Selling days, meetings and calls on one side, a tiered target list on the other: the coverage arithmetic behind a wholesaling team.
One wholesaler covers as many advisors as their annual touch capacity divided by the touches each advisor needs, weighted across the tiers of the list. With 185 selling days giving 870 touches a year, against a list of 460 advisors needing 6.13 touches each on average, one external wholesaler can cover 142 advisors, and the list needs 3.24 of them. Counted on top producers alone, the answer is 36.
Worked in full in The Private Wealth Fundraiser by Julian R. Sterling, with every figure reproduced in a free workbook.See the book on Amazon →
Coverage is a capacity problem before it is a sales problem. A wholesaler, the external who meets financial advisors at banks and wealth managers, has a fixed number of selling days and can fit a limited number of meetings and calls into each. Advisors differ in how often they need to be seen. Divide the first by the second, tier by tier, and the size of the team stops being a matter of opinion.
Capacity = field days × meetings per field day + office days × calls per office day
Touches required = Σ advisors in tier × touches per advisor per year
Advisors per wholesaler = capacity / (touches required / advisors)
Excel: =Capacity/(SUMPRODUCT(Advisors,Touches)/SUM(Advisors))
A fictional manager launching an evergreen private credit fund on one private bank and two wealth platforms. The target list has already been triaged into three tiers by production and fit; the touch frequencies are the manager's own service standard, not a market norm.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Working days | 225 |
| Less events, training, internal and travel-only days | 40 |
| Selling days | 185 |
| Field days × 4 meetings | 480 |
| Office days (65) × 6 calls | 390 |
| Touches a year | 870 |
| Tier | Advisors | Touches a year each | Touches required | Advisors one wholesaler could hold on this tier alone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, top producers | 40 | 24 | 960 | 36 |
| B, active | 120 | 8 | 960 | 109 |
| C, developing | 300 | 3 | 900 | 290 |
| List | 460 | 6.13 | 2,820 |
Step 1, capacity. 225 working days less 40 non-selling days is 185. On 120 field days at four meetings, 480 meetings; on the other 65 days, six calls each, 390. Total 870 touches.
Step 2, demand. 40 × 24 + 120 × 8 + 300 × 3 = 960 + 960 + 900 = 2,820 touches, or 6.13 per advisor on average.
Step 3, coverage. 870 / 6.13 = 141.9, so 142 advisors per wholesaler. The list needs 2,820 / 870 = 3.24 wholesalers: three would run at 108.0 per cent of capacity, four at 81.0 per cent.
The forty A-tier advisors, 8.7 per cent of the list, take a third of the touches. That is the right allocation, since they write most of the tickets, but it is why a headcount view misleads: a wholesaler can hold 290 developing advisors or 36 top producers, and the realistic territory is a mix in between. Four externals at 81.0 per cent leave room for the events and due diligence visits the plan did not count. Three would fall behind in the first busy quarter, and the touches that go first are the B-tier follow-ups that convert interest into tickets.
A cheaper design is a hybrid. An inside wholesaler with 200 days at 12 calls has 2,400 touches; give it all of tier C and half of tier B's touches (four calls a year each), 1,380 touches or 57.5 per cent of its capacity. The externals then carry 1,440 touches, and two of them run at 82.8 per cent.
| Scenario | Advisors per wholesaler | Wholesalers needed |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity 700 touches | 114 | 4.03 |
| Base case, 870 touches | 142 | 3.24 |
| Capacity 1,050 touches | 171 | 2.69 |
| A tier at 36 touches a year | 121 | 3.79 |
| C tier at 2 touches a year | 159 | 2.90 |
The range from 700 to 1,050 touches is roughly what a dense urban territory and a spread-out regional one deliver; it moves the team from just over four people to fewer than three. Raising the A tier from two to three touches a month costs more than half a wholesaler. Cutting the C tier to two touches saves a third of one, which is why developing advisors are usually moved to events, webinars and the inside desk.
Planning on 225 days at five meetings, 1,125 touches, and dividing the list by a flat frequency: at three touches a year that says one wholesaler covers 375 advisors, and a team of two looks sufficient. It counts days nobody sells, meetings travel does not allow, and treats a top producer like a prospect. The plan is then right on paper and missed in the field, and the shortfall shows up as weak conversion rather than as the capacity problem it is.
At a fully loaded cost of 260,000 and a net margin of 0.75 per cent on assets, a wholesaler pays for themselves only when 34.7 million of client assets they raised stays in the fund, about 244,278 for each of the 142 advisors covered. That is the bridge to how many advisors it takes to raise 100 million: that article starts from the fundraising target and the conversion rate to size the list; this one starts from the wholesaler's calendar to size the team. For the whole team's cost against the margin left after retrocessions, see break-even AUM for a wealth distribution team.
The coverage model of a platform tier by tier, with the triage of a target list against what a salesperson can hold, is in the blank set that comes with the free workbook for this book.
Three to five in-person meetings on a field day is a common planning range, fewer in rural territories. The worked case uses four on 120 field days, 480 meetings, plus six calls on each of 65 office days, 390, for 870 touches a year. Planning on five meetings every working day gives 1,125, a capacity no territory delivers once travel, events and internal days are removed.
If top producers need two touches a month, 24 a year, a wholesaler with 870 touches can hold about 36 of them and nothing else. That is why tiering matters: the same capacity covers 109 advisors at eight touches a year or 290 at three. A list that is mostly A tier needs far more wholesalers than its headcount suggests.
Divide the fully loaded cost by the manager's net margin on assets. At 260,000 a year and 0.75 per cent, a wholesaler pays for themselves only when 34.7 million of client assets they brought in stays in the fund, which is 244,278 for each of the 142 advisors they cover. Gross sales that redeem quickly do not count.
This article is one calculation from The Private Wealth Fundraiser. The book takes the same case from first principles to the decision, chapter by chapter, and every figure it prints is a live formula in the free companion workbooks.
Get the book on Amazon →Free companion files
Also on Amazon UK · Amazon Germany · Amazon France · Amazon Canada
Reading guide: private equity and private markets → · All 1340 articles →
If this book helped, or didn’t, a few lines on Amazon are worth more than they look: they are what the next reader goes on. Write a review. The workbook stays free either way.