Knowing the right information about your clients and prospects can help you better connect and identify with them, and lead to stronger relationships. In our September 25 session of the Financial Advisor Webinar Series, Sam Richter, award-winning and top-selling author and SVP/Chief Marketing Officer at Actifi, shared his best tips for searching the web to find information on your clients on prospects. Attendees gave the session rave reviews, as they picked up tips that only the best marketing pros know.
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A New Model For Life Planning
Life planning increases client trust, commitment, satisfaction, cooperation, retention, and referrals, according to research published by the Financial Planning Association.
But how can your firm offer this holistic, client-centered approach to financial planning?
This presentation shows you how. You'll also learn how life planning aligns your firm with the Practice Standards established by the CFP Board of Standards.
For 15 years Carol Anderson has specialized in retirement preparation, productive aging, financial education, and life planning. As president and CEO of Money Quotient®, she has trained advisors in a values-based, life-centered approach to financial planning.

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At today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, attendees learned about a growing community of financial advisors who are using social networking successfully. Advisor Richard Krasney, CFP®, is specializing in philanthropic planning by leveraging his 500-plus connections on LinkedIn and 3349 followers on Twitter. Bill Winterberg, CFP®, a technology consultant to advisors, is blogging and tweeting and networking socially with hundreds of advisors daily. Krasney and Winterberg explained how advisors can get started using social networking to make themselves more visible and help with prospecting, networking, and research.
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Restoring Investor Confidence
The near-collapse of the American economy shattered confidence in investing and investment advisors. How do you restore trust? This session addresses opportunities to educate investors about what's happened and what it means for the future. It touches on actions you can take to inspire confidence.

Brian Stimpfl, a managing director at TD Ameritrade Institutional, is responsible advisor advocacy and serves as TD Ameritrade Institutional's spokesman on RIA issues. A TD employee since 1993, Stimpfl in previous roles has been responsible for all advisor-facing technology, products and services, and the platform advisors use to trade and manage accounts as well as the retail-branch referral service and other advisor business development programs.

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How can you use Google Alerts to research a niche market? How can you locate prospects on LinkedIn? What can you do to help clients focus on their long-term goals rather than short-term investment performance? Have you ever issued a press release through an Internet news distribution service?
In today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Andrew Gluck, Internet research and marketing expert and CEO of Advisor Products Inc., showed advisors how they can effectively use a number of marketing techniques.
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Advisors Using Social Networking Successfully 
Social networking is growing at an astounding rate, and financial advisors are taking notice. There's no doubt that social networking is a powerful marketing medium, but are there advisors who have have had much success with it?
At Friday's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, you'll hear from advisors who are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs, and Twitter to identify prospects and communicate better with clients. They'll share their stories and discuss what has and hasn't worked for them.

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In today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Advisor Products CEO Andrew Gluck taught advisors the basics of “tweeting” and how to use this new communication medium to build relationships with clients and prospects. Learn how to leverage the fastest growing social network to benefit your advisory practice.
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Read Andrew Gluck's column about Twitter in Financial Advisor Magazine

Investment Tax Management: Turn Clients’ Biggest Expense Into An Opportunity
Do you take taxes into account when developing your clients’ investment portfolios? How often do you look to tax loss harvest? How do you communicate to your clients the issue of tax management? On Friday, May 15, Dean Mioli, senior investment analyst for SEI Advisor Network, will explain the importance of tax management in today’s market and prepare advisors for a wave of tax increases in the coming years. He’ll demonstrate ways that advisors can outperform their peers though use of tax-managed investing.
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Other resources:
SEI Commentary On Tax Management
“The OPM Factor”

You can use LinkedIn and other social network sites to lure new clients. But you need a strategy for doing it. What should your profile say? How can joining groups be helpful to marketing? How can you utilize the "status update" feature? What are the compliance issues?
John Comer, a marketing coach to advisors with over 28 years of experience, addressed these topics in today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series. He was joined by compliance expert Dan Bernstein from MarketCounsel LLC who answered questions about the regulatory issues faced by advisors who use LinkedIn.
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Twitter For Advisors
As with other forms of social networking on the Web, use of Twitter is growing quickly, and financial advisors should take notice. Whether you've already started "tweeting" or don't even know what that means, Twitter help you become more visible with your clients, and these extra "touches" will help you solidify your advisor-client relationships.
Andrew Gluck, CEO of Advisor Products, will show you how Twitter can help your advisory business. He'll explain the basics of "tweeting" and help you get started with this new communication medium.

