Jim Weddle is positioning Edward Jones to be the top of mind choice

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In January 2012, Weddle made a big deal of explaining the long-term vision to the team at Edward Jones, not just what the vision was but why it was needed.
“Laying out a long-term vision provides the opportunity and the potential to get everybody aligned,” Weddle says.
The early success Edward Jones has seen with its plan is due to a thorough self-analysis the company performed when it first decided to create this vision.
“When we worked on our five-year plan we did so with the guidance and assistance of two gentlemen, one being Jim Collins who wrote, ‘From Good to Great,’” Weddle says. “One of the things that he suggests is that you ask yourself three questions.
“The first one is, ‘What do you do better than anybody else?’ The second is, ‘What are you most passionate about?, And third is, ‘What’s your economic driver?’”
Weddle says that Edward Jones’ business model makes the firm the better than anybody else in the investment process.
The firm is most passionate about helping its current and potential individual investors live a better life.
And lastly, its economic driver is its financial advisers.
“It’s not easy to get your arms around the answers to those questions,” Weddle says. “We had a lot of answers before we got it right.”
The second adviser that Edward Jones used in its planning process is Michael Porter, a world renowned expert on strategy, who preaches that strategy is all about a sustainable difference.
“It’s about doing things differently or doing different things than your competition and making trade-offs,” Weddle says. “It’s about making decisions as to what you’re going to offer and what you’re not. Who you’re going to serve and who you’re not. How you run your business comes down to the choices that you make.”
Those two things, the three questions and the tradeoffs, are the core of Edward Jones’ long-term plan.
“If you haven’t gone through the process of thinking those things through, good luck,” he says. “I don’t think you understand who you are or what business you’re in, which means it’s going to be very hard to optimize your results. That’s the value of the planning process for us. Yes, it does bring alignment, but it also brings focus.”