And just because it says I JOINED on the 2nd, doesn’t mean that was when I started lurking… Just clarifying, thanks.

Starting with your last question, 200k per year invested by you and your spouse might look nice and all, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the assets you’ll need to gather in a year as a new advisor.  Plus, if you’re in the business you’re entitled to commission free purchases on many mutual funds and UIT’s, and may well discount your stock or bond commissions, so that 200k won’t really do much to help your numbers.

EJ is a good place to start in terms of learning how to sell and work hard in a focussed manner.  Skills you’ll need to build a book.  Problem is, from there, it may not be a good place to grow, to serve a more sophisticated clientele, and may not be the best firm to “put your clients’ interests first”.  AS well, the General Partners make a TON of money on the backs of the IR’s, and the atmosphere can be pretty cult-like, from what I gather.  I must disclose to be fair that I’ve never worked there.  So, add all that together, plus EdJone’s tendency to have a holier-than-thou attitude towards their competition and advisors who have left to go indy, and you see why there’s so much animosity.

The indy firms themselves will have no interest in you as a new advisor.  Those firms are in the business of providing “infrastructure” to established and experienced advisors who have chosen to own their own businesses.  As such, that’s what they target.  However, each branch is individually owned, and if you are really really good and have a good portfolio of contacts, it may be possible that you find a local advisor who wants a new associate and is willing to sponsor you.  You might want to consider “cold calling” some of the local advisors and networking with them, see if you can set up some informal lunch or breakfast meetings to learn about their long term expansion plans.

As for your question about the licenses…I wouldn’t worry about that right now.  After all, you generally have to be sponsored by a firm to take the exams, and if you’re not working in the business yet the licenses are basically useless.  Plus-here’s the big secret-all those tests really aren’t a big deal!  There just your first step-your barrier to entry to the business.  When the time comes you take a prep class, you study your arse off, and then you pass them and they become pretty much a distant memory as you get to work building your business.  The reason there’s so much posted about those tests on here is that they ARE a big event in the life of a rookie, a source of anxiety, and rather than using the search function they come on this board and post the same questions over and over about how to prepare for the tests.

IF I were you, I’d spend any advance time you have reading books about selling and networking skills, learning about the markets, or even start working on getting your CFP designation.  You can take classes online, and get one or two of them out of the way.  You could also invest some time getting involved in local charitable or business networking activities that boost your public profile and grow your natural network of contacts, something you can leverage once you get into the business.

As one of our fellow veteran posters says…just my 2 cents worth.

[quote=goldcan]I found this forum after being contacted by Ameriprise, set up an initial interview with them but later canceled after doing some research,  But was attracted to the idea of becoming an FA/IR/whatever your firm wants to call you, so I hung around and started reading.

Before it gets said by others, I'm not going to ask the base salary (even though eleventy kabillion dollars does sound attractive).  And even though I've used the search feature quiet a bit, I'm not in my 60's and don't have the time to read every post from way back in nineteen and aught one, PUT/NEWBIE (not a personal attack... just an easy one).

I'm not even considering entering the FA field for another few years, mainly because I don't want to be the guy asking what starting/training salaries are for a firm because I agree, it's not about the initial years, it's about the long term, and right now I'm not comfortable enough with my savings and assets to put my family at risk for a down time.  If I were single, it'd be balls to the wall, but I'm no longer responsible for just myself.

Anyway here's a few questions:

I see that EJ is a big topic on the board, but the one thing I've noticed is that a large number of Indies started out there.  Isn't that kind of like biting the hand that feeds you?  How else would you have gotten your start?

Will Ray Jay, LPL, or AIG Advisor even sponsor a newbie for a series 7?  That being said, has anyone here started out as an independent and stayed that way?

Since you need a sponsor to obtain a series 7, and a 7 is required for a 66, would it be worth independent study for for the 63 and 65, getting those out of the way and then applying for an FA/IR position?

I've seen a few posts about recommended books (Carson/Sandusky, Siegel, Good, Murray, and so on) anything/anyone else you'd recommend?

And I suppose the last one comes from a lack of knowledge on everything but if a person were netting 300k a year, living on 100k, could they feasibly "pad" their book by setting themselves up or their spouse up as a client and invest 200k a year?  From what I understand you'd be taking your own money if you were to "charge commission" on yourself, but has it been done or is it done to improve AUM?

