Pros
This is a great company if you are one of the top advisors. (Achieving this level is tough) Lots of recognition and freebies (Trips, trainings, gift cards, jewellery & TV's.) You set your own schedule and answer to yourself or your wife (when she sees your paycheque). The kind of people who survive and thrive at this company are generally high quality individuals; Hard working, salt of the earth. You will make life long friends in this organization. Those who join and stay are truly exceptional. Since the company owns the client relationships end of day, if you are in the good books of management, you will do very well. If you are good at office politics, you'll thrive. Understand what is required of you and deliver, and you'll be handsomely rewarded. This is one of the few places where anyone with the right personality and drive can make a huge income regardless of their level of education. Where else can a grade 12 educated individual earn seven figures? The sky is the limit.
Kontras
This company has really changed since GWL took them over in the late 1990's. Back in the good old days this company was very Advisor friendly. Now, it is every man for himself. Management is chalked full of folks who couldn't make it as Advisors, and they are responsible for training the brand new advisors. Since most of their compensation is paid on the sales generated by new Advisors in their first 2 years with the company, be prepared for reasonable support during that time and then to have a little less in years 3 & 4. Once you are in year 5 and beyond, you are dropped like a hot potato, even higher production Advisors. In many regions the Directors have been hiring their wives and then when Advisors on a Director's team fail, magically the wife becomes the new Advisor on all of the leaving Advisor's clients (friends & family). This means there are fewer and fewer 'seeded clients' available to new Advisors. This paired with the senior management's objective of Directors (who have 15 to 20 Advisors under their guidance) is to spend 30% of their time with their team and 70% prospecting for NEW HIRES. No wonder the support is so fleeting. Head office isn't much better. Most of the folks in the top positions wouldn't last 2 years in the field. Their focus is in selling more proprietary products especially the more profitable mutual fund family. Check out the performance of their funds and make sure you can stomach it's mediocrity. Strive for average is the apparent motto. Don't fool yourself this is an insurance company that can sell investments and not a wealth management firm. Costs are excessive. Between $1000 $ 3000 per month is about average in the first 5 years. (I currently am running around $6000/m overhead which is average for an Advisor of my tenure) In the beginning, when you realize that no one is helping you transact the business you are writing up and you are forced to get a 'marketing associate'. These ladies mean well, but are for the most part lazy and incompetent. In my office they are allowed to refuse to call clients and request additional under the table funding if they grace your business with phone calls to existing clients at a rate of $20-25 per call. They report to none and essentially end up costing you huge money both from their incompetence (mistakes which you are fully on the hook for) and unused time. You buy their time in 4 hour/week blocks that don't carry forward. Go one hour over and you are forced to take an additional 4 hour/week time block. Sounded great in the beginning to have a team, but really is just another large expense that will increase your likelihood of a ZERO pay in your first few years. You are also forced to sign up for their health & dental & drug plan. It is outrageously expensive. (Due to an average advisor age of 58yrs) My benefits cost me over $6000 per year and were locked in for 3 years in the beginning. Plus due to a timing discrepancy of two days, didn't cover a 1500 orthotic brace. No flexibility and costs that seem to be designed to generate additional profits for GWL (the parent company) shareholders is what this looked like. When you start, directors in my office say you can set your own hours and vacation time. They say you can do this job Monday to Thursday and take Friday off. Sounds great. But that is just to make the company set minimums, which are below the poverty line for pay. What they should say is be prepared to work half a day, meaning 12 hours 6 days a week for 5 years or you probably won't make it. Have excess funds set aside for lean months - you'll need about $25-50K (whatever you live off in a year.) You are better off starting at a salaried position at a Bank, Discount broker or mutual fund company to gain experience in the industry and achieve at least one of your licenses before you begin here. Until these things are addressed and the entire system revamped, I will not recommend this company or career to anyone I know. The chances of success are too slim in the current structure.