[quote=ShoreDog]

Thanks to all who answered my post regarding where to start.

I hear a lot about the training programs you receive at wirehouses, especially versus banks. What do wirehouse training programs consist of? Is it mostly sales training or product training? If wirehouse training is better why do such a large proportion of new reps fail within a couple of years? Is that all attributable to lack of work ethic, or just not being "right" for the business? I know that in business most people dramatically overestimate how much they will produce in the first 1-2 years. Does that factor in?

Lots of questions, but if I could get some experiences with the training from wirehouse and bank reps that would be great.

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You can't train a blind dog to see.  Some people will just not make it no matter where they work. 

The wirehouse training is dependent on the trainers in my opinion.  My trainers had decent advice, and always an opinion.  But everyone has an opinion and you should seek other's as well.  A problem I saw as I was leaving was that the "trainer" said that on ALL accounts $500k and up, the trainee should bring him in on it and he would take a cut.  Obviously, from my vantage point, he is looking out for his best interests because when you're not there, he gets the account.  That's just my experience.  More important than "trainers" is your access to resources.  If you don't know anything about trusts, you have a trust department who will talk you though everything.  Same thing for retirement plans, insurance, whatever you need. 

They have their goals on how much you need to produce.  That is your bottom line.  No need to overestimate, treat that quarterly figure as your worst case, or else you will fail.  If you want to make decent money after the program, you need to beat the goals by a mile.  Also, don't think that you have a full 2 years in the program.  They will bounce you if you haven't done sh*t in the first 6 months.

Thanks for the info regarding the "bringing in" the trainer on 500k accounts.

I can imagine that some are good and some are bad. My bigger question is what they focus on. Is it sales or product or is it just learing their system?