Internal Wholesaler

I was looking at a internal wholesaler position at Cap Group and was wondering if anyone had any experience in internal wholesale at Cap Group or another company like AB or BlackRock? From what I gather it involved pitching their funds to financial advisors and pwm firms. Is that right? Is it mostly done over the phone or in person at an analyst level? What kind of future careers could this help lead to? Is pwm something that many wholesalers do eventually? What would be the difference between an internal and external wholesaler?

Thank you everyone for your help!

 

An external wholesaler directly faces the clients in an asset management shop. The EW is a salesman -- he travels around the country (or the region that he covers) pitching prospective investments to clients. The internal wholesaler provides support to the external wholesaler. There is very little "pitching" done by internal wholesalers -- mainly just helping the EW. Not too sure about exit opportunities.

 

Yes as an internal you will be calling up advisors and pitching your companies funds. As an internal it will be done mostly over the phone, with less than 10% travel depending on your firm. Generally, people come over from PWM and become wholesalers, not the other way around. notbirdman is incorrect in saying there is very little pitching, and that the internals act mere as a support function. At blackrock there is a desk that supports externals, and they are not internal wholesalers.

 
Best Response

Internal wholesaling = cold calling/email blasting. You're expected to make 60+ phone calls a day to a list of advisors/consultants to talk about your funds in order to get your outside wholesaler into their office. Once the relationship is established the internal is purely support but will still call/email their contacts several times a month to keep their products on the radar.

Almost every single AM shop in the country has an IW/EW setup. It's ironic that Goldman just started their wholesale business just a few years ago. Usually they're out a head of the curve.

 

Internal pay would be 50-110k depending on structure and performance. External pay 200-500+ depending on same. It's pretty competitive and a bit seperate to the IB track, but getting your CFA/MBA as an internal will help you if you'd like to move into institutional sales, analysis, or high level marketing. Most internals want to go external in a nice territory (socal, northeast, etc). Personally I'd live in missouri for 500k. Anyways this is all from what I've read

Compensation is not commensurate with education.
 

Can anyone else provide input regarding this topic? I have an interview with BNY as an internal wholesaler, any idea on what the pay is and the exit opportunities? Thx in advance!

 

Most of the information listed on this thread is accurate and let me confirm something....as an internal you will spend a considerable amount of your time calling people like me trying to pitch your firms products. The pay quoted above by mid535 is also accurate.

The goal of every internal is to become an external and once there you probably won't be too concerned about exit ops. That being said i have seen plenty of people go from PWM into wholesaling but I've also seen it the other way around where the wholesaler joins a large, established PWM team.

 

As a CSA, you should have had plenty of exposure to both internal and externals, reaching out to some of them would be best.

Internal roles vary from firm to firm, I believe there are few wholesalers active on this site who should be able to give some good info. I do know some internals who moved to the product side or a portfolio specialist type role.

If you like sales and entertaining clients, being an external is a great gig. I have not met a single one who wished to transition out of the position. You bust your ass as an internal with hopes of getting that promotion, once there you will usually stay and only bounce between firms.

 
wrapfee:

Gotcha. Are you already licensed? Also, what was your sales experience? If it was real, relationship based sales experience, it won't matter that you don't have a finance background.

Mortgage Banker doing primarily inside sales, I am not licensed for any of the series's unfortunately. The development of a relationship is obviously huge there. These being my first (jobs) I wanted to learn as much about the process as possible and also took more of a servicing type role, logic there for me was to learn to build relationships past the sale.

 

Got it. I'm not sure if the licensure thing will be an issue (I'm guessing they will be willing to sponsor you though). Really, for the wholesaling gig, the sales experience is key and that's what you want to focus on with your resume and interview.

If you let me know what firms you're looking at in those cities, I'll get you some contact info (assuming I have a relationship / do business with any of the firms you're looking at).

 
wrapfee:

Got it. I'm not sure if the licensure thing will be an issue (I'm guessing they will be willing to sponsor you though). Really, for the wholesaling gig, the sales experience is key and that's what you want to focus on with your resume and interview.

If you let me know what firms you're looking at in those cities, I'll get you some contact info (assuming I have a relationship / do business with any of the firms you're looking at).

I appreciate the help, I am going to keep researching firms and identify a few. Do you mind if I message you a few of them as time goes on?

 

The goal of being an internal is to get out as quickly as possible.

Of the two kids who broke into our department from the internal team, one has his Charter, the other is sitting for Level #2 in the spring. I have found zero benefit from the CFP in a non-retail role, and my company wouldn't even hold my 65.

The only difference between Asset Management and Investment Research is assets. I generally see somebody I know on TV on Bloomberg/CNBC etc. once or twice a week. This sounds cool, until I remind myself that I see somebody I know on ESPN five days a week.

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