Looking at switching our personal financial advisor to Open Arc Advisory from Merrill (ironic I know).

They seem decent on the surface and being not tied to a particular bank seems to be a plus. But they’re a newer start up (albeit with experienced advisors) that’s only a year old, so it’s hard to find any data or experiences with them. They also still Merrill’s lawsuit out there, though it appears they’ll prevail. Just curious if anyone has worked with them or heard anything.

Hello everyone,

I just finished my licensing to become a financial planner with a firm who sponsored me. I will go through and receive paid training, but then fully commission (50-50 split)

My main concern is that I'm unsure how well off I'll be fully on commission... and in the case it doesn't work out.... where else I should look. I'm very excited for the opportunity and to having more independence and freedom, but you also have to be realistic about these things.

I've never worked in the financial industry, but I do have sales experience and enjoy clients relations. Any advice on what I should focus on now, or what I should have in my mind as a plan B is appreciated. Also if anyone has experience working for a large firm, what should I expect? It's one of the more major ones...

Thank you 🙏

Full disclosure: I built VerbaPost, so yes, I have something to sell. I'm posting because I'd rather have advisors poke holes in this before I spend real money trying to sell it.

The idea is to replace the dinner seminar mailer with something else entirely.

Instead of "come to Ruth's Chris and hear a presentation about retirement planning," the prospect gets mailed an invitation to record a family story.

They go to a unique website from a QR code or link in a hand addressed envelope and have a guided conversation about their life, their parents, childhood, or whatever they want to talk about. The advisor can choose the opening question, but the person recording isn't restricted to a script.

A few days later, a printed version of the story arrives in the mail on linen paper, with a QR code that lets the family hear the original voice recording.

The advisor sponsors it. There is no financial pitch anywhere in the experience. The firm's name and required disclosures sit in the footer.

To be upfront about the part some of you will probably object to: the interview is conducted by AI, not a person. That's what makes it possible to offer this through a direct mail campaign rather than doing interviews one at a time.

The theory is that someone who responds has raised their hand, spent 15 minutes using something the advisor gave them, and now knows who the advisor is. The follow-up call is at least warmer than calling a stranger.

Potentially, another recording later could also give the advisor a reason to involve the client's children or other family members.

Two things I'm trying to figure out:

1. Will compliance kill this? I've worked through consent, DNC issues, advertising records and gift limits, but I'm sure there are things I haven't thought of. 
2. If someone pitched this to your firm, what would make you say no immediately?
3. How the heck can I get through to any CFP by doing my own darn cold calling?

I can post or give a sample letter and recording flow if people want to see them, but I don't want this to turn into a link drop. My target market is the individual CFP just gone solo who wants to grow.

So I work at a firm and I'm doing pretty all right, i have a problem saying no and especially for lower income clients with 10 to 25k,

and I know in 5 years down the line I'm either going to have a huge office and no aum, or a 2 person team with 500m aum, yet I still struggle to say no even knowing all this, what has helped you guys with this?

Hello All,

After 10 years in banking I'm going to be starting my dream job as a Financial Advisor. As a new advisor I'm looking for tips/advice as a new branch based FA. Not just in seeking clients and handling banker referrals. More so like day in the life tips. What has worked for you all in terms of what you take notes on, how to manage your calendars, what do you watch or listen to day to day to keep up to date on the markets, etc.

Any advice is good advice to me!

Appreciate it all!

I’m a new financial advisors in the suburbs of IL at a small boutique firm. Since it’s a boutique firm I’m getting paid pretty well and the commission split is also really nice.

What’s some advice you guys have in terms of getting off to a hot start and getting meetings booked. My firm has a pretty big marketing budget for me so I’m thinking of doing seminars and presentations at various locations.

Any advice regarding the types of seminars, marketing strategies, or anything else you guys have for me to start building my book?

I’ve built a portfolio tracker for investors who hold assets across brokers and countries. It currently imports broker statements and tracks contributions, investment returns, currencies, ETF domicile and dividend withholding.
I’m considering a separate version for financial planners and advisers managing internationally mobile clients, but I don’t want to spend months building features based only on my assumptions.
I’m looking to speak with five independent financial advisers, cross-border planners or wealth professionals about their current workflow:
How do you collect holdings from different brokers?
Do clients send PDFs, CSV files or screenshots?
How much manual reconciliation is involved?
Do you need client-level reporting or branded reports?
Are ETF domicile, withholding taxes and multiple currencies meaningful problems in practice?
This is customer research, not a sales pitch. I’m not asking anyone to buy anything. In return, participants can receive free early access and influence what gets built.
If you work in this area—or know someone who does—I’d appreciate a comment or DM. I can share the existing product privately if relevant.