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In today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Peter Kaplan, CEO of Financial Productivity Group, and Bruce Moulton, Principal of Moulton Strategic Partners, explained to advisors the importance of documenting their firms' processes and workflows for better efficiency and client service. Kaplan and Moulton, who have implemented CRM systems at hundreds of independent advisory firms, discussed why a CRM system is the central piece of technology for any firm and explained key differences between web-based and locally-hosted systems.
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Using LinkedIn To Attract New Clients
In his March 27 appearance at the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, John Comer, a marketing coach to advisors who has over 28 years of experience, spoke about how you can use LinkedIn to find new prospects. Now he will explain how you can use LinkedIn to help prospects find you.

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At today's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Howie Jacobson, PhD, author of AdWords For Dummies, and one of the nation’s preeminent experts on using Google to promote your business, provided key tips that advisors should follow to build and manage a successful Google AdWords campaign.

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Increasing Your Firm's Operational Efficiency
The current economic malaise is making it hard on businesses to remain profitable. Financial advisors are feeling the pinch in reduced fees on assets under management. But you can get through this recession if you adapt. You need keep your expenses in check, without cutting key revenue builders that are integral to your business. You need to make your firm more efficient.
On April 24, at the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Peter Kaplan, CEO of Financial Productivity Group, and Bruce Moulton, Principal of Moulton Strategic Partners, will show you how.
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As the equity market collapse unhinged asset allocations from financial plans, it's time to rebalance and put client portfolios back in line. Should you be advising clients to put more assets into stocks? What about commodities and REITS? In today’s session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, Craig Israelsen, Ph.D, one of the foremost academics on indexes and passive investing and an associate professor of personal and family finance at Bringham Young University, made the case for his “7Twelve” asset allocation method.

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Google AdWords For Advisors
Investors wrecked by the bear market are firing their brokers and looking for independent, objective advisors. A Google AdWords campaign helps you connect with prospects looking for a new advisor.
If you are not familiar with Google AdWords, you’re doing competitors a favor.
In this session, Howie Jacobson, PhD, author of Google AdWords For Dummies, shows you how to get started in building a successful AdWords campaign.

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Social networking is exploding, and financial advisors are part of the trend. Today’s session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series featured John Comer, a marketing coach to advisors, who spoke about how advisors can use LinkedIn to identify and build relationships with new prospects. Over 550 advisors registered for the session. View Replay        Comer_Presentation Slides

Compliance Issues Posed By Linkedin, Twitter, Blogging, & Social Networking
When an IA rep uses Twitter to send a link to an article at Money.com to clients and prospects “following” him, is that communication subject to SEC advertising rules? How about when a registered rep does the same thing?

And how about if you” tweet” about a blog you posted? Can you even write a blog? And what about allowing commenting on your blog? Is that allowed?

Does posting a “recommendation” by a client on your Linkedin profile constitute a testimonial and, thus, violate SEC rules? What if clients don’t recommend you as a financial advisor but just opine on your character or integrity?

Blogs, Linkedin, Twitter, and other social networking websites are incredibly exciting marketing mediums. But before you dive in, you must know the compliance rules you face.   

In this session, you’ll get straight answers from MarketCounsel, one of the country's leading business and regulatory compliance consulting firms.

CFP attendees eligible for one CE credit.  

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See Replays Of All Financial Crisis Webinars And Schedule Of Upcoming Sessions 

With revenues from asset management fees slashed by the worst bear market in decades, financial advisors are struggling. And with Wall Street discredited by the financial crisis, this is the opportunity of a lifetime for independent advisors to build their client base, according to Jerry Lezynski of SEI Advisor Network, who spoke at this week’s session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series. To survive—and once again thrive—says Lezynski, advisors must focus now on delegating, marketing, communicating, prospecting, and positioning, and they must take steps right now to improve communications, retain clients, and build new relationships.

