Any Financial Advisors Here?
Hey everyone. Just checking to see if there are any financial advisors here. What do you love about the job? What do you dislike about the job? What is the next job step for you after financial advisor?
hello Donut, yes I'm a FA with one of the big 3 wirehouses (UBS/ML/MS)
What do you love about the job?
most things. the autonomy to make my own schedule, have no boss/sales requirements/quotas/mandates from the company other than legal/regulatory compliance stuff. the meritocratic nature of my income (if I work harder, I win more business and then make more money; if I piss off clients and they leave, I make less money), the unlimited nature to income, the ability to choose who I do business with, the fact I can work within a small team but part of a bigger organization (small company feel but big company resources), the casual nature of it (for example, I can take off for a 5 day surf trip and no one bats an eye, not even clients), the intellectual stimulation but not in the way you think - the CFA type stuff and individual security research is fine, but the harder questions are fun for me like when someone's trying to decide to pursue some complicated strategy with their company stock/IPO, how to assess possible upside-downside and put that in context of the rest of their picture is interesting to me, plus there's no real formulas for that. and finally, travel. I have clients all over the country, go to a few cool conferences every year so between that and personal travel (obviously pre pandemic, only been on 5 trips since Covid) I get to see a lot, which I love.
What do you dislike about the job?
very little. aside from normal leadership gripes like how to engender a good culture, how to lead by example, how to resolve intra-team conflicts, etc., since it's very entrepreneurial in nature there's very little to complain about. it's frustrating when a trade doesn't work out or markets go haywire but thankfully we haven't gotten smoked by anything and work really really hard to protect against/avoid huge downside situations. only other thing that's a slight negative is the time lag between winning business and compensation. I could win a huge client and maybe see a net after tax bump to my pay of only a couple hundred bucks, so I don't ever get that bonus elation feeling, my income is pretty smooth
What is the next job step for you after financial advisor?
my plan is to stay in this job until I am no longer going to work, it gets better with time so why leave? other next steps are accumulate a big enough PA and clientele that I'm calling more of the shots. I'd like to explore if I could live/work remote during the winter months, but beyond that I'm happy.
Do you mind sharing what your aum is and how long it took you to build your book?
answered a little of that here - https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/then-and-now-thebrofessor
I know I'm nitpicking words here, my book isn't built, it's constantly being built, and that's one of the misconceptions with PWM, you're never "done."
more specifically, I'd say it takes 3-5y to feel like you're probably going to survive, and maybe 10 to be near certain of that. rule of thumb is if you're consistently bringing in $5-10mm in new money annually, you're at very little risk of losing your job and have a high potential for success. I'm probably more cautious than most but that's because in any job where you're 100% commission and have to cold call, you run scared for a number of years and never really feel safe. I'm young enough where I still feel that, and while my rational mind will tell me to shut up and realize I'm doing fine, still haven't shaken those rookie feelings
Have you ever seen someone move from IB to pwm? IB seems like a great place to build relationships with uhnw individuals to pivot to being an advisor.
oh yeah, it's not common but it's very possible, what holds many people back from going into PWM is that you're giving up a great salary for one that starts at $50k a year or something but unlimited growth. if someone has a few years worth of savings in the bank, they can manage through that, just most people shy away from it for fear of taking a step back and never recovering/not making it
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