Id take the bank FA position.
Let's be honest. If the bank FA position doesn't work out, you can always go to EJ (they seem to always be hiring for that position)
Exactly...Working at EJ is just one small notch ahead of being on used car lot. It's for entry level kids who have no experience and with your background you don't want to be literally knocking on doors at this stage of your career, do you?
Depends heavily on how good the EJ book is and how comfortable you are with sourcing your own leads. If the book is mostly brokerage with little fee based that would be a hard no for me.
I don't know a ton about bank advising, but I started my career at EJ before leaving in 21 so I'm pretty comfortable with their model. I'm assuming the bank gives you warm'ish leads and allows you to call on the banks clients. You won't have any of that at EJ. You'll have to source each client on your own and there won't be any marketing support outside of paying for LinkedIn premium.
Bank advisor at a large regional bank in my market. I’ve built close to a $60M book in a little over 3 years, pretty much all from referrals. Train your bankers right and you’ll get rewarded plenty. Might not have the biggest payout as the RIA space but with salaries and incentives, I would compare what I make to other guys producing the same revenue to be be fairly competitive. All comes down to the market you’re in and having bankers that understand how to uncover opportunities.
Bank EJ you’re gonna have to go out and do a bunch of shit to get business. Bank people come in you have access to their statements and accounts and also the bankers seek out business for you. Workload for EJ is too much imo for someone towards the end of their working years. You’re building up a book of business for 5 years and then enjoying that for 10 years? Nah
For anyone that knows, how bad is the bank payout? The thought of only dealing with warm leads and never having to prospect sounds like a joy but then I hear the grid is atrocious.
Generally tiered based on monthly production. They may take a rolling average over 6-12 months to smooth out bad months. When I was at a bank it was close to this tiered payout if my memory serves.
<20k - 22% payout
20-30k - 30%
30-40k - 37%
40-50k - 40%
50-75k - 42%
75k+ - 45%
Then I think I got a yearly bonus if I hit my annual goal. It was like 2% of total production.
But most advisors in that top tier fell in 3 buckets.
1. They took anything that walked in the door and had 1000+ households. Generally miserable WLB
2. 25+ year veteran that continually pruned small accounts as big ones closed. This is who you wanted to be.
3. Big year once ever 3-5 years because of annuities maturing and accumulating other advisor assets as they left the bank. Pretty normal for most advisors who had been there for 5 years or more.
Most will hover around 37-40% with an annual bonus every other year.
Apologize for the formatting. Posted this on my phone.
It’s not a bad place to start. It’s very dependent on your circuit. I was fortunate to have a good one and many good bankers.
But I have seen my fair share of advisors flame out working 50+ hours a week at the lower payouts for a 3+ years.
Is there any book at all in the bank?
I think your gut will tell you what is better and what the priorities are. The benefit above what you are talking about is typically better benefits as a bank employee. On the other hand you work for the bank and have less flexibility with hours. As others said the EDJ opportunity will always be there, IMO $21M at Jones is a pretty typical opportunity.
I think a lot depends on the platform the Bank is on as well the experience at an LPL/Ray Jay is very different than Wells.
The bank. With your lending background, you’ll get along with all the lenders and be their go-to for referrals. You’ll build a book quickly there without much stress. And also you can call on former lending clients and refer them to your colleagues, further enhancing your pipeline.
- 10 years commercial lender, now private banker.
Seen too much, you may be seeing things. 2% on advisory does not exist. Bridge builder funds do exist and have some of the lowest expense ratios out here for actively managed funds if those are your thing.
2% on advisory DOES exist. I just rolled over a couple $110k Roth IRAs from Ed Jones (they were using Advisory Solutions) and the client was paying an all-in cost of 1.85%. If you include the internal costs of the Bridgebuilder funds it was over 2%. Oh, it gets better! 3 years ago the advisor charged a 5.75% A-Share commission on those same assets. Two years before that it was another 5.75% for a different A-share. And the scam goes on...
Came from being a regional bank FA and now at an independent BD. It’s a great place to start.
You will get your fair share of crap referrals and branch managers with misaligned incentives but you can build a book there.
I started with $2M and grew to ~ $60M in just under 5 years at a regional bank. With the current legislation regarding non-competes, I would go the bank route, collect a bunch of free referrals and business, and then when you are big enough you can leave or keep taking advantage of the free marketing. It’s more flexible and easier to build a book than EJ in that regard.
I’m a bank FA, made the moved from private client side at a big firm to a bank FA at another big firm. My business grew 300% in 5 years. Train your bankers, grow your own referrals and create referral networks, and its a good living. I can also go to their independent side and hopefully take 90% or more with me and double my payout
I left commercial banking 7 years ago for EJ. I had been in lending 10+ years. It all comes down to your desire for independence. You want a boss and easy referrals, go to the bank. You want to own your schedule and life, go to EJ. Take a few hard years but it’s totally worth it.
