Pros
I worked with the company for a total of almost eight years. I was an intern for 2.5 years, a financial advisor for 5.5 years, and during that time I was also a College Unit Director for a year. They do a lot of training and hand-holding in the very beginning, but once you've proven yourself you get a lot of autonomy. You are a statutory employee which means you get some benefits similar to traditional employees (health insurance, 401k, pension, and life and disability insurance, etc.). However, there are some things that are very much like running your own business. For the most part, you set your hours (so long as they are around internal meetings) and you get to decide who you work with. If you're not interacting with a specific client well you aren't required to work with them. At the office I worked at there was an amazing work culture and I truly felt supported. They try to keep an abundance mentality where you're working hard to help build up the other advisors and compete with them in a healthy manner. It's not cutthroat and no one has to lose for you to win. There truly is no ceiling on how much you can earn and what you can achieve there. If you want to work in management and help with new advisors, there's a path for that. If you just want to focus on your financial planning practice that's encouraged as well. There are several ways to build up your streams of income so you consistently have money coming in. In the very beginning, it's heavily insurance-focused because it pays the most immediately. Over time you start to increase your investment assets, have group benefits, and renewals coming in to make sure there's always some sort of cashflow. The company is also very centered on doing what's best for the client and making sure that your actions result in their best interest. That's what drew me to the company initially when I was just 20 was because everyone wanted to do right by the client and that stayed consistent my entire time there. From the president and CEO all the way to inside each office and down to each new training class.
Cons
This career is NOT for everyone and can be a very isolating experience with a lot of ups and downs. You will feel more rejection than you've ever felt before. Not every client says yes and the process can take a toll on someone. Also, a lot of people think they're hard workers until it comes to working alone; then you realize how easy it is to put work off and decide to take an afternoon off when you should be working. There can also be a lot of overhead, similar to owning your own business, that can bog you down if you don't have adequate savings or a partner that can help when commissions get tight. There's no base, so you can have actual paychecks that are $0 or even negative. Over time you get used to it, but if you have a couple in a row it can cause a lot of strain. You are not given leads (although you can get into a couple of programs that help pair you with call-ins or existing clients whose advisors have left). Often times people take this to mean you have to work with friends and family. They encourage you to meet with your friends and family to, at the very least, prospect, but don't require it and help give you language to work with people they know instead of working with them directly. If this isn't done correctly though you can come off as really sales-y or pushy. I did actually have my interactions with some friends and family become strained because I either pushed too hard or they didn't feel they could say no and chose to ghost instead. I've seen times where it's my fault and times where it's theirs for not being mature enough to deal with the situation. At the end of the day though if the relationship is strong enough and you're coming from a good place your reaching out to them shouldn't cause any issues. They also work off a pretty rigid system that doesn't always work for everyone in regards to how they measure metrics and gauge success. It's a proven system, but can be antiquated in areas that have seen technological advancement over the last few years. The ratios haven't been updated in a while and what works for you may not work well for others and vice versa.