Pros
After the 3-5 years, you will have your own office, an assistant and mostly autonomy with a better work-life balance. There is some initial good training on relationship development. They have good incentives in these stages for asset gatherings. They are conservative and therefore do not put clients in highly speculative investments which is good for clients and financial advisors. They do not have competing products and are focused entirely on financial advisor offerings. They do not have their own products and partner with top firms so there does not seem to be any conflicts of interests with the client. Their product representatives and operations in the home office that support the financial advisors are for the most part knowledgeable and helpful. Pay you to study and pay help you start your business
Cons
Have not figured out working within expensive cities yet Expect people to actually and literally go out and knock on doors as a client acquisition strategy Are completely inflexible about working with employees or processes The technology that supports the Financial Advisors is ancient and they have bandaids upon bandaids and tons of work arounds for the most basic of functions They do not appreciate nuances or people that bring different things to the table and varied backgrounds. They hire many people as financial advisors with no investment experience and provide very little training on that function. You have to hit their expected numbers or you are cut and that is decided by a person who works in the home office, never worked in the field and has provided little value in the process. The Health Insurance is very expensive for very little. Very sketchy on the salary amounts they discuss with you and what they give. You have zero work life balance in the first 3 years. It is a 6-7 days 60-70 hrs a week. You don't make your numbers, you will be cut. Their payouts are not competitive They are not flexible about expected numbers or payouts