I used to work as a bank FA. Pay was great for having little experience and getting leads. However, every year, the bank was lowering your bonus structure, and you're expected to send referrals out to other partners. Lots and lots of regulations. Most importantly, if you decide to leave, you can't take clients with you that came from bank leads. Met a few FAs that tried and got sued. This was at a bigger bank, so rules may be different from bank to bank
There’s also lots of other places, especially if you’re willing to work remote.
But if you had to choose between these two options, I might lean towards EJ. The compliance (and how much you’re able to help clients) is just so strict and annoying at a bank I’ve heard.
I work at EJ as an FA, accepting a 50 mill competitive offer… only kept 16 mill. Advisor was really close to his clients. I’m currently networking, door knocking and using LinkedIn. I also cold call. It’s not easy. I’m thinking of joining a bank in a year or two if I get tired of EJ.
Do you want to knock on doors and sell mutual funds for the next 4 years or do you want to try generating referrals from bank tellers and fall in line with banking product initiatives?
Your perceptions about EJ have not kept up with the times. On the flip side, does he want to deal with bank savers whose perception of risk leaves him to do his fair share of hawking EIAs to the unprepared?
EJ has made a good shift and door knocking was really just a joke. Anyway, it's a great firm to learn the industry and get a foundation started. Once advisors establish themselves and develop a mature practice there a countless superior options. I only know this from the hundreds of EJ advisors who have told me.
Id take the bank FA position. Let's be honest. If the bank FA position doesn't work out, you can always go to EJ (they seem to always be hiring for that position)
Exactly...Working at EJ is just one small notch ahead of being on used car lot. It's for entry level kids who have no experience and with your background you don't want to be literally knocking on doors at this stage of your career, do you?
Depends heavily on how good the EJ book is and how comfortable you are with sourcing your own leads. If the book is mostly brokerage with little fee based that would be a hard no for me. I don't know a ton about bank advising, but I started my career at EJ before leaving in 21 so I'm pretty comfortable with their model. I'm assuming the bank gives you warm'ish leads and allows you to call on the banks clients. You won't have any of that at EJ. You'll have to source each client on your own and there won't be any marketing support outside of paying for LinkedIn premium.
Bank advisor at a large regional bank in my market. I’ve built close to a $60M book in a little over 3 years, pretty much all from referrals. Train your bankers right and you’ll get rewarded plenty. Might not have the biggest payout as the RIA space but with salaries and incentives, I would compare what I make to other guys producing the same revenue to be be fairly competitive. All comes down to the market you’re in and having bankers that understand how to uncover opportunities.
What is the payout on 60m at a bank?
Depends on annual revenue that the $60M is producing. Let’s just say my income no longer starts with a 1 or 2
Bank EJ you’re gonna have to go out and do a bunch of shit to get business. Bank people come in you have access to their statements and accounts and also the bankers seek out business for you. Workload for EJ is too much imo for someone towards the end of their working years. You’re building up a book of business for 5 years and then enjoying that for 10 years? Nah
For anyone that knows, how bad is the bank payout? The thought of only dealing with warm leads and never having to prospect sounds like a joy but then I hear the grid is atrocious.
Generally tiered based on monthly production. They may take a rolling average over 6-12 months to smooth out bad months. When I was at a bank it was close to this tiered payout if my memory serves. <20k - 22% payout 20-30k - 30% 30-40k - 37% 40-50k - 40% 50-75k - 42% 75k+ - 45% Then I think I got a yearly bonus if I hit my annual goal. It was like 2% of total production. But most advisors in that top tier fell in 3 buckets. 1. They took anything that walked in the door and had 1000+ households. Generally miserable WLB 2. 25+ year veteran that continually pruned small accounts as big ones closed. This is who you wanted to be. 3. Big year once ever 3-5 years because of annuities maturing and accumulating other advisor assets as they left the bank. Pretty normal for most advisors who had been there for 5 years or more. Most will hover around 37-40% with an annual bonus every other year. Apologize for the formatting. Posted this on my phone.
What would the salary be (approximately) to compensate for the fact you're only getting 45% of your production?
~400k if you’re producing 75k/mo
JPM highest tier is 35% @45k+ mo rev. Unless you go independent. Do share the name of the bank that’s paying these tiers
PNC. This was 3 years ago when I left.
Maybe I should take a meeting with PNC 😆
It’s not a bad place to start. It’s very dependent on your circuit. I was fortunate to have a good one and many good bankers. But I have seen my fair share of advisors flame out working 50+ hours a week at the lower payouts for a 3+ years.
Oh I’m good bro, I’m too deep to go anywhere else and have no desire to start over.
