Time for a change?
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I have been with “XYZ” insurance company for 2 and a half years. I have been a licensed advisor for one year after passing the SIE, 7TO, and 66. Im a manager also which means i have to recruit insurance agents and train them also. When Im not recruiting and training agents, I spend most of my day calling aged web leads to book appointments for medicare and life insurance. Once their insurance needs have been discussed we pivot to assets to look for securites business. Im not interested in recruting new agents or focusing on medicare and life insurance leads. I want to focus on holistic financial planning. I am the only advisor in my local office so Im learning the securites business on the fly, on my own with a little help from advisors from other offices within the company. Im looking to make a change to more of a wealth management than an insurance based firm. I dont want to be in a wirehouse either, I have looked into Raymond James and a couple local RIA’s but not sure which route to go for more training and a focus on financial planning. I feel like im stuck in place and I want to take my career to the next level and I feel like my current firm is not able to give me what im looking for. I have a newborn and my wife is currently staying at home taking care of the baby so I am nervous in making a change for that reason. Any advice for someone in my situtation? Thanks in advance
We’re on the E Coast of FL but our Indy b/d is in Tampa, sounds like you may be as well. Started my career 25 years ago at a wire and couldn’t imagine being at any of them now after being indy for past 15. Seems like you’re going to have a small advisory book to start, so you’ll need to roll up under an indy B/D-RIA for that biz. Our b/d, like most, uses any of the big 4 for clearing, though we chose TD, love it, but more importantly we use Orion which comes with Advizr holistic planning software. I wouldn’t go too crazy learning securities business unless you’re planning on running your own model, which I do and is evtremely time consuming, but it is a differentiator and helps us gather assets. You can always outsource the investment management or team up with firm that has their own in-house model so your advisory biz can stand out but not take up too much of your time, so you can focus on planning. We are CFPs and if planning is your end game then you’ll certainly learn a lot getting that designation, though like everything else in this field, software has taken over and made it quite simple to run plans, so I wouldn’t say a CFP designation it utmost important if cost is tight with newborn and all.
Hope this helps and reach out with any other questions.