how did you accumlate 7 mil in 6 months?

My family has been in finance and investing for generations. Many of our family friends are wealthy and very big in investing. 4 of them decided they would each give me 1 million for 1 year and see what kind of return I can get them. They are trying to get a better return on there side. Another family friend had their financial advisor retire and I took over their 2 ish million dollar account. The rest are just some small accounts Ive made through networking.

Ironically not one of them has any connections in the wealth management side. Most of it is in IB and CM. 

If you don't like cold calling, I would probably stay away from the wirehouse, regional, or independent model.  It seems most peole like the concept of managing people's money, but very few are willing to suffer the pain of the first few years while you build a book of business from scratch.  You are more likely to be spoon fed prospects in a bank environment, but also need to accept that you might not have the freedom to manage portfolios the way you desire.  Expect that you will be doing much more by way of mutual funds, annuities, and separately managed accounts if you go work in a bank.  If you want to manage accounts where you buy individual companies and bonds as examples, you should be up front when you interview to avoid ending up in the wrong environment when you make the change. 

The reality is to be successful in this career, you typically need to excel at marketing and sales. The willingness to Cold call, deal with rejection, and always being held liable for our decisions are the primary reasons why we get paid so much to do what we do and why most fail at doing it. 

Becoming a junior portfolio manager at a large RIA firm is also an option.

Independent thanks for your input.

It has been my impression that slowly everyone is moving away from cold calling because of the "do not call list and that it has become less successful over the years with caller id and such. Will the wirehouses give me a scrubbed call list or something to avoid this? Or a generated list of people they think have investable assets or money at other firms?

I should say that I dont like cold calling because people at my firm never get anything from it. We also receive no support on how to do the calls or pre-apporved lists. Many are just calling pretty much random. I have nothing against the idea of it and I did cold calling back in college and didnt have a problem with the hang up and rejects and threats haha.

You really hit the nail on the head with why I dont want to go for a bank.

Any input on Fidelity investments? Is it the best of both worlds? Of course I understand I wont get paid the same and my income will be limited. 

Why does it matter what others are focusing on at your MassMutual office? If you are prospering do what you want and build your own practice.

The wires pay a salary but you'll find the companies pays out less than Mass on investments and insurance. So, they give to you with one hand and take it away with the other. At Mass they give you higher payouts but no salary which is, again, giving to you with one hand but not supporting you with the other.