Recruiting Secret: Beat The Numbers

BusinessRecruiting Secret: Beat The NumbersByJohn William Wright II,Forbes Books Author.for Forbes BooksAUTHOR POSTExpertise and opinions of authors published by ForbesBooks. Imprint operated under license. | Paid ProgramMay 20, 2026, 10:32am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.In the finance industry, four-year retention rates have never exceeded 20%. gettyWhen you work in the recruiting industry, sometimes the numbers work against you. In the financial world, there’s one statistic that I think about regularly: 21 percent. According to The Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association (LIMRA), the three-year retention rate for companies in the financial industry is 21 percent, and for the four-year retention rate, it has not exceeded 20 percent—ever. Keeping your best people is important, but knowing that one out of every five advisors you recruit will still be there after four years is difficult to manage. How do you break that cycle and beat the odds? For us, the answer came in a few different forms. Training and SupportOur organization already had in place a solid training system, built up over decades by our prior CEO. But we also recognized that times had changed. Sometimes there are unpredictable shifts in the economy, the world, or even our own organization. We had to be able to adapt. We hold four training classes a year. During those sessions, one of the things we did was explain to our potential candidates how our company was different from others. In this case, they were not interviewing for a job with our firm, but instead for a business opportunity. This was a mutual selection process, and they needed to be prepared for that. Now, while we do have a different kind of structure than other companies, when we bring on people, we need to make sure our business model is a good fit for them. They are essentially running their own company as an independent contractor, an...