The Wall Street Journal featured St. Louis' very own Edward Jones in a page-one article this past weekend. The paper visited the company's headquarters in Des Peres and followed around an Edward Jones agent as he knocked on doors in the southwest Missouri town of Monett.
Edward Jones reps are taught to hold a golf ball in their hand so their knocks are loud and their knuckles don't wear down. They greet people's dogs by holding out a clenched fist. "A flat hand is an invitation to be bitten," St. Louis trainer Amber Raney tells WSJ.
The door-to-door sales can be grueling. Sixty percent of all Edward Jones agents quit in the first six months of employment. That may explain why the company is one of the few investment firms hiring these days. Last year it added 998 brokers and plans to add another 5,000 more by 2012.
View a video of Edward Jones agent Jim Haston making the rounds after the jump.
