I would like to give you my insight and experience on why I think WFG is the best opportunty in terms of sheer income.

For the record, I'm not defending WFG in any way. Don't get me wrong, this company has some serious flaws and problems. But as you read, you'll see why WFG offers the best opportunity to make more money than any other wealth management firm out there.I'm a senior at a top 20 B-school. I joined WFG junior year as I was approached by someone asking if I wanted an internship. I wanted to dress up my resume, so I immediately said yes. The office was pretty far, and I told the person that I could not travel that far. She offered to pick me up and bring me to the office. My thoughts? So I just met a stranger who said she could possibly give me a finance internship, and drive me to the office. And I hadn't even talked to her for more than a minute. Something's up. 

I attended the presentation, a marketing director just talked about the company and they provided an example of how much you can make. They said if you recruit this much, and help this many families, you can make $100k a year. I didn't believe them, but I ended up paying the $100 fee to join. I was busy with school at the time, so I wasn't involved for over a year. I did a internship with an investment bank at NYC as a sales and trading summer analyst, and I got my series 7. I realized that I didn't want to have a career in trading. I believe in investing, not trading. I wanted to make some supplementary income with WFG as a side job, so I decided to get more involved with WFG. I talked to my marketing director, and I basically told her that I didn't believe that she made as much money as she claims, not in those words of course. I could not believe that a Goldman Sachs investment banker makes less than some financial advisors in my office, including my boss. She pulled me over and showed me her account from the WFG website, $193k in income for 1 year. She also came over and showed me her tax return, $193k. I was absolutely shocked. 

World Financial Group is a financial services marketing organization. There are no products that are underwritten by World Financial Group. Rather, they are a broker that acts more like a middleman between large insurance companies and final buyers of these products. WFG has many partners that they do business with. Some are ING, Prudential, Fidelity, Western Reserve Life, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone Group (Goldman and Blackstone are more investment funds based), and many more. If you only have a life insurance license, then you are only affiliated with WFG and can only sell insurance. Once you pass your FINRA series exams, which lets you sell securities such as mutual funds, annuities, stocks, bonds, etc., you will officially become a financial advisor with Transamerica Financial Advisors. Transamerica and WFG are both owned by Aegon. Fun fact, Transamerica Corporation was founded by the co-founder of Bank of America. When I first joined, all I could think was pyramid scheme, network marketing, no way you guys could possibly make this much. The truth is they make more money than many FA's at big firms like Merrill Lynch. Lot's of anger and hatred toward these kinds of companies, and for good reason. 

 WFG is owned by Aegon. Aegon is an insurance giant, about $424 billion in assets. They're publically traded on the NYSE (AEG).  I'll list their major problems here: 

 1. As long as you don't have a criminal record and have a US SSN, you can join.They don't care about your resume or work experience at all. How would you feel if someone that didn't even graduate high school was managing your money?  

 2. The training sessions is basically all motivational speeches about really vage and general stuff. No actual training about products or anything. 

3. Marketing Directors will tell you to go to big conventions in Las Vegas and other places. Again, it's all speeches and testimonials from the guys on top about how WFG changed their life and that they're financially independent and everything. These are also very costly events that WFG associates pay for by themselves; event tickets, flights, food, hotel, will run you around $1000 out of your own pocket. 

4. No salary, all commission. In the long run though, this actually provides more income with WFG's compensation structure.After a little over a year, I started to realize the benefits of this company. I never thought one day I would want to work for a network marketing company. Probably not the proudest thing to say. However, you can make more money here than almost any other wealth management firm.

WFG is indeed a network marketing firm. In order to make big money, you have to have a big team of people under you. Getting 15 solid people that are active in this business underneath you will make you a marketing director in less than 1 year. Easily. According to many marketing directors at different offices, average income for a year is $60k-100k for MD's. The problem is that almost everyone in this company is a second jobber. Many people don't even do anything with the company and throw out that $100. Therefore, in order to get 15 solid, active people underneath you, you might need to recruit 40 people or more. One of the best things about this company is that you have job security. If you're a marketing director make $90k a year, you will never be fired unless you deliberately do something illegal. Not only do you have job security, you're income grows each and every year as your team naturally expands. Your recruits will recruit, and your recruits' recruits' will recruit etc.

My office has a handful of people that have immigrated from foreign countries and can't even speak good english, and they have become marketing directors making six figures. They entered this industry knowing absolutely nothing about finance or investments. Anyone that is a regular to this website clearly is interested and very knowledgable about the wealth management industry. If the people in my office can become MD's, every one can do it here in about a year or less.

Let me explain the hierarchy:

Training Associate- after you pay your $100, this is your title. The $100 fee goes to no one, it goes straight to the main office for a background check, administrative fees, study material, and other things to get you started. As a Training Associate, you are at a 25% contract level.

