When it comes to an innovative business model, West Palm Beach, Florida-based Contemporary Financial Solutions may have the most unique business plan: it welcomes lower producing representatives and treats them like VIPs. The plan seems to be working, since the reps that have signed on seem truly devoted to Contemporary Financial Solutions (CFS) and gave it the highest marks of any B/D in Division I, making it Broker/Dealer of the Year in the smallest of the divisions.
Insurance producers selling traditional fixed insurance are "by far our largest segment," says Scott Yamamura, group president of CFS, "maybe 20% of their income comes from securities." Alternatively, CFS's reps might be CPAs, or attorneys, and may be semi- or fully retired.
In the summer Dan Mayer, owner of The Mayer Group in La Crosse, Wisconsin, plays golf in the morning and works in the afternoon. Affiliating with CFS in April 2006, after being downsized from ING Financial Partners, he has about $20 million under management, mostly in fixed insurance products. He likes the relatively small size of CFS, the "down to earth" and "responsive" people he deals with at the home office, and adds that CFS does "just as good a job, if not better, than ING" did for him.
