Gosling's Grouse: Why we need good salespeople in our industry

In an era when driving down cost seems to be about the only thing everyone agrees on, it is no surprise we are seeing the not very slow death of industry salespeople.

What started in the immediate aftermath of Lehman Brothers' collapse continued with the arrival of RDR and, as a few 'old' sales directors have said to me: 'the good times are over'.  The 'good times' were when the adviser had the time to take meetings with business development managers (BDMs), had time for the odd lunch or round of golf, and had time to build-up relationships. Of course, the regulator has never recognised the value of relationships, because it somehow thinks 'relationships' are a clandestine form of financial services freemasonry to persuade unsuspecting members of t...