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Hand-picking prospects using LinkedIn: Next week’s webinar session will look at how advisors can use LinkedIn to build their client base during the current economic downturn. The popular social networking site provides a great way to find new leads and build your online presence. John Comer, a marketing coach to advisors who has over 28 years of experience, recently conducted groundbreaking research into how advisors can use LinkedIn for marketing. He will present his findings at this session.

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Are you successfully implementing a plan to get through the economic downturn? Do you have any recommendations that could help your peers to retain clients, reduce costs, or land new prospects? If so, please share your ideas by commenting on this blog. 

As the economic malaise continues, financial advisors are struggling. The stock market plunge has cut assets under management in half, and clients need more handholding than ever before. With the large Wall Street firms’ losing their credibility, independent advisors have a huge growth opportunity, but it won’t be easy.

As an advisor, to succeed in this downturn you must restore revenues, reduce costs, retain clients, and expand your business. These tasks can be daunting in the face of the worst recession since the Great Depression. But, at Friday's session of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, marketing expert Jerry Lezynski of SEI Advisor Network will show you how you can keep your business on solid footing through delegating, marketing, communicating, prospecting, and positioning.

Mr. Lezynski will also explain how to discover your firm’s vision and identity and how to use that discovery to properly plan for your firm’s growth.

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In preparation for our webinar today at 4 p.m. EST about how you can better run your practice through the globally financial crisis, we conducted a survey in the last three days. Of the 287 advisors registered for today’s webinar, 147 responded to the survey and virtually all of them answered every question. Below see the poll questions exactly as they appeared in the survey, the statistical results, and my commentary.

Many advisors are having a difficult time, with, 43% saying the financial crisis has been bad or very bad for business. However, 16.5% of those polled say the crisis has been good or very good for business. The remaining large group of advisors (41%) say the financial crisis has been neither good nor bad for business.

While 44% of advisors surveyed said they are not cutting any expenses, more than one in five say they will be taking a pay cut. Half that number say they will be cutting staff salaries. (Keep in mind that many of those polled could be sole practitioners.) With 20.3% of advisors saying they are cutting expenses across the board and 44.2% saying they are cutting nothing, most advisors for now seem to be trying to ride out the crisis before slashing expenses.

Of the expenses we asked about, the second largest expense advisors say they will reduce is marketing. Keeping in mind that I own a marketing company serving advisors, most smart business owners would say that cutting marketing expenditures now would be a mistake. For independent advisors, cutting expenses on marketing now, when the Wall Street giants have been discredited, makes little sense. The large firms on Wall Street, which have always had by far the greatest market share in the retail advice market, are likely to see their clients leave en masse because so many clients have suffered devastating portfolio losses. It’s a great marketing opportunity for independent advisors who articulate how they are different from Wall Street brokers.

My strategy for recouping revenues lost due the decline in asset values under management is:

To seize the opportunity created by the financial crisis, 92% say they know they must acquire new clients, offer additional products and services, or do both. The challenge will be differentiating yourself from Wall Street’s legions. Our speakers at today’s webinar have specific ideas about how you can differentiate your business from other advisory firms. Scott Farnsworth's approach uses story telling. “Using stories to sell and to learn your clients’ stories can revolutionize professional selling,” says Farnsworth. “It uses a complete sequence of story exchanges between professional and prospect to sell—to sell more and to sell more often.

I know how I can use financial planning to increase my firm's revenue and grow my business.

One of the most important ways to differentiate your practice and provide real value is to offer more than just investment management advice. Offering financial planning advice deepens client relationships. Yet 25% of advisors polled admit not knowing how they can use planning to increase revenue. Our other speaker today, Dr. Linda Strachan, a senior VP at EISI, the largest planning software company in North America, will provide insights into how advisors can integrate planning into client engagements.

