2008 Best Basic Pay
A number of special policies are not included here since they do no affect 100% of the population evenly and therefore are more haphazard to model and compare. Individual results can vary drastically, based on the mix of business and the combination of policies at each firm. For example, pay can rise upward from special bonuses and voluntary deferred plan company matches, and downward from penalties such as discount sharing, small tickets, small clients, and ticket changes.

Financial advisory firms want to grow, but there are fewer new advisors coming into the industry. That forces broker-dealers to boost their ranks by cherry-picking from competitors. An economics professor might see an interesting lab experiment of a supply-demand imbalance, but those in the trenches see a battlefield.

Say an advisor decides to move to a new firm. Like many of his peers, he sees more green on the other side of the fence.

By itself, that's not new. But there is a twist in today's market. Today, that advisor faces not just the traditional mad dash to the phones by his former colleagues trying to snag his clients. Now, he may be competing with the brass too. The chief executive officer of the company—not just the wealth management division—has been known to hit the phones and start wooing, at least for very high-end clients.

While Fortune 500 CEOs are acting like community bankers, working the phones to retain one special customer, many of the companies traditionally considered regionals are trying to project themselves as national players, albeit with a "regional culture."

This role reversal of sorts is among the myriad results of the hyper-competitive market for top advisor talent. And this drive shows few signs of declining in the near future.

Several market observers contacted for this article described the current market as a "war for talent." And while they acknowledge that this industry has always been a competitive one, several factors make today's market unique.

Like the companies that eliminated their mid-level management in the 1990s only to now find themselves with a lack of CEO-worthy insiders, the broker industry is scrambling to fill its own top seats.

While the most experienced FAs are exiting the business, the younger generation was long agosacrificed and is largely not ready to take the reins.

In hindsight, of course, it all seems clear. "It's a fundamental issue," says Daryl Metzger, executive vice president at Hilliard Lyons. "In early 2000, the big firms cut training programs and because of that, years later, here you are."

Some of those experienced FAs today are answering the call to set up their own shops, but demographics plays a part too. Financial advisors, largely in the same class as their clientele, are getting older and considering retirement, or scaling back their businesses to enjoy more free time, says Robert Ellis, senior analyst at Boston-based research firm Celent.

In fact, the average investment pro is 52-years-old, according to a research report from Seattle-based Moss Adams. Moreover, in five years, 42% of them will be over 60 and if even half of them retire, the industry will lose fully one-fifth of its workforce, the research shows.

To be sure, some in the industry view all of this as a simple reallocation of resources. William Willis, president and CEO of Los Angeles-based recruiting firm Willis Consulting, notes that the money saved with those training cuts years ago was simply shifted to pay for today's recruiting frenzy.

But as competition reaches unprecedented levels, others are questioning those decisions to cut training programs. "We're reaping what we sowed," says Ellis.

Never Has So Much Been Focused on So Few

Wall Street seems less concerned with the causes of this war for talent than the spoils. The broker-dealers say they are seeking top producers when they lure advisors from other firms. The common refrain is "$500,000 and up" for that magic threshold.

But there simply is not enough grist to feed that mill. In fact, just 2% of advisors earn $500,000, according to research from Cerulli and Moss Adams.