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The money man who holds your hand

A combination of salesmanship and guidance helps a financial consultant find success.

By Adam Cherry

 


Rick Hogue, financial consultant for RBC Dain Rauscher, in his office on the 18th floor of Portland's Fox Tower.

The days go by quickly for Rick Hogue.


As a financial consultant and vice president of investments for RBC Dain Rauscher in Portland, Hogue enjoys what he does and the company he works for.

"I work with a pretty broad range of clients,” he said. “Individual clients that are doing retirement accounts, business people building up portfolios, accommodations, endowments and 401(k)s.”

He can sell individual stocks, options, bonds, mutual funds and insurance products. He can also do taxes. Hogue trades directly on the exchange markets in New York, but does so from a distance.

Different brokers like to add a personal touch to the way they do business.

“In our office, we have about 20-22 brokers on the floor,” he said. “The interesting thing is, every broker’s office you go into, it’s like going into a personal office. Each broker conducts business in his own way.”

Hogue's average client is typically older and retired or close to retirement.

“With younger people, generally all their money is going into homes, cars and other material goods," he said. "They really don’t have that much disposable income.”

The personal relationships that Hogue makes with his clients are important to the enjoyment of his job.

“After you’ve been in the business a pretty long time, your clients start to reflect the way you are,” he said. “They become not only clients but friends. You get to know them and their families.”

Hogue said that the friendships he forms help him persuade clients to make the best financial choices.

“We’re financial counselors, but sometimes we’re like psychological counselors also. Sometimes I tell my clients, I don’t earn my commission at the sale. I earn my commission down the road when you’re getting scared and I’m holding your hand.”

The relationships pay off. Hogue said that he gets most of his business from client-to-client referrals.

Hogue has been working in investments for 22 years, and although his job is going smoothly now, things haven’t always been so easy.

“It’s a pretty tough business to get into,” Hogue said. “They usually don’t just hire right out of college.”

Newer brokers struggle as they try to build a client base.

“Generally, people are scraping along for the first few years trying to put something together,” he said. “You actually have to go out and find people who want to deal with you. That’s pretty tough.”

Cold calling is common for brokers who are just starting out.

“You have to try to find innovative ways to meet people and get them to let you work with their money. It entails a lot of work, a lot of calls and a lot of rejections.”


RBC Dain Rauscher's conference room looks down on Portland' s Pioneer Courthouse Square.

The experience slowly improves, he said.

“The best part of the business comes later when you start having people who have heard of you.”

He said that most of the time, investment employers hire people who have sales experience in other areas first.
Hogue, a Minnetonka, Minn., native, got his first taste of sales just after he graduated from the University of Minnesota in Duluth with a business degree.

“I did a lot of interviewing and came up with a job with General Mills trading grain,” he said. “Sales seemed like a good fit.”

Working for General Mills turned out to be exciting.

“General Mills was freedom,” Hogue said. “There was a lot of working with people; it was a lot of fun. The days went by quickly.”

Hogue worked in Utah and Montana for General Mills, before leaving the company for another grain trading job in Portland.

“I remember I came home and told my wife, ‘I’m in the right field, people will always be hungry;’ but an embargo came down.”

In the early 1980s, after Russia invaded Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter slapped an embargo on grain to the USSR, Hogue said. At that time Russia was a big trader for grain. Hogue’s company shut down and he went looking for a new job.

“In a lot of ways, the switch to the investment business was kind of forced,” he said. “I needed a job and had to think about what I could apply my skills to.”

Investment was a perfect fit.

"In grain trading, I was doing a lot of calling farmers and truckers and negotiating purchases and sales,” he said.

“Many of the trading aspects are pretty similar to the buying and trading of stocks.”

Hogue started out with an investment firm and went through an intensive training program that included studying for tests and traveling to New York. He stayed with that company for a couple of years, worked for Prudential Securities for almost a decade and settled at his current company in 1994.

"The Royal Bank of Canada, RBC, purchased us in 2000 or 2001, and that’s really worked out well,” he said.

RBC Dain Rauscher, which has its headquarters in the Midwest, has a completely different culture from the big, New York-based firms, Hogue said.

"Our firm is great,” said Hogue. “Our firm lets its investment advisers use their best judgment to do what’s best for the client.”

Hogue explained that some firms have a strict procedure for how financial consultants are supposed to do business with clients.

“Also, there are firms out there where you might have a real jackass for a boss,” he added.

Hogue said that it’s a little inconvenient having a three-hour time delay from the stock market in New York, but he doesn’t really have the type of clients who actively trade.

“It can make it a lot tougher as far as your hours,” he said about the time difference. “If you want to be there before the opening, before the first trade begins, you have to be in at about 6 in the morning. But there aren’t that many of my clients that are up that early anyways.”

Making a trade in today’s stock market is computerized and simple, almost like using a consumer-trading platform, Hogue said. Financial consultants’ ability to understand the trading implications of a stock is what keeps them in business.

“Probably the best thing that happened for trading brokers and stock traders was the 2001 to 2002 market crash,” he said. “People realized that you should try to understand why to buy a stock. Most people were buying just because somebody else was buying; they didn’t bother trying to learn about companies. Fundamentals became important again.”

The market can’t go up every day. Sometimes, Hogue’s clients lose money and need an explanation.

“Not every day’s going to be great or fun.” Hogue said. “When something goes really bad, you have to go back to clients and explain why. That kind of stuff can occasionally come in and be stressful.”

As a broker, Hogue tries to find winning stocks before they’re winners.

“Right now, everybody’s talking about Apple,” Hogue said. “Nobody wanted to buy it when it was at $15 or $17 per share. But now they’re talked about, they’re making news, so everybody’s hot to try it. Our job is to find the next company that’s not currently on the radar screen.”

The day-to-day market fluctuations and ever-changing financial landscape are two elements that make Hogue's job exciting.

“I like to try to anticipate, get ahead of what might be occurring, find new things that fit into the new scenario. Every day when you walk in the door you have a huge number of new variables."

University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication