I want to set everyone straight on this company.
This is a financial sales company, not a financial services firm. The goal year in and year out is to maximize sales at the cost of providing true financial planning services to clients and developing relationships.
Book sizes are over 500 and by nature, representatives have little incentive to interact with current book clients unless there is new money coming in. Reps are constantly not following up with their own clients because there is no incentive to stay true to a relationship model. The planning is a masked service, run by computers and over complicated pieces of marketing material. When each "solution" for a client is a fidelity managed account, you start to question what actual planning you are really doing. If I client does not want a managed account, there is barely anything you can do for them, besides show them how to research on their own, defeating the purpose of a "guidance" appointment. Management is constantly looking at ways to better the years previously at the cost of the reps and the clients. More appointments, more phone calls is the name of the game. It is impossible to keep a relationship model when this is the driving force behind it.
If you want to provide financial planning guidance in a more meaningful way, it is best to join an RIA, which is where fidelity is losing most of its staff to anyway.
