is a remarkable feat and speaks to the strength of the RayJay story/brand/culture (whichever one you’d like to use). Many of the largest recruiting wins banked by RayJay come from wirehouses. Teams looking for the capabilities they are accustomed to and culture that used to value them in a way that provided comfort and loyalty.
It is rare (and we can’t remember an example at the moment) that a large advisor at a place like RayJay was fired for a nebulous claim and then have that claim come under question when the advisor sues the firm after the fact. That speaks to culture. Valuing advisors in a way that bends toward the advisor rather than the firm.
Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?
