Been a fin planner myself for 27 years. Coaching fin planners to be successful. Its not about your personality. Find out what are your talents and strengths. Focus on your strengths and you will be successful and having a entrepreneurial mindset will put you in the top 5 %. Know who you are and use that to be successful.
I am an experienced fee-only financial advisor (an independent) and I believe that Michael's discussion here is well worth listening to if you are a younger person interested in this field (or already in the field) and are concerned about your personality style, and particularly if you are an introvert as Michael admits he is.
I am a career changer, coming in from the middle office side of financial relationship. I was given the LIMRA assessment recently which I felt was discouraging. This test measures your past work history behavior and then assess you network and community activities to predict if you are going to be successful. I felt discouraged by this test as our industry mantra is "Past performance is no guarantee of future results".
I am stuck deciding the compensation package I have been asked to decide. Base salary at 80k and 1/2 commission no bonus, or Full commission full bonus and 50k start??? This is my first year and I am 22, live in Seattle
NutHouse, I would clarify whether what you're being offered is really a SALARY, or a salary DRAW (against future commissions). There's a big difference between a salary and a salary draw - the draw version may require you to REPAY some of the money if you don't actually generate enough commissions and decide to leave the business (or go to another company). If it's a salary draw, most people try to take the LOWEST draw they can reasonably afford to take, to reduce the risk to themselves if it doesn't work out (as you'll make the higher commissions anyway to get yourself back to $80k+ if it does work out well).