Associate- to become an associate, you need 3-3-30. 3 recruits, 3 sales, in a rolling 30 days. For the sales accounts, you don't have to necessarily sell them yourself. If you don't have a insurance or securities license, then your MD will sell it for you and get the fees, but it will count towards your promotion. If you have the approrpriate licenses, you can sell these products yourself and get the commission. Also, these sales can be as little as a ($4000 IRA or a $200k life insurance policy). Contract Level is 35%.

Marketing Director- this is the first level of management. The requirement for this is:1. 3 direct associates (personal recruits)2. 5 life licensed associates in your team- so if you recruit A, A recruits B, B recruits 5 people that are licensed, that will fulfill the second requirement. It does not have to be personal recruits that have these licenses.3. 40,000 net points in a rolling 3 months. This is the hardest part. To give you an idea of the products to points ratio, selling a $200k life insurance policy generates about 1,200 points. This means that WFG made $1,200 in commissions from the company that WFG deals with. At the Marketing Director level, the contract is 50%, so you make $600 from that policy. A $6,000 IRA generates about 400 points. The 40,000 points is for your entire team. So if you have 1 recruit that gets 20,000 points and another that gets 20,000, then you will become a MD assuming you have the first 2 requirements. The points don't have to come from personal recruits, if A recruits B, B-C, C-D, etc. all the way to Z, even Z's points will count towards your 40,000 points. The key to getting successful is recruiting people that will become active in the company. This is harder than most people think. Getting a big team really is not that hard, if you recruit 20 people, 12 out of those 20 recruit 12, 6 out of those 12 recruit 10, then you already have a team of 224 people. 40,000 points in your entire team comes out to less than 200 points per person. Average income is $60k-$100k. Contract level is 50%.

Senior Marketing Director- Requirements are:1. 10 life licensed associates in your team2. 3 personal recruits, 1 of them has to be a MD3. 75,000 points in 12 months.My Marketing Director is a SMD. As I mentioned earlier, she made $193k last year. Average income is $100k-$240k. Contract level is 65%. Not sure what the contract levels are after here.

Executive Marketing Director- Requirements are:1. 3 personal recruits that are all Senior Marketing Directors2. 750,000 points in 12 months.The branch office manager in my office is a EMD. He made around $400k last year. If you think it's weird that I know how much these people make, you're not alone. I think my MD is telling this to me because she wants me to get motivated and excited about building my team and eventually earning that much one day. Also, the more I earn the more she earns.

Average income is around $250k-500k a year.

(If you're thinking it's weird that I know how much these marketing directors make, you're not alone. In any traditional company, no manager would let their employees underneath them know how much they make. But because of the nature of this industry, it is advantageous to let those underneath you to see how much they make. Think about it, my SMD will get more income if I make more income, because she will get an override from me based on the difference in our contract levels. By showing the people underneath her how much she makes, they will become motivated to get to her level. I couldn't get myself to believe how much these people make, but it's true. They make fortunes here, I've seen their accounts in person.)

CEO Marketing Director- Requirements are:1. 6 personal recruits that are all Senior Marketing Directors2. 1.5 million points in 12 months According to my MD, the average CEO MD makes $812k a year. There are less than 100 CEO MD's in the enitre company.

There are probably close to 60,000 associates in WFG-Transamerica Financial Advisors, but only 8,000 people are securities licensed. This is a high turnover company, mostly because there are many people that just sign up and don't do anything. You also need lots of people and leadership skills in this business. Everyone that is underneath you, you are in charge of. I really enjoy the aspect of leading a team, many people find that they personally grow a tremendous amount through this.

This company isn't for everyone. If you want the prestige of a bulge bracket wirehouse such as Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley, you aren't going to find it here. But Transamerica is a good company in itself. Anyone on this site is clearly interested and knowledgable about the wealth management industry, and has what it takes to become a Marketing Director in less than a year. If people that don't even have a college education and the slightest idea of what finance is can do it, then everyone of you guys can do it. If the guys at Merill Lynch at the PMD program can cold-call all day and get 10 million under their account, then they can become a Senior Marketing Director in less than a year. Also, your manager won't be able to fire you and take that 10, 20 million you cold-called years for and transfer it to your account. Your recruits stay with you for life. There are lots of bad reps with this company. They call themselves financial advisors, and technically they are, but only know enough to barely pass their insurance and series exams.  Nothing to do with you though, they will be the ones with no clients after losing all their money if they truly don't know anything about investing. With the financial knowledge and experience in the industry, you will become a sure hotshot at the company, and you will make lots of money. Again, for these reasons, this is why I believe that WFG-Transamerica provides the best income potential than any other B/D out there. Even more, it provides the best income potential at the fastest rate. 1 year in this company, and you're making at least $70k. Well, that's about it. Never thought I'd want to work at a network marketing firm, but it's still a B/D in the wealth management industry, with a credible company such as Transamerica. Think about this opportunity.

Also, I think it is possible to have your securities licenses with another B/D, and have your insurance license with WFG. A State Street trader is works at my office part-time and is just with WFG.

Feel free to private message me with any questions.