I shit you not. The financial advisors at the banks, the geeky chinese guy with his own office and all the financial designations - CFP, CFA etc, makes 6 figures.

Boggles my mind that they get paid such a high rate for literally doing nothing and putting people into mutual funds. They do not have to structure portfolios, conduct trades or do anything that would require thinking. All they do is put you into the bank's mutual funds and these knobs get paid 100k easy.

The non-banking FAs are a different story - now you have hs drop-outs and university educated idiots pushing pyramid schemes and selling you insurance/finance products which you can get yourself through your local bank.

The true FAs are the cream of the crop, paid solely on commission and putting you into funds you cannot do on your own. You'll find these guys at the big brokerages, ie. wealth management companies - raymond james, big banks and their private banking divisions etc.

^
Well those Big FA guys most likely started in retail banking :).. private/commercial banking is what I really want to get into but its apparently quite hard to get into :P

I work at RBC so I know their system inside and out. I apologize if I've repeated something since I didnt read the entire thread.

A breakdown of RBC's retail banking roles (from low to high)

1. CSR - not much to say here, its basically a CSR job but you're also expected to sell financial products. While nothing happens if you don't sell, it will severly impact your chances of moving up and advancing in your career, as all higher roles are all sales.

2. Account Manager (AM) - The next step from a CSR. You deal with the low end clients (clients with only a few $k in their account) and you're expected to get them onto credit cards, mortgages, credit lines, upselling them on a more expensive package and position it like it somehow benefits them). It's really going against your morals as you'll ask yourself, how can this broke ass family be able to afford a $30/month banking package?
If you don't sell, you're fired.
If you're successful, you can move onto the next role. Youl'l need your CSC for this.
Expected salary $40k + bonus (which is a few $k depending on your performance)

2. Senior Account Manager (SAM)
Here you deal with more higher net worth clients, same shit to deal with as an AM, but richer clients, but also higher sales goals
Expected salary about $50k + year end bonus

3. Financial Planner (FP)
You'll need your CFP/PFP for this.
Basically you deal with even higher net work clients than the SAM role, but then again you'll have higher sales goals
Expected salary about $60k + quarterly bonus + yearly bonus

These roles are all about selling, you're selling credit cards, mortgages, loans etc and like someone mentioned, sometimes it's a conflict of what you actually believe in. It's more selling than 'advising'.

After you do well in the FP role, there are a few other routes you can go to within the retail banking.
Either a Branch Manager, Investment Retirement Planner (IRP), or Mortgage Specialist (MS).

While you get paid for 37.5 hours a week and are supposed to work regular 'banking' hours, you'll most often find yourself being stuck in the branch til 6~7pm, if you're not prepared to do that then forget it.

4. IRP
You're basically a mobile FP, you'll need your financial planning designation. You use your current network of friends/clients and you bring in business to the bank, and anchor the new clients to a current FP or SAM. This role is all commission only, however if you're decent at it you could easily make $100k

5. MS
You basically use your relationships with realtors and get the realtors to bring in new mortgage applications to you. Again it's all commission and if you're somewhat decent you'll be making $100k

Also a note, the recent trend is the banks are getting more competitive and trying to be more customer service oriented. That's why you'll see RBC extending to 6 day work weeks (which you'll be working 5 of them), or TD opening on Sundays. This trend is here to stay, and I wouldnt be surprised if all banks are open on Sundays in the coming years. Again if you're not prepared for this then don't get into it.

The real FA's are the ones that work at Wood Gundy, Dominion Securities, Nesbitt Burns, Waterhouse, etc.
They're paid solely on commission, and help you grow your money on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc, its less of a sales pitch there and it's a very relaxing environment once your business is established.

ABOUT THE $100k A YEAR TOPIC

The first thing I want to share is this $100k a year myth. A number of years ago when I was working in retail banking, I would see about 50 people's incomes per day. Even working in DT Vancouver, I would see about 1 every two days which would be 1 per 100 clients.

It's an image thing. A lot of people feel as though if they are not making $100,000 a year, they are a failure and stupid and so out of that fear of looking stupid, most people will say they make some out of this world amount of money.

If you're making over $100k a year, great job! You're NOT the norm. Most jobs top out at the $60k a year mark. It might sound like that's low but that's reality for most people.

Outside of Vancouver, this number can be much lower.

ABOUT BEING A FINANCIAL PLANNER

There are lots of different types of planners in the financial world. They can be broken down into the following:

Brokers
Financial Planners
Financial Advisors
Insurance Agents


Brokers: This is a huge range of people. You have people with loads of experience and education right down to the guy who never finished high school. The truth is that a good broker and a financial sucessful broker has nothing to do with education and more to do with their ability to perform or rather, their ability to network and sell. Broker jobs are almost always comission only. A good broker can make $5-10 million a year. I've worked with many of them and they live the good life. Countless others don't last 6 months in the industry and fail. People talk of the 80/20 rule, it's more like the 99/1 rule in this business. Most of the brokers are with the investment arm of a bank such as Royal Bank Dominion Securities or with broker firms such as Wellington West or Canaccord. This is a hard core job and is not for everyone. This is a job that revolves around buying and selling securities etc. Brokers can often use other investment tools but they typically don't bother with it.

