Don Watson

Don Watson has been in the financial services industry since 1988, when he began his career as an intern at a regional investment bank in Cincinnati, Ohio. After six years at the wire houses, he entered the bank brokerage arena just as they were entering into the brokerage business. There were a lot of growing pains, as traditional bankers didn’t know how to handle this new crop of young, aggressive sales professionals who ran with their own maverick ideas rather than following the norm.

With original compensation structures still in place, Watson and some of his fellow Financial Advisors quickly became the highest paid individuals in the bank, causing some tension between more traditional lines of business. Here he learned valuable lessons in relationship management, diplomacy, and leadership.

After seven years of working as a bank Financial Advisor, he was offered the Regional Director position for an entirely new region obtained through an acquisition. Watson built that program from the ground up, overseeing licensing and registrations, compliance, staffing, and eventually sales. As often happens in this industry, that bank was sold to an institution that did not yet offer investment services—Watson presumed this was a fortuitous opportunity.

Unfortunately, they had no desire to offer these services, as they were a very traditional, foreign-owned institution, so his career took him to another regional bank, once again, as a Financial Advisor. In this incredibly well-organized firm Watson learned the valuable lesson of how using an effective model to its fullest potential can produce excellent results by working smarter, not harder.

Another lesson—a hard lesson—was that the only constant is that things change, and he gained an even deeper appreciation of supportive, well-working environments when, one day, his company merged with their largest competitor and changed the entire program to an ineffective model.

Sometimes setbacks can cause great opportunities, which is what happened next. Watson spent the following two years helping community banks enter the investment world through the use of Third Party Providers, or TPPs. This represented a source of revenue that was unknown to the community banking world and one that had low capital requirements, minimal risk, and large upside potential. He eventually went on to run the wealth division of one of those institutions, where one of his responsibilities was to create and implement a business plan consisting of the entire wealth division, including private banking, investment management and brokerage. Lessons of a Top Producer is based on that proven business plan.

In addition to Watson’s personal success, the feedback from those who Watson personally coached was so positive that he organized the practices and systems into one file and began writing his program. Lessons of a Top Producer is his first published book, and lays the groundwork for his comprehensive sales training program, the Apollo Sales Training, to be released in October, 2014. Whether leading a seminar at a trade event, giving a keynote speech, or coaching an individual, Watson is consistent with his message of personal connection, and has facts at hand to prove that his approach works.

Watson currently resides in Sarasota, Florida with his wife and children. He is an avid golfer and fisherman, Tampa Bay Rays fan, lives and dies by Cincinnati Bearcat basketball, loves the arts, and has been overheard to say he should’ve been a chef.