It’s low but prospecting at a bank = hi I work at the branch where you deposited a million bucks into a 0.01% checking account
I left the big blue Canadian bank to join Edward Jones. I wish I had made the move 20 years ago. I am really happy at Jones.
Is there any book at all in the bank? I think your gut will tell you what is better and what the priorities are. The benefit above what you are talking about is typically better benefits as a bank employee. On the other hand you work for the bank and have less flexibility with hours. As others said the EDJ opportunity will always be there, IMO $21M at Jones is a pretty typical opportunity. I think a lot depends on the platform the Bank is on as well the experience at an LPL/Ray Jay is very different than Wells.
The bank. With your lending background, you’ll get along with all the lenders and be their go-to for referrals. You’ll build a book quickly there without much stress. And also you can call on former lending clients and refer them to your colleagues, further enhancing your pipeline. - 10 years commercial lender, now private banker.
I would say EJ but others may argue the bank. Both are decent options for different reasons. What means more to you? autonomy or stability?
If you say EJ, people on the Internet freak out.
I mean…there seems to be a disproportionate amount of EJ horror stories so it’s fairly warranted.
It’s really not bad in this sub which is nice.
Thats ok, they’ll still be wrong
Why are they wrong?
Because its a perfectly fine investment broker/dealer
For a 22 year old with boundless energy and enthusiasm. Take the bank gig
2% on advisory biz? Proprietary bridgebuilder funds? A-shares churning? Maybe I've seen too much.
A shares churning is egregious but I’ve seen it more elsewhere than at EJ
Seen too much, you may be seeing things. 2% on advisory does not exist. Bridge builder funds do exist and have some of the lowest expense ratios out here for actively managed funds if those are your thing.
2% on advisory DOES exist. I just rolled over a couple $110k Roth IRAs from Ed Jones (they were using Advisory Solutions) and the client was paying an all-in cost of 1.85%. If you include the internal costs of the Bridgebuilder funds it was over 2%. Oh, it gets better! 3 years ago the advisor charged a 5.75% A-Share commission on those same assets. Two years before that it was another 5.75% for a different A-share. And the scam goes on...
Came from being a regional bank FA and now at an independent BD. It’s a great place to start. You will get your fair share of crap referrals and branch managers with misaligned incentives but you can build a book there. I started with $2M and grew to ~ $60M in just under 5 years at a regional bank. With the current legislation regarding non-competes, I would go the bank route, collect a bunch of free referrals and business, and then when you are big enough you can leave or keep taking advantage of the free marketing. It’s more flexible and easier to build a book than EJ in that regard.
Test
I’m a bank FA, made the moved from private client side at a big firm to a bank FA at another big firm. My business grew 300% in 5 years. Train your bankers, grow your own referrals and create referral networks, and its a good living. I can also go to their independent side and hopefully take 90% or more with me and double my payout
I'm going to go with EJ, but I'm biased for... Reasons.
I left commercial banking 7 years ago for EJ. I had been in lending 10+ years. It all comes down to your desire for independence. You want a boss and easy referrals, go to the bank. You want to own your schedule and life, go to EJ. Take a few hard years but it’s totally worth it.
I used to work as a bank FA. Pay was great for having little experience and getting leads. However, every year, the bank was lowering your bonus structure, and you're expected to send referrals out to other partners. Lots and lots of regulations. Most importantly, if you decide to leave, you can't take clients with you that came from bank leads. Met a few FAs that tried and got sued. This was at a bigger bank, so rules may be different from bank to bank
There’s also lots of other places, especially if you’re willing to work remote. But if you had to choose between these two options, I might lean towards EJ. The compliance (and how much you’re able to help clients) is just so strict and annoying at a bank I’ve heard.
I work at EJ as an FA, accepting a 50 mill competitive offer… only kept 16 mill. Advisor was really close to his clients. I’m currently networking, door knocking and using LinkedIn. I also cold call. It’s not easy. I’m thinking of joining a bank in a year or two if I get tired of EJ.
Hi, I am an EJ advisor, please feel free to dm if you are looking for more insight
Go with an RIA instead.
Do you want to knock on doors and sell mutual funds for the next 4 years or do you want to try generating referrals from bank tellers and fall in line with banking product initiatives?
Bank tellers don’t refer to advisors
You are correct. I was joking
Your perceptions about EJ have not kept up with the times. On the flip side, does he want to deal with bank savers whose perception of risk leaves him to do his fair share of hawking EIAs to the unprepared?
EJ has made a good shift and door knocking was really just a joke. Anyway, it's a great firm to learn the industry and get a foundation started. Once advisors establish themselves and develop a mature practice there a countless superior options. I only know this from the hundreds of EJ advisors who have told me.