The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone entering this type of career is to be prepared and be patient! I would recommend this career to almost anyone. If I had to do it over again, I would definitely enter this career again. The pros are the unlimited income potential, the very flexible schedule and the freedom to choose your own income level. The cons are the instability of pay, as you work solely on commission. People should know that what you put into this career is what you will get out, if you are not a self-motivated person, it is probably not a good idea for you.
If you are interested in the financial industry then one of the greatest things about working as a financial sales representative is that you aren't selling something that actually costs people money. For me the best part of financial sales is that you get to sell people on the chance to increase their money and make their money work for them more. How many times have you turned away the salesperson because you didn't want to spend the money? Anyway if you are interested in this line of work I would say you have to be interested in working with people, as you will work with a lot of them. You should also be knowledgeable about financial services beyond the extent required for your position. Schooling is nice, but you can easily get in to this type of field just by starting out on the bottom and working your way into it. It is up to you to decide how you would like to do it.
I am a mortgage broker. With working for a small firm the hours are extremely long. The pay is very well for someone without a college degree, but the stress of a comission only sales environment is frustrating. A bit more stress than other types of commission sales as every application you sell will not be approved so there is a fair amount of fall out where you don't get paid.
