I work with FAs all day and have to agree that most (90%) are incompetant and are more like used-car salesman
We still don’t know what you do. Anyway, at this point it doesn’t really matter. If you pay attention, genuine people on this forum with real life experiences normally share what they do in their jobs and provide insights and opinions based on that. It doesn’t happen in your case. As far as knowing people from this forum, there are a bunch of people here that know me personally too. That still doesn’t take away from what I posted.
Its already been said but I think there should be a distiction made between the FAs out there selling products and true wealth managers. I’ll agree an FA that is out peddling American Funds to everyone and their brother with $25,000 tends to end up a bit like a used car salesman - they know their product well and they tend to be good salespeople. Remember there are low-level equity analysts too, and low level i-banking, and low-level everything. To the OP, you’ll be able to sniff out a lower-level job if they want you to immediately start producing. I am a CFA and CFP, partner at an RIA doing wealth management. I still consider myself an FA because that is what I do; the business card says wealth advisor but same thing. I do zero sales, occasionally I’ll pick up a client from a friend or associate but that’s not my role. My partner and other people are responsible for the rain making. I’m fairly young, so knowing people with $5M to invest is hard for me. Yet I am a partner and my name is on the sign because of the CFA and CFP and the knowledge. You better believe that people with $2M-$20M to invest know what the CFA is. I know with gotten clients because it. We do a lot with alternatives. I’ll be a CAIA most likely in 2 weeks. We’ve even had a client ask about that designation about a year ago because he wanted to make sure we were doing our homework on the alternatives. You’d be suprised, especially now, how closely HNW investors are looking at their advisors and their designations. Some still say, “here’s my money, don’t lose it” but the majority are much more active atleast in evaulating the advisor and wanting to understand the strategy. As for adding value for the clients, wealth managers are in the biggest position to add value. For more value added by proactively recommending using gift tax exemption to pay off that private split dollar (which the attorney won’t do proactively) or reminding them to take the credit for amt recovery from their ISOs from years ago (which the CPA probably missed), or allocating their portfolio correctly and accessing alternatives (which they wouldn’t do on their own). Far more value added to people’s lives than a buy-side or sell-side analyst. And the pay is pretty good.
Iginla2010 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > thommo: you’re welcome. > > I know I came out blasting on this thread, but I > really take a lot of pride in what I do and when > some d!ck takes a stab at it, that’s when I drop > my gloves. > > I am genuinely passionate about helping my > clients. One time, this 62 yr old widowed client > of mine asked me to come out on a Saturday morning > with her to a car dealership just because she > wanted someone by her side while she was making > this big purchase. Of all the people in her life > that could have qualified to be this person, she > felt comfortable enough to ask me to come with > her. It made me feel great! I think that’s really cool, I would love to be an adviser like that one day.
I recently quit my corporate job after 15 yrs to start a RIA firm (mainly discretionary accounts). I don’t have any advisory exp but I do have investing exp using deep value strategies. I am not sure whether it is looked down or not but if you do the right thing for the clients and able to generate alpha, you will be respected. I think the sense of responsibility is also very high when you meet those clients. I can provide more details as my firm kicks off. one other way is to see whether any one can provide initial capital for some equity. When I started I was approached by couple of firms like that.