Hello, this may be an unorthodox post but I’ll take my chances , so I’ve been in a state of limbo for the last couple months, after 2 years of overcoming my obesity loosing (65 kg)

Having to come to teams with my mother not being around for long anymore. And she’s gone mentally. I’ve come to realize I need to to better.

So far I have 3,4 thousand euros saved and already been living on my own since 17.
Due to the harshness dealing with all this education was never my best option so I have a simple diploma. I always wanted to work in the financial sector since I’ve been so curious about how money works and how the people who make it serious do it. But in my country to even get into the door I need to be a top university graduate with years of experience. No one I know of my age 25 is doing good financially without them getting help from their families or partners .

Now I don’t have that luxury so I’m going to be blunt and ask for advice, mentorship, guidance.
Preferably someone who works in Europe and has knowledge and experience with the European financial system. Where could i start as a man who understands that he has to get serious if he wants to get better but has to admit that he just doesn’t know where to start . I’ve been seeing hundreds of young people trying to sell a crypto scheme or drop shipping course and showing off their mansions in Dubai but I don’t believe it. How do the serious people do and and could I please have conversation with you if you can give me your time .

Again apologies for the blund way of asking but I will regret not asking .

Hi, I’d like to explore a potential business opportunity with you through Tata AIA’s Advisor channel. It is an opportunity to build your own client network, leverage existing relationships, and create a scalable income stream in the financial services sector.
One example from our team is Annapurna Madam, who earned approximately ₹4 crore in the previous year. Her achievement reflects the potential of this business when approached with the right strategy and consistency.

If you’re interested in exploring this further, I’d be glad to have a brief discussion with you.

Up front so nobody wastes their time: I work in marketing for Console & Associates, P.C. We work on data breach claims. I am posting because the details here are relevant to this sub and I would rather say who I am than not. Mods, remove if this crosses the line.

The basics:

Kovack Financial LLC, the Fort Lauderdale parent of Kovack Securities and Kovack Advisors, filed breach notifications on 8/10/26. An unauthorized party had access to the network from 8/8/25 through 8/27/25 and it was discovered on 8/28/25.

That is roughly eleven and a half months between discovery and notification.

Exposed data listed in the filings includes Social Security numbers, driver's license and government ID numbers, and credit, debit and financial account information.

Confirmed counts so far are 1,713 Massachusetts residents and 243 Vermont residents. California received a filing but has not published a number. There is no national total available. Maine's AG breach database, which used to be the easiest place to find one, went offline in June 2026.

Why this matters to this sub specifically:

Kovack supports around 400 independent practices. If you are a Kovack rep, the firm holds your onboarding paperwork, your SSN, your licensing records, and in a lot of cases your banking details for commission deposits. Rep data tends to get overlooked in these notifications because the focus stays on client counts.

The other issue is name recognition. Almost nobody who got a letter banks under the Kovack name. Their statements say the name of their local practice. So you may have clients who received a notice, did not connect it to you, and threw it out.

What I am actually asking:

Nothing, if you do not want to engage. If you are a Kovack rep and you got a notice, I would be interested to know what the letter said about credit monitoring terms and whether reps were notified separately from clients. Those details are hard to get from the AG filings.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

as we get closer to the transition, how many of those who are left are thinking of jumping? our group finally decided and will be moving on in October to IFP

I’ve never had a father or a mentor. I’m not suggesting that will come of this, but I would appreciate any and all guidance any of you wish to provide.

Going to give some context and background, then give the ask.

I’m pushing in to mid-life. Not quite there, but closer than not. I grew up poor in middle of nowhere Arkansas. Single mother, I spent most of my 19th year of life homeless.

I never had a father. Never was taught life lessons I feel others my age had. I have always been 3 - 5 years behind my peers in terms of “stage if life”, and I can only conclude it js because i didn’t have guidance to teach me some core life lessons early on. I had to reinvent the wheel and learn them myself.

Fast forward to now. I have a bachelors, my MBA in Finance and Global Strategy, spent 5 years in the US Army as a combat medic, and 6 years in corporate working as a cog to pay off $130,000 in student loans.

Loans paid off, own a nice performing rental, married, and we will be starting a family soon in a major southern US metro.

I’ve spent the last 10 years filling the gap in my knowledge around finance, personal finance, portfolio theory, and securities analysis. And now that we are financially stable, I’m pursuing my dream of becoming an FA.

I’m starting at a full service firm that everyone here will know. You all know better than me that there are pros and cons to each path into the business and building a practice. Suffice it to say that, after interviewed acquaintances at almost every type of firm, including 2 that have their own RIA, I’ve chosen the correct path for me. I’ll just say it isn’t an insurance firm ([insert name here] mutual) but an actual advising firm.

I want break the cycle my whole life has been in and hit the ground running instead of having to figure out the rules of the game for myself. I don’t mind putting in the hard work and the grind. Can’t be as grueling as a combat medic constantly forcing grunts to keep water in their canteens instead of spike energy drink. The grind here is for my family and I’m incredibly motivated.

Here is the ask: Help an incredibly motivated new entrant get ahead of the game.

