This is a joke that nearly got me fired from Merrill Lynch sometime back in the mid 1970's. The joke just popped into my head, and like a fool I raised my hand in an office sales meeting, got recognized by the office sales manager, and told it.
I was very new in the business. The Dow Jones industrial average had declined to something in the mid 500's, before my first year as a broker was over. Cold calling people to open accounts at the time was extremely difficult to put it mildly.
Merrill was launching a campaign to sell the Japanese company's Nomura funds. It was a big deal, but wasn't going very well.
At our weekly sales meeting, the office sales manager, John Olsen, asked us how the Nomura fund was selling. I may be wrong, but as I recollect, nobody said anything, and I thought it might be a good time for some humor, and I raised my hand. Mr. Olsen immedately asked me what was working.
I said, "Mr. Olsen, Nomura has a lot of client recongition."
He smiled, and asked me to tell everyone about how it was working for me.
I said something like, "When I call people up to present Nomura to them eveything goes fine, until I tell them that it's a mutual fund. Once they hear that, they say,
another mutual fund, I want Nomura of them. "
Mr. Olsen might have got the humor in what I had said, but if he did, the expression on his face didn't say so. With an angry glare, he cut me off, looked around the room for someone else holding their hand up, and the sales meeting quickly ended.
As I walked out of the meeting, I thought I was probably going to be fired, but I wasn't. As time went by, John Olsen and I became good friends, and somehow I think that he understood my creative humor, but just couldn't laugh at it at the sales meeting that day.
p.s. Struggling young broker that I was, I actually got some people to invest in it, and they all made money.
p.p.s. This post should in no way be considered a recommendation to invest in Normura funds. Consult your financial advisor before making any investments. Though I think it is no longer necessary, I've put my disclaimer in just in case...