Pros
Some genuinely nice and caring people. Clients are mostly military so fairly easy to focus on particular group of clients. Mediocre, but not bad Home Office support. Good conferences and willing to hire advisors with no experience. Training is very dependent upon location but overall isn't bad. Some very good advisors. Good Educational Foundation.
Cons
For a company that prides itself on ethics, it's actually a pretty terrible place. The mantra is: recommend what the client needs but the client needs whole life insurance and the Home Office driven fee based platform, always. Financial planning from most advisors is very basic and centered around insurance sales. They preach that they do financial planning "for free" when cost is mainly hidden in commissions. Client relationships are entirely the firm's. Technology is beyond bad. Primary asset management platform has suffered very bad performance in past years. They use the funds from companies that pay them a large kick-back beyond the fee charged by First Command to the client. Retention of advisors is bad. The model seems to be: bring in 10 new advisors (mostly separating or retiring military and spouses), get them to sell insurance to their former unit and friends. Three years later, only 1 or 2 of the 10 are left and the firm keeps commission trails on the insurance. Payout to advisors if below average for the industry and overly-complex. It favors people who sell more insurance or have been around the longest. They take pride in trying to punish advisors who leave and stay in the industry. It was pathetic to listen to the executive leadership talk to the whole company about how they would tie up former advisors in litigation is they tried to preserve any client relationships at another firm. No confidence in the value of the company and result to scare tactics. If you are looking to build a career in financial services, there are better places to do it.