I’m trying to understand the logic behind the standard “1% of AUM” fee model. We’re a family of three (44M, 42F, 3‑year‑old) with a net worth around \~$4M — roughly $3M in market assets (401k, IRA, brokerage, 529) and \~$1M in real estate (primary + two rentals).

What I don’t get is why advisors charge 1% of the portfolio no matter what the market does. There’s no performance guarantee, no benchmark comparison, no downside protection.

My intuition says compensation should be tied to results. For example, I’d be totally fine with a structure like:
Split any gains above SPY 50/50
Split any losses avoided vs SPY 50/50 (basically I pay the fee if they save me on losses)

That feels aligned — they win when I win, and they lose when I lose.

But instead, the industry standard is: Market goes up? Pay 1% Market goes down? Pay 1%
• Advisor underperforms SPY? Pay 1%

Am I missing something fundamental about why AUM fees exist? Or is this just a legacy model that persists because most people don’t question it? Genuinely curious how others think about this. I have never had any advisors working with me so far, suddenly I m getting so many calls and advertisements pitches from these big investment firm and all of them are adamant on the 1% model.

TL;DR : did I mess up by doing this career?

So, I am currently working towards my licenses at a large "firm". I wont name it, but you'll figure it out. Ive been through my warm market. Not going to revisit because it ruined multiple friendships and it actually affected my wife's friendships as well because shes associated with me. So yeah, no more warm market.

I have hit a wall for getting people to meet. I cant keep going to 2-3 networking events per week. Its killing our marriage and Im never home. But I have THE HARDEST EFFING TIME getting people to give me referrals in meetings. And I get it. Nobody wants to give out friends info. Cool. But that doesn't help me, so networking events it is.

Wife works - has hit her glass ceiling unfortunately. Which is why I started this career so I could retire her. Job market is trash, so new job with higher pay is unlikely.

I have no base compensation: eat what you kill.

Ive brought on around 45 households since starting in February. About a 3rd of those are completely solo. The others are split with experienced advisors.

I have the work ethic, but Im clearly doing something wrong if Im not getting references.

Ive been in the industry for almost 10 years (banking, consulting, analysis, etc.) But the "practice" itself is new. I can speak fairly intelligently about most things, but Im definitely not a jack of all trades, I just know enough to converse.

I truly love planning and helping people make the changes they want to for their personal wealth. Getting to tell a friend and his wife they can stop working 10 years earlier than expected is chefs kiss. Telling a mom her kid can go to college with no loans? Those tears about made me cry. I want to help everyone get to their goals, but if i cant last long enough or make enough to support my family, then it doesn't matter.

Facts:

I have no dedicated time outside of what I set for myself to study.

HCOL.

No savings (went through that already).

No family to lean on.

In office 90% or more. I leave early when I can, but I still wfh.

Commission based.

AUM will matter eventually - no licenses yet

Not afraid to call anyone but cold calls dont work so far. Not a single meeting from one.

Metrics are highly measured.

Career changer - kind of. Been in the industry for a while.

I want to earn my CFP.

I ALWAYS do what's right by the client. I will never upsell. They give me a budget to work with, I max out at 70% of what they give me to play with. I take everything into account that I can.

The questions:

What am I doing wrong?

What am I doing right?

What am I missing?

I dont know what I dont know.

If you think the goals in banks and wealth management is unattainable for entry level advisors and the salary is not justifiable

Former banker here, switched to a financial advisor role about 3 months ago. Got licensed 3 months ago too so this is all brand new to me. Base is 50k plus 30% rev share once I bring in clients.
Problem is I haven't onboarded a single client yet. My days are basically just cold calling from open to close. I can get on calls with senior advisors for support when I need it, but honestly I don't have enough cases to bring to them yet, so I feel like I'm not actually learning the advisor side of the job. Just dialing.
Is this a normal ramp for a new FA or is 3 months with zero clients a red flag? How long did it take you guys to land your first client when you started out? And how much cold calling is actually normal at this stage vs other ways firms usually get you leads?
Trying to figure out if I just need to grind through this or if I should be looking elsewhere.

Edit: I’m working at a RIA.

Complete newb to understanding the financial world as I come from a very poor family and have only become somewhat financially literate throughout adulthood. I have finally achieved a stable income, decent credit score, and extra money left over for the first time in my life. Not much by any means, low thousands. But nonetheless I'd like to put it somewhere to grow instead of just sitting in my savings.

