Practice Door

Early in their training, Edward Jones brings new brokers to its headquarters, where they practice knocking on doors and talking over finances in “role-play suites” designed to look like homes or offices, Kuehl said. They review tapes of themselves with coaches to improve their technique, he said.

“The idea is to get them talking about something,” said Chris Mackey, 25, who worked at Edward Jones for about a year starting in 2011, after playing football for Jacksonville State University in Alabama and a stint at Merrill Lynch. “Ultimately the goal would be to get the name and phone number.”

Ted Jones, the son of Edward Jones’s founder, used to visit training classes to jab the air with red boxing gloves labeled “handshaking calls” and “phone calls” to emphasize the need for both kinds of contacts, according to the firm’s website.

“They’re the only ones that train that way,” said Danny Sarch, president of recruiting firm Leitner Sarch Consultants Ltd., based in White Plains, New York. “They don’t participate in the recruiting wars.”

Gulfport Sweat
 

After the role-playing, Edward Jones brokers return to their towns, where they’re told to go door to door to compile a list of prospects. Michael Cheung, who worked for the firm in 2010 when he was 25, said he’d sweat through his clothes walking in Gulfport, Mississippi, until he looked like he “came out of a swimming pool.” Brokers must watch out for dogs, he said.

“The ones that chase you are the small ones, like a Chihuahua, but they’re very aggressive,” said Cheung, who now works for Scottrade Inc. in Austin, Texas, helping Chinese- speaking customers trade online.

New Hampshire regulators said in a complaint last month seeking a $3 million fine that Edward Jones brokers knock on doors to circumvent the do-not-call rules. John Boul, a spokesman for the company, said the case was based on a single complaint and that the firm denied the allegations.

Old-fashioned salesmanship has been working well for Edward Jones. Net revenue for Jones Financial Cos., the brokerage’s closely held parent, rose to a record $5.03 billion last year and has climbed 42 percent since 2009, outpacing Merrill Lynch’s 10 percent growth in the period, regulatory filings show.