Home of the Registered Investment Advisor
Do you feel left behind by the social media revolution? Are you confused (and a bit freaked out) by mere mentions of hashtags and retweets? I know the feeling. I’m comfortable on Facebook, but the abbreviated Twitter lingo sometimes makes my eyes gloss over, like reading short-hand or a foreign language.
Yet, seemingly everywhere I look lately on news programs, political debates, and even sports shows, they’re reporting on people’s “tweets” and organizations are telling us to “follow them on Twitter.”
This week I loaded up my three kids and drove four hours northwest along several different state highways to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to witness the annual rite of “Groundhog Day” in the scenic Allegheny mountains. Along with 18,000 others, we watched the famed furry weather prognosticator come out of his stump, “see” his shadow on Gobbler’s Knob, and predict six more weeks of winter.
Before Phil made his appearance there was pre-dawn revelry including fireworks, dancing, food, drink, a lot of funny-looking groundhog hats.
What can entrepreneurs learn from the enduring success of Punxsutawney Phil which is based entirely on old German folk tale?
For the first time, Financial Planning magazine has published a list of the largest registered investment advisory firms in the United States, based on discretionary assets under management. The largest firm on the list had assets of $16.9 billion, the smallest firm, $1.7 billion.
What can we learn from this ranking of the big guns in the RIA biz?
Nearly 40% of the firms (19 out of 50) were headquartered in either California (10) or New York (9). The next most popular states were Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Texas. Read More
What are the three most important tech platforms for marketing your business?
I posed that question to 39-year-old financial planner Justin Krane, of Krane Financial Solutions in Calabasas, Calif. Krane is a former UBS broker who left to start his own investment advisory firm and in just a few years has built a budding niche among women entrepreneurs, including interior decorators, therapists, hair stylists, and designers.
Krane’s recent workshop on business risk management showed up prominently in my Google Reader results, and he says without question, his most important tech platforms are the following:
1. Wordpess
Krane uses WordPress to power his website. He opted for a blog platform rather than a traditional html-based website because blogs are easier to update with video and audio content, and often show up higher in search engine rankings: Each new post “pings” the search engines. WordPress is cost-effective and user-friendly, though Krane delegates all the uploading and editing tasks to his marketing and communication associate. “ Read More
My third post challenged you to answer a series of questions about your 10 best clients that almost any stranger, playing nine or 18 holes of golf with them, would probably have learned during a simple conversation . They may have asked about his or her job and how things are going, learned something about his or her educational, family, charitable or fraternal interests, vacations, etc. It’s just information gained from a normal conversation. Read More
The last few posts explored various criteria that you can use in evaluating clients to ensure that you deliver First Class, rather than Coach, service to your best clients. The challenge is to evaluate all clients objectively using a point system that is consistent for all.
Note that this system goes beyond revenues generated by each client, and includes things such as: referrals they provide, the level of enjoyment you have servicing them, and how demanding they are on your time. The purpose is to give you a point system that will take your total client relationship into consideration, to help you determine which clients you really should be working with. You evaluate each client relationship relative to your needs – both currently and in the foreseeable future — to ensure you have a complete picture of your business and that working with “squeaky wheels” or smaller clients is not detrimental to your top clients. Read More
Think of the 10 clients you have that require the most service from you. Service can be anything from asking questions, to needing help understanding their statement again, to those who worry about one thing or another and regularly need you to hold their hands. Do you provide them with inordinate levels of service?
Also ask the same question of your administrative or sales assistant, who can probably tell you some horror stories about how certain people get an inordinate amount of attention to the detriment of others.
Let me know if this observation of others is also true for someone you know.
I don’t know what monetary value you place on an hour of your time. You can take your annual gross (or net) compensation and divide by about 1,600 Read More
At the Business and Wealth Management Forum in Chicago last month mutual fund icon Don Phillips of Morningstar handed out some sage advice to the investment profession in a speech titled “Reflections on Fund Management: 5 Lessons from 25 Years.”
Phillips provided data showing how focus on the short-term sale was not only bad for the client, it was devastating to the industry: funds and firms that choose the short-term approach did not thrive over time. Read More
“Birds of a feather stick together,” is an adage familiar to all. This is especially true of getting referrals. Corporate executives tend to associate with, and refer, other corporate types. Medical professionals, attorneys, craftsmen tend to do the same. This is important regarding referrals.
Probably 95% of the time or better people refer others of similar economic or social status to themselves. Of course you want the higher-value (ala business potential) referrals and also realize that sometimes you may want to take a lower-value referral to accommodate an existing client or friend relationship. A high-level referral may be ten to fifty times more valuable to your business than smaller ones. Read More
