Nobody Is Training Young Advisors Anymore

Frank LaRosa says the problem with young financial advisors is not work ethic, it is training. Frank opens with a story about a young advisor he has been mentoring, a twenty-three-year-old working on the asset management side at a wirehouse who was outperforming his targets but getting dinged for small administrative mistakes. Frank explains the advice he gave him and why building your own book of business might be the harder but more rewarding path compared to joining an established team. Stacey widens the conversation into something bigger, the age gap opening up in the industry between advisors in their late fifties and sixties and the wave of twenty-three to thirty-year-olds coming in behind them, with almost nobody in the middle. Frank frames it as a barbell problem, pointing out the gap in the middle where mid-career advisors should be and explains why it is creating real opportunity for young advisors, even if most of them do not fully realize it yet. Frank does not soften his opinion on where the real failure sits. He argues that big firms preach hard work while their own people clock out at five and that most of the industry has quietly abandoned the old school training programs that actually produced successful advisors. He breaks down what real training used to look like, why cold calling still works and why rushing new advisors toward designations like the CFP before they understand the business is a mistake he has watched play out for years. The episode wraps with a direct challenge to firm owners and independent practitioners. If you are bringing young people into this business, you owe them a real system and enough time to succeed, not just a desk and a quota.   Questions answered in this episode include: Should a young financial advisor join a team or build their own book of business? What is the age gap problem happening in the financial advisor industry right now? What is the barbell approach and why does it matter for advisor recruiting? Why do old school training programs work better than what most firms offer today? What mistakes do firms make when training young financial advisors? How many cold calls should a trainee financial advisor be making every day? Why is it a mistake to push new advisors toward designations like the CFP too early?   Chapters: 00:58 Introduction: Nobody Is Training Young Advisors Anymore 01:59 The Mentoring Story That Changed Everything 03:19 Wirehouse vs Building It Yourself 08:34 You Don't Know What Hard Work Really Is 17:05 Why Firms Need to Bring Back Old School Training 21:42 Getting Younger Blood Back Into the Business 24:05 The Barbell Problem in Financial Advisor Recruiting 29:10 How to Reach Frank and Stacey   Learn more about Elite and our resources: - Elite Consulting Partners: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com - Elite Marketing Concepts: https://elitemarketingconcepts.com - Elite Advisor Successions: https://eliteadvisorsuccessions.com - JEDI Database Solutions: https://jedidatabasesolutions.com - Elite Wealth Management Insights Report: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/insight-report - Listen to more: https://eliteconsultingpartners.com/podcasts/ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elite-consulting-partners/