Financial Planners: Odds are, you're not going to make the money a broker makes. A really good financial planner might get to a million bucks a year in their career after being around for a decade or more and working very hard.
To be a planner you have to at least have finished your CFP. Many planners go on to learn their CLU and FCSI etc to learn more about things such as estate and tax planning. Planners come from everywhere. You have the comission only Planners and the Institutional Planners. Take a planner at a bank for example. They'll make $100k if they're a top performer but likely never much more beyond that. They get paid a salary but also have numbers to hit. They typically sell insurance, investments and whatever else the client needs. You're going to get bad planners anywhere because the courses you take, while somewhat difficult, have nothing to do with the actual selection of investments.

Financial Advisors: Sometimes Advisors and Planners get mixed up. The only real difference is one has their CFP, one doesn't. It's usually an educational thing. I know some great advisors that didn't finish high school and a PhD that will probably ruin your life savings. It's a tricky thing to find someone who's good for any of these jobs. Most advisors suck at banks and the independants usually suck too. I've worked with over 5000 advisors in the last 10 years working for a bunch of companies and there are many 10 in BC worth talking to. Of course, the good ones aren't always the richest ones. McDonalds makes more money then just about any other resturant. It doesn't mean it's any good. Advisors sometimes make $20,000 a year up to a million or so once they've been around for a while. About 5% of the people who start independantly as a planner or advisor aren't around in 5 years because it's hard work. The bank advisors are useless. Not because they're stupid or jerks but the bank structure does not allow objectivity. The problem with an independant person is because they are comission only, are they really going to be objective? It's always a concern.

Insurance Agents: Much like an Advisor, the shift is going more to either being a planner or a broker. Just being an insurance advisor or an investment advisor are dying out. Planners can't do planning unless they are able to sell insurance. If you find a good insurance agent (usually it's a planner as I just mentioned) it can be the best thing for your financial future. The problem is that in the past, all you had to do was take one exam and then you're knocking on doors selling garbage. The fact is, too many people were in the business selling things they had no clue about and this damaged the industry. It's getting better but it's similar to the jobs mentioned above. I know a few guys making $100k+ a year with insurance but it's not the norm.

What to do if you're thinking of a career.

Understand what you're getting yourself into. I made the mistake of going down an educational nightmare. I took my CFP, CFA, and countless other courses over a span of 10 years in the hopes it would turn me into a god. It didn't.

Only take your CFA if you enjoy it or if you want to be someone who works on the investment banking side valuating stocks. Taking it as a planner might make people take a second look at you but will not help you with your job.

Take your CFA, LLQP and CLU if you're planning on being a planner. If you decide to specialize in a specific type of planning such as business/group/estate/etc then you can take additional courses to learn more when the time comes.

Understand that being at a bank means an income cap but security. Independant has no salary cap however understand very few make it past $100k as an independant and even fewer make $250+.



ABOUT SELLING

While many of us think of selling as this dirty word, I have some bad news. A company in history has never made a profit unless something got sold. This means, as an advisor, if you aren't selling, the company isn't making money. What kind of a company is going to hire you if you're not in some way generating a profit for them? When you're in any job dealing directly with people, you're selling.

This is also true for lawyers. I was surprised to learn how little most lawyers earn. The ones that make a lot of money are the ones that are good at what they do but also have marketed themselves well. This is why you see commercials for lawyers on TV. This is why lawyers do pro-bono work. It's a way to get their name out there. The wealthy lawyers usually own their own practice which means they have their own business. Doctors are the same as well although because it's through the government it's not a hard sell for the doc.

Any way you slice it, the amount of money you make, is directly tied to how much your production is. Banks are going to pay you $60k a year then you have to make the bank at least $60k a year in profits by selling a bunch of stuff. Sad but true.

When you're on your own as an FA, Broker or Planner, it's the same thing. You don't sell, you don't eat. The good old days of working at a bank and jacking off in the back room is over. Banks are trying to compete in an aggressive economy and if you're not hitting the numbers you're hitting the door.

This doesn't mean it's not a great industry or that it can't be fun and you can't do a great job.

I love being in this industry and enjoy helping people. I probably could make more money if I was pushy but that's not me. I'm blessed enough that I can almost always help anyone who sits down in front of me. The best part, is I'm actually helping them and flogging a bunch of garbage BS on them which I will admit I did from time to time many years ago in the banks because they always want you to sell their in house products.