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¶ … Mullen's "The Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice"

As the former Managing Director of Merrill Lynch, author David J. Mullen trained more than 500 financial advisors while attaining an advisor training success rate which exceeded the industry average, and he has parlayed that extensive experience into a comprehensive book titled The Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice. As Mullen explains in the Overview section, the book is divided into three parts: The Foundation (Part 1), Taking it to the Next Level: Building a Million-Dollar Practice (Part 2), and Market Action Plans (Part 3), with each part containing an diverse selection of chapters covering subjects like Motivation (Chapter 2) and Appointments (Chapter 6). The following summary will condense and codify Mullen's writing on the subjects of Motivation, Numbers, Niche Market, Appointments and Getting Appointments, and Prospects, with the objective being to synthesize Mullen's lessons within an abridged format.

In the Motivation section of The Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice, Mullen explains how success in the financial services industry is inextricably linked to marketing, and how effective marketing is the product of genuine motivation. According to Mullen, "how you spend your time shows how motivated you are" (2013), and this maxim represents the foundation of his teachings throughout this chapter. Mullen links motivation to one's willingness to accept rejection, and he consistently advocates for high-volume direct-marketing practices because financial services is a low-percentage/high-payoff business. For Mullen, one's personal motivation to devote time each and every day to direct-marketing activities, rather than avoid this essential responsibility out of a fear of rejection, is the fundamental key to eventual success in the financial services industry.

The Numbers section of the book provides readers with several mathematical formulas and rules which Mullen provides as a framework to guide future business activity. For example, Mullen states that "to support a million-dollar practice, you need to bring in $12 million net new assets per year and add at least ten net new $250,000 households per year, of which two or three are $1 million-plus" (2013), and while this equation may not be irrefutable, it undoubtedly serves as a template which can be followed to maximize potential earnings. In order to expand upon the statistics and formulas found in the Numbers section, Mullen includes the chapter on Niche Markets to illustrate how those financial targets are most easily achieved. Mullen's advisement that "the first step in growing your practice is to identify three to five niche markets and develop a market action plan for each one" (2013) points to his overall strategic objective of diversifying one's assets while expanding the capital capabilities of a financial services company.