Anyone??

From what I remember, there is only one hurdle now, PC’s. I think the PC numbers are the same, they just dropped the other 2 hurdles. Unfortunatelty this forces PMD’s to focus on transactional business to survive and put managed accounts on the back burner.

The other two hurdles matter but it’s all about PCs. If you’re doing transaction based stuff early it helps but in the long run, year 2 and 3, those are harder.

If you split your wrap for equity and transaction based stuff for your FI it’s a good balance.

what is a pc and what would 4k in pc consist of? sorry that its a newbie question. just getting started

PC= Production Credit.
If you charge a client a 1% management fee, and they have $100,000, then theoretically $1000 goes to the grid as PC’s over the course of a year. When you graduate the program, you get paid 36-48% of those trailing pc’s, depending on your book size and other factors. But as a pmd you need to still be generating them. If you generate ONLY up-front pc’s (annuities) then you will stay in the program and maybe gather bonuses. But then when you graduate the program you will not have any trailing and you also won’t have clients with those available investable assets since you locked them up for 5-10 years. If you only do trailing, then you need to generate a lot more business, obviously.

So based off those numbers, I’d have to secure at least 2.5 of those a month to keep my job after a year, correct? In your guys experience, what do u see as the main reason ml trainees don’t make it?

Doesn’t matter why other people don’t make it, ultimately just try it and find out for yourself.

I am new to the industry but feel well read about the PMD program…but there is a lack of information as to how mortgages are paid to FAs and if they have a trail through the loan…one thread stated that a mortgage could be used as an asset to help mid hh meet the 250+ for payout…any insight??

Good to know thanks for the input…what about qualifying as a household, let’s say that someone has 150k in retirement and a 300k mortgage…qualify as a NNHH?

They are paid as a few bp. No trail. Not a significant enough amount of juice to make it worth while hurdle wise. Need to do VA’s in pmd. That’s where the up front coin is like it or not.

Interesting isn’t it? “Need to do VA’s in PMD. That’s where the up front coin is like it or not.”

Where is the interest in what is best for the client?

Where is the searching out of the clients needs?

Why go to work for a company that puts its noobs in a position where to continue to put food on the table they have to have as their first and foremost concern how to get their prospects into vehicles that yield the most in up-front compensation.

In most ML offices you will somewhere find the founder’s basic principles. I can’t recite them from memory but I believe one of them dealt with always doing what is right for the client.

7X55 offers excellent advice for the wannabe PMD because you really are going to need to be highly focused on what YOU need, not what the client needs.

It’s interesting. I’ve sat in a lot of FA meetings now and never once have I heard someone lifted up for sacrificing the needs of the FA for the betterment of the client. Not once.

I have however sat in a plenty of meetings where the person achieving the most commissions is held up as the example.

As for the original question about selling banking products I.e. loans. You are going to get regularly reminded of the wonder of doing the prospecting for the rather lazy BofA commercial loan reps in your area. They will want you to go out and find them business. They will be back at their office eating donuts and typing up really cool reports.

You are right ZwingDing.
I think what a lot of folks don’t understand is that this is a sales job. Remember where this profession came from… You are a stock broker. Your job is to sell investments and earn commissions to make money for yourself, the firm, and the firm’s shareholders. The whole idea of being an “advisor” or a planner was born out of the negative perception of a stock broker selling you something for profit. A “financial advisor” is just a stock broker with a more pleasant sounding name. This business has never been about the clients and it never really will be. That’s why there are so many regulations to protect them now. That’s why you need the fiduciary designation… to hide what you really are.

I love this job. I love helping my clients. But Im also honest about what I am.

The mortgage DOES bump the household up to the $250k minimum you’ll need once you’re out of the program. A year ago, there were wealth bankers in each location that would help you close the mortgages. As of 2012, they no longer assist PMDs UNLESS the PMD has done X number of mortgage for the year already (I think it’s 7). If you haven’t closed 7 loans, you get to work with the mortgage telecenter in NJ or somewhere. In other words, no specialist to meet with a client, no one local to help, just a call center. The wealth bankers still help the FA’s with mortgages, they just now are no longer supposed to help the PMDs.

