Ameriprise – “It's tough being a financial advisor. This is not a bad place to start”

Pros

There is a lot of emphasis on teaching, yes it is the rote learning of scripts but, this is a great way to begin with everyone. There is a lot of group work to ensure that you are up to task. There is a marketing budget, in our case we had money for lunches. Pretty comprehensive product platform, and their emphasis on comprehensive financial planning was great

Cons

Ethically challenged at times. Didn't follow their principles of starting with cash flow and doing true financial planning, really were only interested in the transfer of money.

Advice to Senior Management

I don't think that management is really concerned with what I have to say. If they were I would say that they have a competitive advantage when they push financial planning, but they shouldn't work at cross purposes, either they want to be financial planners, or they want to get the commissions off of insurance and money management. It's a conflict of interests to try and have it both ways.