Breakaway Brokers

I was recently told, “I love Medicare 101, but I’m ready for a Medicare ‘unhinged’ – the real stuff that advisors should know to the core and not all of the usual stuff we hear.”

Behavioral factors can significantly impact a client’s financial wellness. This executive brief focuses on four — Future Concept, Impulsiveness, Materialism and Financial Literacy — to provide insights into identifying and addressing each factor during financial coaching, which financial professionals can use to create the optimal plan for each client.

Ultra-low interest rates and a flood of private equity dollars seeking a decent return have driven the valuations paid in the M&A market to crazy levels, according to two of the most prominent acquirers.

Look for these five factors in marketing director applicants.

When you hear or see the word “threat,” it triggers you in some way. Associating that word with referrals will evoke a terrifying shiver. This is, of course, assuming you’re interested in wanting to acquire more referrals.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg devoted much of her career to advancing women’s rights. Despite her heroic efforts to bridge the gender gap, much work remains to be done.

Over the past few months, advisors and investors have been whipsawed by market movements and emotions have been magnified due to the pandemic. And while the term behavioral finance has often been discussed in the advisor world, the application of it into practice tends to lag.

Nature is our greatest teacher. After spending a couple weeks on a small lake in Vermont this summer, I saw how fishing provides a framework for prospecting – the process of finding and converting a lead to client.

Your social network may be an untapped and robust source for uncovering prospects. While you may be suffering from COVID-19 fatigue, we believe prospecting and having introductory conversations about the services you provide could be one of the best uses of your time.

Knowing your client lifetime value is essential, and it can guide the decisions you make in the course of your career.

Here are five biases that may be lurking in your subconscious and influencing the way you assess men and women.

Advisors must develop their softer skills so they can meet the needs of their clients with both compassion and empathy, all within an increasingly remote and virtual atmosphere.

How do the ultra-wealthy find financial advisors? What are they looking for, and how can your firm use that knowledge to cater to this hyper-specific audience?

It certainly feels different this time. Acknowledging that difference will enhance relationships with your clients.

My learning goal each year is to read at least 40 business-related, non-fiction books – the “stay at home order" has allowed me to read 63. So here is my eighth annual compilation of the ones I’ve read from September 2019 through August 2020.

Your chance of closing business with an existing client is 72%. Most of the income you make from any one client will be ensuing sales, not from the initial solution.

How do I keep my team working together effectively in this remote environment?

Before you work on a marketing plan, answer these 20 questions…

A leading psychologist explains why more women aren’t in leadership roles in financial services.

I realized that it’s been so long since I started my NewsLetter, most of you won’t know its origins. To bring you up to date, here’s the intro to the first one.

Download Coach Through Biases - Yours and Your Clients' to learn how to reframe your client experience through ongoing engagement and conversations about risk — the risk of not meeting goals that is.

That's because when your clients think about risk, chances are they aren’t referring to technical terms like standard deviation. Coaching them throughout your relationship can help combat emotional decision-making and maximize the likelihood of achieving success.

Recently, I released a comprehensive fee survey that was designed to test what, exactly, is going on in the advisor marketplace – to assess whether firms are, indeed, migrating from the AUM revenue model to something that more closely matches time and internal costs with fees charged.

Imagine if you had a meter to measure the positive energy in your firm. How often would it be buzzing off its hinges at full tilt toward positivity?

There’s an insidious form of discrimination that’s rarely discussed, but highly pernicious. And it’s incredibly difficult to overcome.

Prospects find your firm’s website with a Google search such as, “financial advisor near me.” But what happens when you’re not showing up in those searches?

Nobody will die or suffer great pain if you don't react now, this instant.

Ask yourself this question: Why do you trust someone? What is there about them that gives you that special feeling?

Have you ever noticed that Mother Nature always wins?

There’s a fundamental misunderstanding about creating trust. Too often, we conflate an air of confidence with building trust with a prospect.

A true goals-based wealth management (GBWM) approach can help you control for behavioral biases — both yours and your clients’ — and deliver desired financial outcomes for your clients. Coaching clients throughout your relationship can help combat emotional decision-making and maximize the likelihood of achieving success. Join SEI and Capital Group® for this session which will:

• Teach attendees about goals based wealth management
• Show attendees how to implement a GBWM approach by breaking down the implementation process into its core components
• Walk attendees through: identifying clients’ objectives, choosing alternate allocation approaches, the benefits of multiple investment styles and implementation vehicles, and personalization to help you help your clients meet their investment goals
• Introduce the SEI American Funds® Strategies

John, J., and Chris will be available to answer your questions following the presentation.

A common block I see in business growth is incongruence. What people say they want is not what they actually want (or believe is possible).

Doing what others don’t do positions you as someone special. Let’s take a look at two things you can start doing today.

Is there a right way to deliver bad news to an employee?

Advisors are blissfully unaware of the risk inherent in their jobs.

