Eventually, his planning business kept him so busy that he withdrew from his association work and local politics. But today, even as he approaches the traditional retirement years, Hughes says that he has no intention of slowing down.
Sole practitioners don't face mandatory retirement, which suits Hughes just fine. "Retirement just isn't an option that I would ever consider. I enjoy this business. There is no reason to stop," says Hughes.
But before Hughes became a planner, not all was rosy. In fact, his first securities job was a bad experience that made him doubt that he wanted to be in the business. He worked as a registered rep for a small, now-defunct New York broker-dealer, Nova Equities. Hughes says it had too many IPOs and production quotas, and too little concern for the long-term needs of its clients.
On the advice of a friend from the seminary, Hughes departed for Oppenheimer & Co. after about nine months. "I just didn't like the whole selling idea," Hughes says.
At Oppenheimer & Co., Hughes began as a fund wholesaler. He sold variable annuities and real estate limited partnerships that were designed not as tax shelters, but to make money.
"The properties were fully disclosed," he says. Working the mid-Atlantic region, Hughes also started to sell one of the earliest versions of the wrap-account service. But although Hughes had success and felt more comfortable in his second job, he still had doubts about some aspects of the securities business.
The stock market crackup of the early 1970s-the period of stagflation-was disastrous for mutual funds. And by the mid-1970s, many of Hughes' products were suddenly difficult to sell. He could still make a living wholesaling funds, but the concept of planning started to draw him away.
"I found myself calling more on these so-called financial planners. I started to like the concept. I liked the personal relationship with the client through financial planning rather through product sales," says Hughes. But how could he translate this desire for a different kind of business?
First he obtained his CFP license, in 1979, and then Hughes started to look for firms that would let him develop long-term relationships. "I was often told, 'We understand that the financial planning relationship takes a while to develop, but, in the meantime, we still expect you to sell a 100 shares of IBM and meet production quotas.' I decided that wasn't for me," Hughes said. He began his own practice, C.G. Hughes Company, in 1981.
Despite his experience and contacts, Hughes says things were pretty tough. For example, many of his clients were in other states. He had to rely on seminars to find his first clients.