Playground politics!

It is interesting to read about the current trend of product providers/networks of providing loans to adviser firms to assist them with their growth plans. I know personally of one provider who will pay anywhere between £10-15k per adviser for that firm to join their restricted network. After three years of membership and the loan gets written off. The terms of the loan will be “disconcertingly vague” (quote for those Alan Partridge fans amongst us) but it is safe to assume that there will be terms attached to it because of course there must for it to be considered commercial and therefore compliant.

These are commercial arrangements and I am not arguing against these because they are the way of the world. It does however remind me of life as an early teenager and the dynamics of the playground. Within all playground there was always someone, maybe a few of them, who would say “if you are my friend I will buy you…….”. The end of that sentence would be determined by age, gender and timeframe for example; ice cream, Panini stickers, Donny Osmond bubble gum. The object of the bribe was not important but the fact it was a bribe was. Some people would take the bribe blinded by the attraction of the gift but soon remembered why they weren’t friends with that person in the first place. At which point more ice cream/stickers/bubble gum or they go back to the group they were in before.

I am no fan of analogies but if you need to bribe people to join your proposition then it probably says that your proposition isn’t very good.

Furthermore, how fickle are the people who accept the bribe (as adults) and why will they simply not move on when someone comes along offering two ice creams/stickers/bubble gums? Mum – so and so won’t play with me anymore!