Good to know thanks for the input…what about qualifying as a household, let’s say that someone has 150k in retirement and a 300k mortgage…qualify as a NNHH?

First off, let me say that I am in no way talking about DaBear, but this quote is exactly what is wrong with wirehouses. They put trainee’s into these situations where they have to look for other ways to meet their production requirements. Looking at a prospects mortgage to “qualify” them is just a way for Merrill, and more importantly, BofA to train these new PMD’s to be nothing more than bankers with securities licenses which is what BofA wants. Also, when a PMD looks at an asset backed mortgage or a “Parent Power 100” to either try to build a relationship or to add a few PC’s to their production goals, they do not understand that if they get canned, those relationships and assets are sticky and stay with Merrill. It’s all by design.

Also, “sailing after 5 years” is not reality. I know a few guys who hit their 15 year mark with a certain wirehouse and what did they get for it? They basically were told that that if they do not increase their production, their payout would go down. Before anyone say’s that they are probably low level producers, let me save you the time of posting a reply. These guys are averaging about 110 mil in AUM and are serious producers.

Hey All!

I’m reviving this post from the dead! Anyone have updated hurdles thru LOS 36 as detailed as this? Any other changes, i.e. are mortgages still included in NNHH?

Also, my biggest question: I know hurdles as based on base salary. anyone know the tiers for that? I can’t find it ANYWHERE!

This is my first post on the site, been lurking for about a year, lol. TIA!

Spoke to a friend who just left PMD program. Reason you can’t find it is because it’s being phased out. It was described by several brokers as the biggest disaster of a training program they’ve ever seen.

Going forward, new hires will be going directly onto a team and the team is in charge of training them. Comp is determined by the performance of that team’s book as a whole.

Interesting, gekko. So what are the implications here? Everything was correlated to hurdles before- starting salary, bonuses, everything. So, how does this change things? Do teams work towards a single goal? Is it wiser now to negotiate a higher salary since there aren’t higher hurdles attached? I imagine the team model will be much more successful, if they can do it in a way that’s equitable for both noobs and established FA’s. RJ has great success with eliminating hurdles for the first 18 months. It’s the old school, on the job learning model, no different from an interested kid learning the ropes from a parent who was an FA. I bet it means they’ll be hiring fewer people now too, since this should get retention in check.

Interesting, gekko. So what are the implications here? Everything was correlated to hurdles before- starting salary, bonuses, everything. So, how does this change things? Do teams work towards a single goal? Is it wiser now to negotiate a higher salary since there aren’t higher hurdles attached? I imagine the team model will be much more successful, if they can do it in a way that’s equitable for both noobs and established FA’s. RJ has great success with eliminating hurdles for the first 18 months. It’s the old school, on the job learning model, no different from an interested kid learning the ropes from a parent who was an FA. I bet it means they’ll be hiring fewer people now too, since this should get retention in check.

One would think the team model is the answer, than the arranged marriage model employed during the PMD era. From what I’m told, the teams are in charge of training and coaching that new hire up, as part of their own team. If that trainee adds to the bottom line of the team, then everyone gets rewarded. This gives the new hire time to actually learn the business (not the case in PMD), and will also reduce greatly the # of new hires and churn rate.

The real issue is the fact that BofA still doesn’t understand the culture at Merrill. It is and always will be an eat what you kill mentality. Too many brokers simply don’t want to fool with training a newbie that isn’t a family member. Evaluating talent takes time and skill. Brokers won’t want to deal with turnover either.

The only way BofA can force this new model on brokers is to mess with their pay grid, which seems to be what is going on judging from what’s being said on other websites…

Any updates on how this team stuff is going? I’m going to sign on with Merrill Lynch tomorrow as PMD joining a team, and would like some input on succeeding!