- Poor business model for new financial advisors, legacy financial advisors thrive at the expense of new ones because of forced "join field work" where there is a 50/50 split. It is rare that a new advisor is making more than 50k per year for at least 2-3 years as the payouts are so low and dependant on selling large insurance products that may or may not be in the best interest of clients. Investments hardly pay anything until you are allowed to operate managed funds, but again, very hard to get to that point.
- No diversity - Wasp male, Christian - promotional materials include POC but the company is easily 85%+ white Christian male
- Couldn't sell certain products to "non-Christians" and this really limited the potential customer base.
- Mission over value - "helping people thrive" is so drilled into every employee but the reality is that it doesn't matter how mission-minded you are if the finances don't make sense from an income perspective.
- Not tech forward-thinking - still using obsolete software and a deeply bureaucratic organization. Change is very slow and fresh ideas were not welcomed. Things are going to be done how they have always been done because someone at the top said so.
- No separation from personal life - you are expected to use after hours for meetings and networking events and always be thinking of who you know that could be a possible customer. There is no separation between work and personal life and it was exhasting.
- Insurance is heavily incentivized - not a true investment company even though the company is trying to change this perception through fresh branding
- No leads and poor marketing strategy - happy Hours and virtual events are not the answer to growing a sustainable business.
- Weak approach to crypto - was told, "tell people that crypto is just gambling". There was no forward thinking around how crypto is actually going to be the future - we were told to just tell people that we don't do it. I would expect more of a company that is supposed to be identifying financial trends and communicating those to customers.
