u/Public-Ad8953

25M, about 2 years in the industry. I hold Life/Health, SIE, 6, 7, 63, and 65 and work at a boutique planning firm/hybrid RIA.

My background is heavily sales-focused and I’m strong with clients. My current role is service-heavy, but I’m also actively developing a target market and prospecting strategy with the goal of producing.

Lead advisors have been transitioning mass-affluent households to me to service and retain. I currently manage about $15M, and the book is growing consistently. My goal over the next 12 months is to get to $20M-$25M, including roughly $5M-$10M of self-sourced net new assets rather than just inherited relationships. Most accounts are around a 1.5% advisory fee.

The issue is compensation.

I’m currently salary-only with a discretionary annual bonus. I took the role understanding it was designed for a newer advisor to develop into a lead, but the actual path is fairly undefined. I don’t have clear production benchmarks for becoming a lead, I don’t own relationships I source, and my compensation is essentially the same whether I bring in $0 or several million in new assets.

Coming from sales, I’m finding that I really miss having a direct incentive to produce.

I’m considering proposing a variable compensation structure that keeps my current salary intact but pays additional bonuses only when I generate incremental revenue for the firm.

For example:
•Sell and complete a financial plan: bonus equal to a percentage of the planning fee

•Bring in a rollover/new advisory account: bonus tied to first-year or net new revenue

•Potentially similar incentives for other measurable new business

The percentages are negotiable. The concept is simply that I earn more only when the firm earns more.

My concern is that compensation and firm financials seem fairly close to the chest. I don’t know the salary bands for lead advisors, and while most leads are salary-only, many are also partners, so their economics are obviously different.

For owners or experienced advisors:

Is this a reasonable ask from someone only two years into the industry?

Would you view this positively as a junior advisor showing initiative, or negatively as someone getting ahead of themselves?

And if you were in my position, what kind of salary + production structure would you propose?

I genuinely like my firm and would love to eventually become a partner. My concern is that there’s currently no defined path to equity, no ownership of self-sourced relationships, and no meaningful production incentive.

I got into this industry wanting to build aggressively, so I’m trying to figure out whether I should push for a structure that better aligns incentives or accept that this may simply be a different type of firm than what I ultimately want.

ETA: I have only been with this firm for approx. 6 months. In the industry total 2 years.

I’ve passed the SIE, S6, S63 and S65 all on my first try. Studied under a month for all. I took a S7 practice exam cold (before any studying) on STC and got 57%. I need to pass the S7 by the end of July for my job (advisor) and have been slacking since I did the others back to back and am burnt. A lot of chapters I’ve been able to skim because there’s so much overlap from prior exams. Can I cram in two weeks and pass this thing? How would you compare it to other FINRA exams as far as difficulty goes? S65 was the most difficult for me so far, SIE/6/63 were all a breeze. Is the S7 the one that’ll finally bite me in the ass?