Know much about Mutual Fund Sales?

Trying to learn about that industry due to some friends making some good coin with good work/life balance. So far this is what I have dug up, and if anyone who is in this field or in a particular role, please add some input: So we are talking about “Inside Sales” here, which is working for a large mutual fund company trying to push their funds in the broker/financial adviser distribution, so when clients go into a broker’s office to invest in mutual funds, you hope your “sales” efforts will pay off so that broker/advisor can push your funds. So It starts with 1) Regional/Inside Sales. These guys work with/under a “Wholesaler”. and the main duties of the Inside guy is to work the phones/emails to push the product to a select group of brokers/advisors and can even sell blocks of funds over the phone, or at least try and make an appointment for that borker/advisor to meet with the “Wholesaler”. 2) “Wholesaler” is the Interactive/Face to Face sales guy who meets with these select brokers/financial advisers, does presentations etc. So after Wholesaler, I assume you move up to a “Region” where your responsible for wholesalers etc… From what I understand there is a BIG difference between the type of firm you work for. You could be working for a very small mutual fund company such as a firm that specializes in one product (e.g social responsible funds, principal protected notes, etc) and if the company is not that popular, then the role is basically cold calling/telemarketing, but if you work for a well-established mutual fund company such as a Fidelity, Vanguard etc… then the role is still sales in nature, but more focus is on the relationship building with these brokers/advisers. I also understand that designations such as the CFA were not really “required” but are now becoming more common place among these big firms because it all comes down to credibility when you are selling a certain fund to a broker, and being able to provide that extra knowledge/information etc. I understand that most of these roles are modest base salarys with lucrative bonus structures, and I also know that alot has to do with the econmoy and such a time as know when people are liquidatiing there accounts due to personal reasons or due to liquidity concerns, the net redemptions hurt your sales figures and your bonuses. Am I right here guys? people that work in the industry can you add anything else, or maybe info on salary’s/ bonus structure, room for advancement, need for credentials such as CFA etc… Thanks

I work at a top 15 mutual fund, although I work in equity research I have some friends who work in internal sales. Internal sales starts you off with just alot of cold calling. I would think it is a prtty shitty job. Pay is $40 base with potential to make $10 more which is ok for someone coming out of college. Getting a region gets you $70 base, with potential to make $100-$150 depend on region. Overall I personally would not pursue a career in sales. Pay is bad, and work as not very fulfilling. But to each his own…

I work on institutional side. The retail division of my company does what you describe. If I were you I would avoid retail and start your career working for institutional salespeople. That will help you more in the long run. The idea is to reel in 100M+ mandates, not 5-10M in a fund.

Danteshek Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I work on institutional side. The retail division > of my company does what you describe. If I were > you I would avoid retail and start your career > working for institutional salespeople. That will > help you more in the long run. The idea is to > reel in 100M+ mandates, not 5-10M in a fund. How would one start in that field? I mean what would be starting positions? I figured those jobs were mostly for new MBA grads.

I work as an inside wholesaler and my advice to you is to not pursue this job. Only reason to do it is if you want to be in sales and move up into an outside gig (which is a lot harder to do than you think coming into it). I did it thinking I would get my foot in the door in asset management and eventually lead to a reasearch analyst job, but here I am 2 1/2 years later still an internal and very unhappy. Hopefully when the job market turns around I can get out and into research.

Salary is 40 - 50k with about 20 - 30k bonus paid monthly instead of annual. CIMA or CFP is more common than CFP for Wholesalers.

IH8FSA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Danteshek Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I work on institutional side. The retail > division > > of my company does what you describe. If I > were > > you I would avoid retail and start your career > > working for institutional salespeople. That > will > > help you more in the long run. The idea is to > > reel in 100M+ mandates, not 5-10M in a fund. > > > How would one start in that field? I mean what > would be starting positions? I figured those jobs > were mostly for new MBA grads. Not true. They want people with one or two years experience ideally but it’s not impossible to get in right after college. You could join one of the institutional asset managers in client service and then go to another company and work for some institutional salespeople. MBA is not very common in asset management distribution. On institutional side (sales and consultant relations and account management) CFA is quite common.

LargeMouthBass Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Salary is 40 - 50k with about 20 - 30k bonus paid > monthly instead of annual. CIMA or CFP is more > common than CFP for Wholesalers. Large, Dont you think this is comfortable salary (for the work being done i.e phone work, normal hours)? I think you meant, CFP more common than CFA. What do you mean by “outside gig”?, are you referring to the travelling wholesaler (face to face, presentations etc?)

Yes, the pay is fine and yes I meant CFA. The outside gig is the traveling wholesaler. It all depends on what you want to do for a long term career. This job will not help you unless you want to become an outside (regional wholesaler). The comp is good for the hours, workload, benefits, but not challenging. I personally want to work on the research side so maybe I am biased. Not many of us internals are happy with the job, but most stay because it does pay well and doesn’t ask a lot from you.

LargeMouthBass Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes, the pay is fine and yes I meant CFA. The > outside gig is the traveling wholesaler. > > It all depends on what you want to do for a long > term career. This job will not help you unless > you want to become an outside (regional > wholesaler). The comp is good for the hours, > workload, benefits, but not challenging. I > personally want to work on the research side so > maybe I am biased. > > Not many of us internals are happy with the job, > but most stay because it does pay well and doesn’t > ask a lot from you. Hey large, thanks for the input, i appreciate it. See I dont want to be in a research/technical position, and its almost impossible to land in institutional equity sales unless your coming from a research associate position, but i was trying to decide between pursuing a career in the retail sales, or working as a private client advisor for an investment counsellor/High net worth private wealth firm. Just trying to gauge as much info as possible.

An easy way to start would be to work in a bank. I used to work for Jpmorgan Chase and it was really easy to get prospects to invest money. First of all, you would only be calling on current clients (i guess you can ask for referrals later) and second of all, you would be calling people who actually HAVE money to invest (you actually get to pick the age and location where they live of the people you wanted to call). They make you take your series 6 and 63 for bankers, and series 7 for financial advisors. The top financial advisors were the ones who were really smart and humble, and the worst ones who gave you a bad name were really sleazy, and idiots. As far as talking to people go, as long as you were honest and went through the motions; it was pretty straight forward. And you would sell them whatever fund you wanted. Only downside was that the bank kept most of the money and you only got a small portion and you wouldnt get much from existing clients. but it would be a good way to build a base of clients and a feel for retail sales. Then after that you can just go off on your own and manage the same clients if they want to stay with you. Thats what a friend of mine did, and he makes over 300k a year for someone thats been on their own for 3 years, which is not bad. Just hard work. I can give you more details on how he did it because hes on pace to make 500k a year in the next 2 years; but this post is already long enough as it is so i thought id let it be up to you.