Thanks for your time, sorry for the run-ons, and it's "couldn't care less" not "could care less", night.

[/quote]

If my wife could invest $200,000/year, I'd stay at home and look at internet porn all day.

[quote=My Inner Child]

[quote=goldcan]I found this forum after being contacted by Ameriprise, set up an initial interview with them but later canceled after doing some research,  But was attracted to the idea of becoming an FA/IR/whatever your firm wants to call you, so I hung around and started reading.

Before it gets said by others, I’m not going to ask the base salary (even though eleventy kabillion dollars does sound attractive).  And even though I’ve used the search feature quiet a bit, I’m not in my 60’s and don’t have the time to read every post from way back in nineteen and aught one, PUT/NEWBIE (not a personal attack… just an easy one).

I’m not even considering entering the FA field for another few years, mainly because I don’t want to be the guy asking what starting/training salaries are for a firm because I agree, it’s not about the initial years, it’s about the long term, and right now I’m not comfortable enough with my savings and assets to put my family at risk for a down time.  If I were single, it’d be balls to the wall, but I’m no longer responsible for just myself.

Anyway here’s a few questions:

I see that EJ is a big topic on the board, but the one thing I’ve noticed is that a large number of Indies started out there.  Isn’t that kind of like biting the hand that feeds you?  How else would you have gotten your start?

Will Ray Jay, LPL, or AIG Advisor even sponsor a newbie for a series 7?  That being said, has anyone here started out as an independent and stayed that way?

Since you need a sponsor to obtain a series 7, and a 7 is required for a 66, would it be worth independent study for for the 63 and 65, getting those out of the way and then applying for an FA/IR position?

I’ve seen a few posts about recommended books (Carson/Sandusky, Siegel, Good, Murray, and so on) anything/anyone else you’d recommend?

And I suppose the last one comes from a lack of knowledge on everything but if a person were netting 300k a year, living on 100k, could they feasibly “pad” their book by setting themselves up or their spouse up as a client and invest 200k a year?  From what I understand you’d be taking your own money if you were to “charge commission” on yourself, but has it been done or is it done to improve AUM?

Thanks for your time, sorry for the run-ons, and it’s “couldn’t care less” not “could care less”, night.

[/quote]

If my wife could invest $200,000/year, I'd stay at home and look at internet porn all day.

[quote=My Inner Child]

If my wife could invest $200,000/year, I'd stay at home and look at internet porn all day.

[quote=goldcan]

[quote=My Inner Child]

If my wife could invest $200,000/year, I'd stay at home and look at internet porn all day.

Let's also not forget that to net $300,000 a wirehorse has to gross $7-800,000.  What you are probably mistaking is that the broker is grossing $300M (M is thousand in broker and Roman numerals, we're more conservative that those Metric hippies with their K's) with a 33% payout and (gross)netting $100 (gross netting meaning before tax fica and all the rest).

And, yeah, Well, if you are clearing $300M and YOU have a wife that lets you live like you're clearing $100M, you have some wife there! I'd call BS on that one there! I don't care what your house payment is, that just means you can get the bigger Mercedes, and they're not regionally priced.

As to your bank chart... That's less than 20M/person. No wonder your housing is so cheap! I mean, you have to figure that the population gets paid and that flows into the bank, then the population buys food at the grocery store and that flows through the bank (so the money is counted again) What do they say? A dollar turns 5 times in a community? That would mean that $4m/capita per year. I don't know the report you are looking at but I'd have to assume you (and I) are looking at it wrong.

Mr. A 

goldcan:

I also was looking on the FDIC site for info about money flow through my city and was wondering if anyone had some pointers on what chart I should be looking at?  The one chart I found said $1billion flows through the banks in my zip code a year with a pop of just over 50k in the zip code.  If I am reading the chart right. 
------------------------------------

The website www.fdic.gov will tell you how much money is on deposit, with the local banks, in your zip code. I'm not sure what you mean by "$1 billion flows through the banks...with a pop of just over 50k in the zip code".

Deposit totals are a quick way to determine the attractiveness of a particular area, as far as, marketing to middle and high net worth individuals. Although I've never seen what percentage of total deposits might be available for investing, I think 5-10% of the total is a fairly conservative estimate.