Full Commission, unlimited potential
Pros
Great people, good training and awesome mentors. From the immediate firm level itself there are various key people that have contributed to my success. Older advisors actively want to help younger ones starting out. Being Self-Employed you truly control your own schedule, which is awesome. It gives you flexibility to do what you want. Unlimited earning potential. You can make a ton of money if you know a lot of wealthy people.
Cons
Extreme burnout and exhaustion from burning the midnight oil. Heavy compliance and regulation making it difficult to adapt to new technology and systems to make your life (as the advisor) easier. You have to use the systems and processes of the broker-dealer. You want to add something to your technology stack, forget about it... unless you are in the top 1% of advisors who have the ability to influence decisions. Lack of fulfilment. Early on in the career you have to spend a lot of time prospecting to find new clients. Only to land maybe 10% of the people you talk too. You are constantly chasing new cases and trying to convince people to take a meeting with you. You could be a super smart advisor, but without clients you have nothing to show for it. I spent a lot of time always taking care of other people and their needs, while neglecting my own. To do what? Its not a fulfilling career to start. You are constantly putting out fires for people and juggling what you need to make ($$) to survive vs. the advice you give. It creates inherent conflicts of interest even if you try your best to avoid it. Huge emphasis on selling life insurance and disability insurance products, which contributes a lot to your employment contract values. If you don't sell insurance policy's, you won't make contract and receive company benefits: health, group insurance, dental, vision. In the off chance, you don't make contract then you have to pay out of pocket 2x or even 3 - 4x the premium for the same benefits. This business is built on advisors leaving the business and the firm taking over the clients. The failure rate is 90%. 90% don't last over 3 years. Constant no's from people who you know and you can lose a lot of friend relationships because of it. Money is an emotional topic for people and advisors are forced to make friends to try and win business. Overall, its a super challenging industry and if you can stay in for the long haul its definitely worth it from a financial standpoint, but like I said 90% of people don't make it. There is a reason for that. Greed is also a huge thing that people don't understand, advisors are always chasing the next case. Besides all of that, don't average people just go on chat gpt now to ask questions? The industry will never keep up.
