I'm currently in the recruiting process and they are asking for a "business plan". This is what it exactly says in the beginning.
"Successful client prospecting is an intense, challenging and rewarding activity with direct results to your success as a financial advisor, especially in the early stage of your career. You will be asked to identify and develop an initial prospect list of several hundred names as you enter Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s Financial Advisor Associate program. These names and contacts come from your family, friends, professional groups, colleagues, neighbors, club members, teammates, alumni, veterans and other groups with which you have a connection. The second part of successful prospecting comes from being able to replenish these markets and develop new names and contacts on a continual basis."
I mean you're in college, are they really expecting you to know hundreds of contacts to join MSSB? I find that laughable and obnoxious. How in the world can a 20/21 year old know even 50 professional contacts. I probably know like 30 professionals who are alumnis of my school and will be extremely difficult to approach them with this topic.
If I don't know these "hundreds" of contacts, will it jeopardize me to work there or become an FA?
Someone with experience in MSSB, please share the story, I'd appreciate it.
Sounds like a cult . . . or Amway, lol.
Seriously though - you gotta think beyond "professional contacts." Rich friends' parents, not so rich friends' parents, professors. Where does your first uncle once removed work? Whoever his boss is, write it down!
I've never wanted to do FA stuff for this very reason, but the people I know who did it successfully are freaking SHAMELESS in their pitch. They literally reach out to anyone and everyone to build a book. If that makes you uncomfortable or awkward, then maybe it's not for you.
Did the same thing with UBS Wealth Management. FA roles are just slightly better than car salesman + insurance agent. Remember Boiler Room? You will be working the phone every minute of the day. I absolutely hated this part of the job.
I took two years off to go to get my Masters in Accounting at a non-target school. I don't think it helps me in getting an ER job. I only did that so that I can legally stay in this country a bit longer to find a proper job. I am an international student.
Being an FA sucks. But I did learn a lot of valuable sales techniques.
It is useful for life in general. Learning how to speak with people and how people make decisions can help you get what you want and need from them. But you can get that from any number of great sales books out there. It is just practicing the delivery and understanding that people make decisions based on emotions and then try to back up that decision with logic after the fact. So you need to appeal to their feelings. It might seem counter-intuitive that even brilliant people make emotional decisions but I have found it to be mostly true. That is why it is so hard to make money as a trader or investor, most people simply can't make decisions rationally and consistently.
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