First Command Financial Services reviews about "commission"

Tough career. Less than a year of financial support before becoming commission dependant.

All they can "sell" you from an investment standpoint are Class A high priced mutual funds which come with a massive 5.75% sales charge and over a 2% management fee. Their ENTIRE model is based off of WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE. If you do not sell it, you won't make money. They PUSH it on military that have $400,000 SGLI ALREADY. This policy has a MASSIVE commission for their advisors and is literally ripping money away from our military families. They are being deceived into buying a price insurance policy before paying off DEBT or putting money away in a LOW COST investment that almost ANY other firm can provide.

They are crooks when it comes to paying you. They will lie about how much commissions are paid to them from the companies and then give you a portion of that money. You are expected to run your business by paying for help, rent, your own taxes for about 33% of the commissions paid out plus any bonuses. You also have to pay a monthly fee to First Command for their home office support. After you leave them, they will hold any commissions that came in for the next year and then release them to you but can charge you for up to 2-5 years for any charge backs that come. I'm not sure how that is legal since they don't continue to pay after a year. You might be surprised after you thought you moved on a few years later to get charges from them. They will push whole life insurance sales because of the larger commission pay out.

1- The company talks about doing what's best for clients, but the compensation system for advisors pressures them to sell whole life insurance. 2- Slow to pay advisors their commissions and fast to take money on charge backs. 3- Very challenging gates for the first year advisor. Investments sold by the first year advisor does not count towards the quarterly gates (only insurance sales). Only one year program for new advisor income before going to 100% commission. 4- Financial planning software is outdated and not user friendly.

Very hard to make good commissions without selling whole life policies. Some district advisors may have been great advisors but have been promoted beyond their ability, which creates bad district work environment. There seems to be a culture of malicious gossip among some district advisors and management at corporate.

Transitioning from Gateway/Fast Start to Independent Contractor is rough, and you don't always get a lot of support. Commission and compensation is confusing.

It's a challenging career because people are too caught up in today to care about their future. It's easy to get frustrated and discouraged from the cancellations and no-shows. This is more of a calling than a career. You have to honestly care enough about people to pursue them in their own best interest.

- There is a BAD "Frat-Boy" mentality and favoritism among the District Advisors, which can make for an unhealthy work environment. - The District Advisor (DA) can make or break your career. If you end up having any type of personality conflict with them, they can disengage from your business which can make it very hard to succeed. - The pay & compensation structure while you are a W-2 employee (a 9 month observation period) is somewhat low for the industry, especially considering they will NOT pay you any commissions on products sold during this time, however, the bonuses can help. - Current restrictions to soliciting on military bases makes it very difficult to meet clients that fall within your target market while new minimum income restrictions to work with non-military eliminate many well qualified people that could use the expertise. - Much of the leadership is out of touch with the current demands on the military (again, target market) and they expect that the clients can just take off work to meet with you whenever. While this might have been true in the 90’s and early 2000’s, the reality is that our military men and women are taxed on their time already. - With your core market being military and having frequent moves, you end up losing the clients you've built strong relationships with due to overly strict territorial boundaries. To make matters worse, since you've already serviced most of their needs, there is not much incentive for their randomly assigned new advisor to take the time to give them the same service you gave them. This ends up to an inconsistent experience for many clients. - If you're fortunate enough to make it through the hourly/salary phase and become an Independent Contractor (IC), be prepared to spend several thousand dollars right out of the gate for overpriced laptops, home office support fees, office bills, and many other on-going "business expenses". - Their idea of work/life balance is allowing you to pick which 60 hours you work each week, even once you launch your own business as an IC.