Vantaggi
It is an awesome thing to be paid a salary while dedicating time solely to earning career changing licenses. The FAIT program model is great when executed correctly. The program is set up to develop you into a true practitioner with unlimited earning potential over the long haul and windfall bonus potential within the first 2 years. Partnering with the community bank is a no brainer for an aspiring Financial Advisor. The ability to hone your partnering skills opposed to spending time giving seminars is an absolute draw for me. My schedule is flexible although this might not be the case for every FAIT but I would think that most of the FAIT talent across the country is given autonomy when it comes to time management.
Svantaggi
You can feel less in control of your career progression as you don't have much leverage as a Junior Partner without a trail of revenue. You tend to have "0" political capital with peers and bank partners as you are viewed as a Trainee due to corporate titling requirements and the need to service almost all clients segments while scrambling to acquire assets in the beginning. Senior partners can view you either as a workhorse to drive revenue for them or a partner to help increase capacity. Make sure you are the latter or you will be entering into a black hole that can potentially ruin your career. The brokerage culture can seem a little stuffy at times. Your peers will each have gigantic egos as if they are the only person to ever make 150k a year. "Attention all Ego Maniac Financial Advisors, there is some 18 year kid coming up with an iPhone app right not that will be a millionaire by year end. Make sure your Sr. Partner has a concrete plan to transfer a substantial amount of his AUM into your rep code before the launch of your production period. If not you will be fighting and scrapping for revenue the same as your independent channel peers that take home double the revenue for the same production. .