Wells Fargo Bank Advisor Platform
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A branch manager in my local area has been prospecting me pretty hard to leave Merrill and come to Wells on the bank side. I am a former legacy BAI advisor, current book is $120 million, 1.2 million in Revenue. From what I am hearing the deals are from 100% to 110% upfront with backends for assets and revenue. I very much enjoyed working in the bank platform raising 20 million a year for the past 6 years from bank referrals. I have noticed that alot of advisors in my current ML office are struggling just to open accounts and the average net new assets is 3 million. I like working with the ML platform and the products are great, however my clients really enjoyed PB&I and alot of my larger clients used to have account with ML and are just not happy being back. Questions:
How similar is the Wells Fargo Bank advisor Platform to BAC PB&I platform?
Has anyone recently recieved any offers from Wells managers and what did the offer look like (ufpront, lenght of contract, backends)?
If you currently work on the Wells Bank platform, are you receiving refferals, and how much in assets are you raising a year?
What percent of your referralls come from Private Bank and what percent from the branches?
It seems a lot of BAI advisors left for the Wells Bank Platform, if u are one of them, what are your pros and cons?
Thank you for your responses.
Which bank side are you being recruited on, Private or local branch? I was offered 90% upfront, 90% on back end. Seems like a decent program just didn't want to move a book. Are there local branches near your location?
The offer was for the branch side. I am not sure they make the type of deals for retail brokers to move to private unless they have a real deep book of big clients. I am not sure I want to move my book as well, but with out the steady flow of referrals my trail is getting lower, and if a client dies or transfers, its tough to replace them. I just can’t see myself with ML over the next 10 yrs. I don’t want to move the book, and its likely I would only bring 50 percent, but if I can build like I did at BAI, ii should be fine.
Stay put!
I would not risk my book, to jump from one crap hole to another.
Why are you not getting referals from your current book?
I'm a former BAI rep and we still work for Bank of America. I understand what you are saying because I'm in the same boat. The name on the door says Merrill but it will eventually change to Bank of America Wealth Management and there will be opportunities back in the bank in the very near future. I agree with everything you say and I don't know how some of those lower producing FA's survive. I think most of the big producers just got accounts from people who left over the years. Hang tough and be patient and I think you will see a lot of the good parts of the BAI program adopted. Don't leave and let them have your book. Remember, Bank of America saved Merrill.
Curious, the best thing about working at BAI was knowing that we helped people who needed us. Now I feel like I am in the position of finding people and forcing them to believe they need me. And since brining in accounts is a slim occurence we r likely to put our clients in high revenue producing prodcuts cause we don’t know where the next trade comes from. I would like to think we work for BAC, but it is clearly obvious that BAC executives are scared to even try and influence ML. Bottom line is ML is running our side. Example: when was the last time u heard about our core values. I think most of us one time in our life have to ask ourselves, When I look back on my decisions, is staying with this firm the one thing I would change? And sadly I think yes. BAC ruined themselves.
Cutacheck...LA broker ... I too, am very seriously considering a move to wfc bank branch, but I would be coming from large wire...i have an established book. Main reason, growth opportunity. Too hard to grow now days at big wirehouse. I am hearing that wfc bank FA's that are located in a good branch are getting refrl's from the bankers, and that 2-3 new relationships and 500k new money per month are reasonably attainable goals. I've already seen the new tech platform being rolled out to all bank branch fa's, and it's the exact same as wfc wirehouse plat....and bank fa's are now called wfc advisors rather than isg. So, from my perspective, same name, same tech platform/products, you lose 3% on grid and have to sit in branch versus nice cushy wirehouse office but, you have bankers bringing you warm leads every week...and, it appears there are some existing bank assets/gross to help offset some of what I would lose in transition.
Any thoughts from anyone with knowlege of wfc bank channel would be appreciated…thanks.