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Here’s a profitable way to mine your static social networking connections. Morgan Stanley’s Rainmaker program takes mid-career professionals who travel in upscale social circles and trains them to become financial advisors.

Rainmaker’s stated “goal is to transform you into a successful financial advisor running your own profitable practice in just three years.”   

On the other hand, in three years you could become a PhD, an MBA, go to med school or become a master chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. But being a stockbroker is kind of cool. If my stockbroker is reachable by phone past market close on the west coast it’s only because there’s an office party that day or he’s required to be there. Otherwise, one assumes, he has a regular 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. tee-time.

The payoff is appealing.

“Financial advisors employing wealth management earn substantially more: $881,000 per year on average, compared to $279,000 for financial advisors taking an investment generalist approach,” Morgan Stanley claims. Well, generalist or specialist, it looks like you’d be doing well and you can brush up on your golf game.

My favorite part of the description, which is surprisingly direct, is this: “The program focuses on the key business-building and client relationship management techniques.” Note that it doesn’t say we’ll teach you about financial services so that you can give worthy advice. That’s because advisors who work for the big firms are not allowed to choose their own investment vehicles - they must buy and sell whatever the firm’s market gurus are hot or cold on that day, that week or that year.

Of course, the devil is in the details. Are you willing to ask your former fraternity brothers, friends or relatives to invest with you? Do you socialize with wealthy people?

One reason why Morgan Stanley is trying this approach is that Wall Street firms have tried everything else to recruit and retain talented professionals - mostly without success.  A friend of mine in the brokerage field tells me that maybe one in twelve rookies survive, often by a thread. Of course, most of those novices are just starting out in their careers; what’s different about this program is its emphasis on mining well-seasoned careerists.

My father - a fraternity president in college - made this ‘transformation’ in the early 70s when he jumped from a stressful industrial services management job over to a leading brokerage firm. My dad’s internship in financial services wasn’t frictionless, let’s say, but ultimately he excelled at being a stockbroker, winning sales contests that brought him to Europe and S. America later that decade.

I can certainly understand why someone would reach for the “brass ring” of financial services. It’s not for me though - I prefer media gigs and tennis over sales calls and golf.