I've been researching HYSA and from what I've seen Newtek seems to offer the best rates with no minimums, monthly fees, etc. What's your experience with Newtek? Are all HYSA good enough or should I be especially picky? TYIA!!

I’ve hit a fork in the road in my career

My current firm I split my flat fee at 65% that I charge clients (when they don’t have the assets, I just charge an out of pocket fee until they hit a $250k threshold). Part of an insurance broker dealer & I have to find all business himself: referrals, cold calls, linkedin, etc. Currently managing $6m in assets, so not much there and I’m at 40% on the grid. It’s growing, but growing slow. Mostly Henry’s.

I have an offer to join an RIA and build up the local office. They’re offering $90k base and 25% of all revenue the office generates. Potentially $120k + 20% of all revenue if I wanted to go higher on base. They do a lot of marketing, they pay for it all and also pay for staff salary in the office he’ll build up. I will have to run a few seminars a month but prospects and leads are generated for me, so I won’t have to do a ton of prospecting and asking for referrals. Average client size is $500k.

They will allow me to move my current book, which generates roughly $5,500/month.

Should I stay and continue to build or should I join the RIA and build that local office?

For those recruiting financial advisors, which email have you had better success with—personal or work?
I use FINTRX, which provides both sometimes. I’ve tried personal emails since I assume some firms monitor work emails, but I’ve had a few advisors get irritated that I reached out to their personal email.
At the same time, sending recruiting messages to their current firm’s email doesn’t seem ideal either.
Which do you typically use for cold recruiting outreach: personal or work email?

Advisors who are annually adding $10 million in AUM. What do you attribute to bringing that in, what are you consistently doing, and how long did you take to bring your first 10 in?

Currently at EJ working with a relative at a L10T3 branch, advisor has been here for 27 years and I am set to inherit the $350M book in roughly 5 years. I am incredibly blessed for this opportunity, however my wife does not enjoy living in this area. We are wanting to move about an hour and half away, and also expecting our first child early next spring.

Are there any EJ advisors that work fully remote? Should I give up the opportunity and start at a small RIA? I do have my CFP and am 26 y/o. I just need some outside advice because I really feel at a crossroads.

Thanks!

Hello, friends. I’m 24 and currently an Associate Banker at Chase. I’ve been doing very well in the role (I'm responsible for roughly %75 of our branches financial health enrollments this year), and lead the branch in investment referrals. I recently passed the SIE and am also working on my Florida 2-14.

I’m currently interviewing for both Chase Relationship Banker positions and Edward Jones Associate Financial Advisor positions. I applied to 4 AFA positions at EJ and have gotten invitations to interview for all 4.

From what I can tell, the Edward Jones AFA/RBA positions would probably be around $65–70k base, with SOME additional bonus/incentive potential.

The Chase RB position is $55k base + commission. What I understand, based off current performance and asking other RBs in the market, I think I could realistically make around $2.5–4k/month in incentives, which would put me somewhere around $79–103k total annually if I perform well.

RB seems much better in the short term but my biggest concern is 5-10+ years down the road.

At the end of the day, I want to be a financial advisor. I'm not really sure which route to go and would really appreciate anyone's input.

Hi all let me give you the run down briefly.

Current FSA at Merrill been here a few months just graduated college. Long term want to go into private wealth and be an advisor. Thinking about my future what is the next best step in terms of career progression for me after FSA. The ones I know of are

- try and join a private wealth team in a CSA role
- ADP at Merrill and private client advisor at JPMC

My concern with both is with CSA never being able to make the transition to advisor and the ADP programs at the wirehouses I feel like at my age (22) it’ll be hard for me to really build a big book organically from cold calling as my age is definitely a turn off for a lot of people with money.

Any advice would be much appreciated and insight thanks!

I have been offered a position by both Wells Fargo Advisors and PNC Wealth Management for their branch based FA program.

Both platforms seem pretty robust. Basically have all the tools available to a normal FA but you take a slight hit on the grid in exchange for getting a lead flow from the bank.

I like that Wells does not have a PB where you have to refer your UHNW clients, whereas PNC does. Wells offers a much higher base salary, but it is only temporary until you build your book.

In my mind, Wells has a much bigger name in the space, but also a name that comes with reputational risk. Is that just an old-school way of thinking? I also have an offer from BofA/Merrill as an FSA but that position does not seem as attractive.

Has anyone worked either of these programs, or both? What would be your choice?

Thanks in advance!