Don’t believe the sales pitch - stay far away
Pros
Generally liked the other employees in my office, most would help out here and there if it wasn’t too much of a burden.
Cons
Oh man where do I start…. - First and foremost you’re set up to fail. The system is built on new hires bringing in their “warm market”, burning through all of those leads very quickly and then when they quit there’s a new recruiting class every single month to take their place. The sales you made in your warm market are basically just kicked up to the MD and they’ll keep any leads that you put into the system so someone else can harass them in the future after you’re gone. You don’t even have the system privileges to delete your own contacts out before you leave (believe me I tried) - 100% commission so huge conflict of interest trying to do what’s best for a client while also needing to make sales to make any money - you’re not “changing someone’s financial future” you’re selling them insurance that may or may not be right for them - “making your own schedule” really means that you’ll be taking meetings whenever prospects are available. You’re always on call and often taking meetings until as late as 9pm - the corporate structure is never made clear and you are sending percentages of your commission to people you’ve never even met - the pay structure could not be any less transparent and you’re expected to pay for everything including your own desk space after a year - you aren’t taught anything about finance because you don’t need to know it, all of the training is geared around sales tactics, mostly preying on exploiting people’s emotions about their loved ones - referrals are much harder to come by than they make it seem, so you’ll be messaging people on Facebook that you haven’t even thought about in 10+ years - you “run your own business” but are constantly pressured to do more and be pushier. There are also multiple weekly mandatory “coaching” meetings that all boil down to “you’re not making enough calls” - cult like culture where the true believers are career advisors that either believe all the fake positive BS you’re fed, or just don’t care that they’re scamming people. Many advisors have this holier than thou complex like they’re saving the world - you’re pushed into buying your own insurance so that your MD can profit off of it - generally make a fool of yourself to everyone that you’ve ever met and the best case is you screw one of your friends or family over by convincing them to buy insurance they don’t need because you’re the “expert” and a “fiduciary” - the job is presented as some high powered finance job that only “the best” can do, but really they’ll hire anyone that’s coherent in an interview - management will go on about how special NM is when there are 10 other places that do the exact same thing I’m sure there’s more that I’m leaving out but it would be impossible to spell out every negative experience without writing a whole book. Basically the “unlimited income, autonomous schedule, and building your own business” spiel is all a lie. This is nothing more than a dressed up pyramid scheme (there are financial incentives for recruiting new hires) that will make sure you never consult a “financial advisor” for the rest of your life.