Edward Jones – making sense of investing

Photo: Jackie Rybeck

FINANCIAL ADVISOR – Joel Speakman, financial advisor and Janice Stevens, office administrator, recently opened a new Edward Jones branch on Main Street in South Paris.

SOUTH PARIS – Main Street in South Paris is the home to yet another new business: Edward Jones, which is a full-service brokerage firm.

According to Joel Speakman, financial advisor at Edward Jones, everyone is in need of an advisor; no matter what stage of life they are in.

“We help people plan for the future,” he said. “Whether you are planning a child’s education or are planning for retirement.”

Edward Jones advises clients with business retirement plans, education savings, IRA’s and investments in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

“We also do everything else in between, such as checking accounts, credit cards, trust management, mortgages and insurance.”

Speakman said that Edward Jones is not your typical investment firm.

“Many people think all firms are the same,” he explained. “But we are not a corporation, we are a partnership and we are owned by our advisors and employees. The biggest difference is that we have small neighborhood offices and are always available.”

According to Speakman , all Edward Jones advisors make a conscious effort to get to know each and every individual client.

“The first thing we do is get to know our investors, face-to-face; even if it’s knocking on doors. It’s a simple conversation about what is important to them. It could be that they need financial advice because they just got married, or maybe just changed jobs or need to know if they can retire.”

As part of getting to know his clients, Speakman discusses financial goals, risk tolerance, as well as stage of life to aide in developing each client’s portfolio asset allocation.

“After determining financial goals, we go through a series of six, simple questions,” said Speakman. “That helps us find an objective, based on what they tell us through the questionnaire.”

Financial analysis is not new to Speakman.

“I had a15-year career with Dupont in sales and marketing,” he explained. “My main responsibility was doing the financial analysis on Dupont’s largest competitors.”

In 2007 Speakman and his wife decided to move to Maine.

“We always wanted to live in the mountains and my wife, who was raised in a small town in Illinois, missed that type of atmosphere. I took a job with Sunday River Resort doing conference sales.”

And that is where Speakman met the people at Edward Jones.

“They were telling me they needed a representative in the Oxford Hills area,” he smiled. “I got my insurance and securities licenses and worked out of my house for over a year, and based on the fact I met the goals they had set for me, Edward Jones helped me open this branch.”

Speakman is happy with the choice he and his family made in moving to Maine and the Oxford Hills area.

“It’s great to have a change to give back some of the financial knowledge I have to the community in which I live. I really prefer the personal interaction and that fits perfectly with the principals of Edward James.”

Edward Jones is located on 243 Main Street, Suite 2B South Paris. For more information, Speakman can be reached at 743-2041 or joel.speakman@edwardjones.com.