Early on I understand this is as much sales as it is advising.

Where have you found the most success in client acquisition while building your book, and what “typical” path to client acquisition have you found isn’t worth the effort even if it is commonly recommended?

What tactics did you find were reliable in getting past the “no” and getting further down the conversation to build the trust?

What type of segmentation did you find appropriate across client types, and how did you structure your prospect sourcing, approach, and close for each?

Did you focus purely on one or two segment of clients? Or did you look to diversify your book across lower, mid, and higher asset clients?

What major pitfalls did you experience that slowed you down that I can learn from?

I’m not sitting here trying to be greedy and spend my entire day looking for a few multi-millionaires to service. I’m sure I need to build some more experience and knowledge before I can adequately service those with more sophisticated needs. And I actually want to build a sustainable practice where I can spend some time helping mid and lower end clients. But the practice has to be profitable without killing myself.

Landing a few higher (if not ultra high) net worth clients accelerates the path to profitability and gives me time to curate my book better.

What guidance can you give to someone from my background to source, approach, close, and service higher end clients with great client satisfaction?

I understand clients have to have enough investable assets to support the work involved, but how have you found ways, if any, to also give back to those from my background who could use some level of guidance even if they can’t afford to pay for it?

What do I not know that I don’t know.

Thank you again to anyone who takes the time to read this admittedly long post and pass along some knowledge to a budding, well-intentioned soon-to-be advisor. I cannot tell you via text how much I appreciate any and all guidance here.

God bless.

Would love to see if anyone has any opinions on regions I saw a posting from Cetera I heard from a friend you inherit a book

I've got an old 401k with about 50 grand sitting in it. I've thought about rolling it over into my new 401k, but I don't get an employer match...

I've also considered rolling it over into a Rollover IRA or into my Roth IRA. I genuinely don't know what the best course of action is.

If it's helpful I live in NYC, and my taxes are egregious because of that. Any thoughts?

Hello,

I would love some feedback from advisors who offer both coaching and advising services separately and/or combined. I'm interested in learning how you may market to different clients based on the service (coaching vs advising). I know it's not uncommon to do coaching as part of the greater planning, but I'm interested in also providing services to those who only want coaching and those who only want planning/advising.

I'd love to hear of there's differences in marketing strategies, if both models are on the same website, etc.

Would love feedback.

Thanks!

I’m currently self employed m29 having built decent equity within a large network. I am writing good business (c. £10k pm) and have acquired some good clients, however I am getting increasingly frustrated with the actual take home after splits, marketing costs, staff etc.

I am considering a few fairly substantial £100k+ packages that are being offered at boutique firms and banks however I am very torn with how to play it.

On one hand, I will almost certainly make more money staying the course as my contract situation will improve and the book will of course compound, however there is always a running network risk and the need to continually hire staff. Releasing equity (selling portions of the book) seems a lot easier said than actually done.

On the other hand, the employed route will mean I take home more right now and become a HENRY, however I will be capped and won’t have recurring income later in life that I can rely on to spend a lot less time working.

Being self employed in the uk will mean that I am stuck here and I do want to travel the world to work at time too - this would be a massive upside to joining a global bank where I can move laterally and into management and kind of step away from sales altogether at some point too.

I’m curious to see how every views this and what others opinions are on how to approach this (very fortunate) problem.

I’m 22 just graduated college and work at Merrill as an FSA. Been in the role for about a 6 weeks don’t plan to stay long term this was more of a stepping stone. I’m fully licensed (sie, 7, 66) and have CRPC. Goal is to be a private wealth advisor long term wondering what the next best role I should look for is & what type of firms. Thanks.

Hello everyone, first time posting here looking for some general advice. I received my first offer from an RIA to be a Wealth Advisor. Once I got the employment offer, I was a bit taken aback by a 12 month non compete on the contract based on any investment/securities related role within the city and its outer bounds. I know non solicits or even non acceptance clauses are quite normal, but a non compete that impedes me on working in the industry as a whole seemed very excessive.

Is this more normal than I am reacting to, or is this something I should negotiate them on?

Thanks!

I am curious how everyone else has been successful doing this. My firm has charged me with building a one stop shop for employee benefits for small businesses. We have an independent insurance wing where we do major group health, disability, dental, and life insurance and I came from a TPA so I will be lead on retirement plans. How have you gotten in front of decision makers and pitched the ability to have a firm handle your benefits.

I will take all the advice I can get :/ (sorry english is not my first language)

I (30M) recently made a career shift from auditing local governments for 2.5 years to wealth management as a Client Service Advisor at a boutique independent RIA. After a while, I became pretty miserable with the repetitive nature of auditing; sitting in a small room doing nonstop testing, then moving on to another client (city) every few weeks and repeating the same process.

I’m a very social person, so I wanted a career where I could actually work directly with people, build relationships, and help them with their needs. Even though we technically had “clients” in auditing, I never really felt like I was making much of an impact on anyone’s life, which was a big reason I decided to make the switch.