Now more than ever, investors are looking to their advisors for reassurance and a plan for the future. And in order to create that plan, advisors MUST be able to correctly assess a client’s risk tolerance.

In addition, advisors need to be able to communicate that plan effectively and consistently, all while managing their client’s fears and concerns.

Because of this, advisors’ coaching skills are more important than ever. Helping clients understand and manage risk can be tricky, but with direct conversations, along with technology tools that help capture, access and monitor risk tolerance, new client engagement opportunities and better outcomes emerge.

Join us on this informative webcast that will provide you with best practices on engaging clients, in the ever important risk tolerance discussion.

I’ve always been frustrated by the lack of clarity about what advisors earn. And then I did my own research…

It’s the built-in online tool you may have never considered a business advantage: Google My Business. Before you write it off, consider these statistics…

Before engaging a vendor to help with your business, this is the first question you should ask…

Politicians love saying small businesses are important to the economy. In this case, it isn’t just rhetoric. The millions of little companies with a handful of workers are, collectively, more important than the few hundred large enterprises we see in the news.

In the era of social distancing, technology has become even more integrated into our personal and professional lives. We believe this trend will persist even after the pandemic passes, and we expect it will particularly benefit firms that support remote working arrangements and eCommerce, two areas where we anticipate accelerating adoption and sustained growth.

I’ve seen many examples of how advisors make themselves more interesting, but here are three best approaches that have a big impact.

I’ve always valued the wisdom of this quote attributed to Jack Bogle...

When it comes time to return, I believe I should have more options around what I can do.

Imagine telling clients you’re their guru, guide and gladiator. Learn a simple framework to help articulate your distinctive value.

Be wary of these five common copywriting mistakes I see advisors make on their websites.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought major changes to how advisors are working with clients, especially based on the comments we received during our recent webinar, “How the Pandemic Has Changed Advisory Practices.”

There’s a group of hormones that, when triggered, make us happy. Those chemical reactions make us feel really good. What’s the downside?

The company allows family offices and rich individuals to analyze their public and private investments in one digital platform, and also stores documents for their holdings.

We have heard from five prospects that our site looks “dated.”

I’ll show you how to take your email marketing to the next level with automation.

It started with an offhand comment from a developer I retained for a new website. He asked, “Do you want the website to be ADA compliant?”

Can you reignite the growth of your business in the the second half of 2020? We think so. Here’s why we believe the next six months may hold a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The concept of a website is simple. Understanding its function, crafting a compelling design and implementing your plan is challenging.

The tumultuous environment illustrates why a risk tolerance assessment exercise inspires confidence in clients.

I’m sharing and analyzing five examples of great visual content from financial advisors.

The team is relatively young but also is interested in appealing to advisors who may eventually want to retire to Florida.

If you asked your COIs to give you a grade, what would they say?

Before you invest time and money on marketing, ensure you have these five things in place.

It’s time to dive into a tried-and-true method of building trust with email marketing – sending a monthly email newsletter.

Have you ever experienced a slow computer? The solution is often to clear the cache, which rids it of unnecessary data and permits it to function more efficiently. The same principle applies to your brain.

We have choices when we meet others, but most people aren’t aware of them.

This article examines Reg BI and provides tips and tools for, in particular, independent broker-dealers to consider what needs to be done by July 1, 2020 and the balance of the year.

Shake up a snow globe and the world inside is instantly upheaved, until the flakes settle and a new reality is revealed. This pandemic demands that advisors engage in the same level of strategic upheaval to ensure they thrive in an unsettled world.

I had a recent experience when I became a client and experienced what it was like to be on the other side of the table. It taught me a lesson about fees.

Seasons of adversity reveal our shortcomings. Advisory businesses with the following qualities have the best chance of not only surviving the pandemic but finding ways to thrive in spite of it.

The advisory industry is unaware that the traditional asset-location rules (i.e, put bonds in tax-deferred accounts and stocks in taxable accounts) don’t work in our low interest rate environment. The exact opposite is appropriate for most retirees.

The pandemic created a nightmarish environment for advisors, who must cope with the human and financial toll on their clients. But a few farsighted practitioners are seizing the changes forced upon them to improve the way they serve their clients and manage their teams.

You don’t control the spread of COVID-19 or the timeline for when an effective treatment or vaccine will be available. You can control your expenses.

High-achieving female advisors have five things that they focus on daily.

Are you willing to handle what I call "the boredom of success" – doing mundane things over and over again until you realize your goals?

This is the perfect opportunity to deepen your client relationships by talking about what matters most to them and integrating their financial decisions with their spiritual life.

I have created a series to serve as a one-stop guide to email marketing for financial advisors.

I’ve had three experiences with vendors seeking to assist with my new book. Check out the stories. They illustrate the need to adapt and be flexible.

To improve your website, I’m sharing the top five elements the highest converting advisor websites have in common.

The pandemic has profoundly changed our lives, sometimes in unexpected ways. I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with you in the hope you might find them useful.