Branch Sales Manager Career Overview: A branch sales manager is the subordinate of a branch manager who is delegated responsibility for increasing the office’s client base and revenues.
Background: Branch sales managers typically are drawn from the ranks of financial advisors. So-called producing branch sales managers have retained a book of business, and continue to function as financial advisors in addition to taking on managerial duties. They are found most often in smaller branch offices and in smaller firms. By contrast, non-producing branch sales managers have become full-time managers, and do not have clients of their own. They are most common in larger branch offices and in larger firms.
Responsibilities: A branch sales manager has responsibility for increasing a branch office’s revenues and client base. The job requires close work with financial advisors, both in implementing firm wide sales strategies and in developing tactics related to the local competitive situation. Countering the efforts of other financial services firms to penetrate the local client base is a major concern for branch sales managers.
Branch sales managers can have an important role in the hiring of new financial advisors, or in the dismissal of financial advisors for underperformance or for legal, regulatory or firm policy infractions. In these matters, the sales manager acts in an advisory role to the branch manager. Additionally, branch sales managers often take on a mentoring role with new, inexperienced financial advisors, or with experienced hires from other firms who must learn their new firm’s way of doing business.
Branch sales managers are charged with managing special promotions dictated by executive management, such as sales pushes that try to increase clients’ usage of certain products or services offered by the firm. These promotions typically have special monetary incentives for the financial advisors who meet their targets, and are colloquially referred to as the "flavor of the month."
Compensation: Non-producing branch sales managers are paid salary and bonus, with the bonus typically closely tied to branch results, especially certain sales metrics (like revenues, production credits, client assets, client accounts, etc.) among the sales managers’ own critical few objectives. Producing branch sales managers also receive regular financial advisor compensation on their book of business.