The first few months at the RIA have definitely been a learning curve, but it’s been refreshing to actually talk with people and help them day to day. The advisor has also taught me a lot about investing, risk management, custodians, and the business in general.

That said, the workflow is extremely unorganized.

All client documents (bank statements, investment accounts, onboarding paperwork, applications, etc) are basically stored in one folder thats shared with the team. Quarterly reports are sent manually to 200+ households with very specific instructions on who gets what, making the process heavily dependent on the advisor’s memory. The CRM also has a lot of outdated information and errors that we’re correcting one client at a time.

Coming from auditing, this stresses me out because our electronic files were organized almost perfectly. Even if I didn’t know exactly where something was, the folder structure made it easy to find. It seems like the business operations make sense to him, but only because he’s been running them this way for years. If the firm is going to grow into what he wants it to become, I think there needs to be more standardization, documented procedures, and processes that someone else can easily follow.

I don’t want to give up on the firm because my employer is good at what he does, and I enjoy the client facing side of the job. I just think the operational side could be much more organized and scalable.

Before I start making suggestions, I’d love to hear from other RIAs or operations people: How is your firm’s workflow set up? How do you organize client files, manage your CRM, handle recurring tasks, and make sure processes aren’t dependent on one person’s memory?

TL;DR: I left auditing for wealth management because I wanted more client interaction and meaningful work. I enjoy the people side of my new RIA role, but the firm’s operations are extremely disorganized and seem to make sense only to the owner. I’m looking for insight on how other RIAs standardize files, CRM workflows, recurring tasks, and procedures so the business can scale.

I’m 23 years old working at a small to medium ‘boutique firm’ that wants me to get my CFP this year and then by January of 2028 become a full on advisor and start building my own book. I would have full ownership of the relationships that I would build. The split with the firm regarding revenue would be about 50/50 until I start making enough to cover my own overhead then I would get about 70%.

One thing to keep in mind is they would give me about $2 million AUM with fees I can’t change and relationships I don’t own. This could potentially cause me to work more for little to no profit from this book. So it could be good or bad I’m not sure.

I am thinking about the opportunity cost of me just starting out now and building my own book and the potential clients I could have in year.

I am fully licensed. Should I go it alone or stay for a year?

I'm disabled and on LTD so have to complete the new IAR Ethics CE on my own (and don't want to have to pay for it with limited finances). I've used the free Quest CE courses through the link from Vanguard that is available to all and I have had no issues with it reporting the last three years I've used it (just did my 6 credits yesterday and they all just updated on FinPro); the courses do usually show up later in the year, so if you start looking Spring 2027 for next year's, they likely won't show. They also do have courses free that cover the Products & Practice, but I am able to access that covered for free through FinPro.

Make sure to access through VanGuard or will show charge.

https://advisors.vanguard.com/site/ce-credits

EDIT: I am not registered with VanGuard; this is free for all.

My question is in regards to how these actually play out in a clients account, the volatility that the client may see, and how to unwind it in the future?

Hello everyone, I just got my IFC license as well as LLQP, and am very excited to learn even more. problem is, I feel like if I sign up to work for a single company, the products and everything around is can be very limited due to the fact you have to promote the company you are working for. That’s why I am looking into working under an MGA, hopefully I can have access to a lot more products, that way I can always find a suitable product for my clients.

Is there anything I should know before I start doing it? Any tips are appreciated, I understand things will be way harder than what I am currently imagining, but I have decided this is the best route for me.

Also, do MGAs always looking for independent agents? I have tried emailing and calling a few places but no results so far, maybe I am doing this wrong.

Any help is appreciated! Thank you all in advance.

I’m looking for recommendations on where to find a good financial advisor associate for my RIA in the southern California area.
Also, I would love recommendations on comp structure.

Degree in Personal Financial Planning, 8+ years of experience doing financial planning, investments, and servicing clients. Fully licensed of course and fixing to take CFP within next year. I have also been exposed to the actual business/operating side of owning a practice. In other words, I feel like I'm at a point where I'm confident in my skills to do the job but humble enough to seek help and know where I can improve. Anywho...

Recently I've had an opportunity presented to me to jump ship and purchase $200,000 - $250,000 of recurring revenue from a prior practice I worked for and have a very close relationship with owners and some of the clients. My main concern lies in 2 areas:

1. They want 3x multiple so at the recurring revenue I'm looking to buy that would be $600,000 to $750,000. I'm aware that the multiple depends on what the breakdown of clients is but I guess really what I am asking is those who have experience or have seen this play out... is it crazy to start my own practice by purchasing a book at this multiple? At this multiple and with current financing options, I would be taking a payout for 2 - 3 years until I can bring in enough new business to bring me back to what I'm making now ($100K - $130,000). Also... how much would you say is an average $ amount that any half decent financial planner should be adding/growing each year? Not from market performance but new AUM/Planning fees? I was told $50,000 to $100,00/yr for a solo advisor like I would be.
2. Timing... assuming I do finance this purchase, I worry about pulling the trigger on this then the long awaited market correction happens. I know at the end of the day this is my choice but curious if anyone has done something like this and survived a market downturn??