The recent negative publicity afforded to the TD bank about aggresive sales practices has raised questions about Financial Services employees selling their companies products to customers.

Seriously

These stories make me laugh out loud.  The banks in Canada are not altruistic institutions, don’t kid yourself, they are in it for the money.  As a shareholder of almost every major financial institution in Canada, my view is, go for it, sell your products and services for a profit. The more sales the better.

A paid employee is complaining about their employer setting sales gaols and monitoring their progress.  And some are sympathizing with the employees and chastising the employer, really, give your head a shake.

Lets Get Real

When you ask a financial advisor for assistance, whether it is to buy insurance, get a loan or make an investment, or even just give advise, don’t kid yourself, they are not helping you out of the goodness of their hearts.

Probably, selling you a product or service (e.g., advice) to satisfy their performance goals or increase their compensation (like a commission,bonus or tip) is the prime motivator.

That is not to blanket all financial services employees with a single brush stroke.  Of course most do want to be helpful and viewed to be such.  That can after all drive both referals and repeat business ( more sales, commissions bonuses, etc).

That being said, they are still ultimately going to try and sell you something, after all that is what they are paid to do.

Am I schocked TD employees are complaining about sales targets?  Not really, getting paid while not having to work hard is probably easier.

Am I surprised that the public does not seem to be aware that employees working for a company that makes money from product and service sales are expected to be sales people?  It does make me wonder.

Speaking from Experience

Full disclosure, I worked in Financial Services for more than 37 years and sold a lot of products while providing exceptional service and I don’t feel guilty at all.  It was a job I chose and was good at.

It never occured to me to try and figure out if the customer needed the product, only if they wanted it – which really equates to need.  That is, if you want it, you need it. Who am I to question that?