David Loeper warned advisors not to rely too heavily on Monte Carlo and to tell clients always to expect that their financial plans will need to be updated. Meanwhile, Tom Connelly said there’s only a 10% chance that the global financial crisis will cause a systemic collapse that leads to a depression but warned that the economy is most likely headed for a long period much like before the crisis erupted, only not as robust. Loeper and Connelly, thought-leaders among independent advisors, offered these thoughts this past Friday during a 90-minute webinar attended by about 125 advisors. If you missed the session, which was part of the Financial Crisis Webinar Series sponsored by Advisor Products Inc., it is available now for replay

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Independent advisors have experienced only minimal defections of clients, and the vast majority of advisors believe the recession will be over by the end of 2009, according to a survey of independent advisors conducted after markets closed last Friday to cap off another tumultuous week.

The survey was conducted by Advisor Products during a free webinar series we are sponsoring to assist advisors with client communciations during the financial crisis. More than 200 advsors attended the webinar and 82% of attendees answered all of the question in the survey. If you’d like to attend  the “Crisis Communications” webinar series, please email me at agluck@advisorproducts.com. The sessions include no product pitches.Below are the questions and results of the survey.

Attendees are not experiening a panic by clients. Sixty-eight percent of the advisors who participated in our survey say that less than 25% of their clients have called them worried. Only 8% of the advisors polled said that between 50% and 75% of their clients called them worried about the events of recent weeks, and just 1% said that more than 75% of their client base had called them worried.  

Sixty-four pecent of the advisors polled believe the recession will not last beyond 2009, and that’s the good news. The bad news is that only 16% of advisors believe the recession will be shallow, while 46% believe the recession will be over by the end of 2009 but will be deep, and 28% believe the recession will be deep and continue into 2010. Despite the spate of troubling economic news about the shape of America’s financial institutions, just 2% of the advisors polled said they believe the recession would turn into a recession that will last at least three years.

Many advisors have been shaken by the market’s terrible turbulence, with 29% saying they feel guilty for not protecting their clients. 

Most of the advisors attending last Friday’s webinar are seasoned veterans, with 59% saying they have been in the profession more than 10 years.  

By a wide majority, advisors believe the financial crsiis is a marketing opportunity and plan to expand their marketing effort. Just 14% said they did not think the turmoil creates a marketing opportunity, while 86% said they view the economic crisis as an opportunity.

In my view, with Merrill Lynch and other big brokerage firms in disarray, it’s hard to understand how any indpendent advisor would not recognize the crisis as a great chance to gain clients. The myth that large firms were in a better position to offer investors advice has been shattered. Independent advisory firms that tell their story to investors now—via a website, newsletter, brochure, blog, wbeinars, and all other means—can take advantage of the ravaged financial condition and staff morale of the giant firms. Independent advisory firms should consider stepping up marketing by telling prospects about your independence, ability to be objective, and the absence of conflicts of interest arising from being linked to a corporate parent that manufactures products as well as the benefit clients derived from the fact that you are not affiliated with a research desk and investment banking department. My next column in Financial Advisor, which comes out in early November, will contain specifics about all this.  

The financial crisis is not a business crisis for indpendent advisors—at least not so far—with only 3% of advisors saying they were alarmed by a loss of clients recently. We’ll keep gauging  this periodically, but it does seem as though the worst is over. If the whipsaw markets of the last three weeks did not cause clients to fire their advisors, it’s difficult to imagine what will.

My guess is that brokers are not experiencing the same client loyalty that independent advisors enjoy and are much more susceptible to losing clients. That’s why advisors need to create marketing materials to respond to the opportunity and clearly articulate their value proposition versus brokers.  

Lending creedence to the notion that independent advisors are enjoying strong client loyalty, almost all advisors say their clients have been understanding and have not blamed them for losses recently suffered.

Quick, who is your ideal client? If you can’t answer this question within 30 seconds, you’ve got some explaining to do—particularly in this time of turmoil.

I talk with many independent financial advisors and I’d say that more than 75 percent of them can’t tell you exactly who their ideal clients are. There’s some deep-seated fear that if they declare a niche of 35-65 year-old scientists who work in the New York metro area, a Gates or Wozniak will be lost.

With the financial system wracked by turmoil, independent advisors have an opportunity to reshape their businesses. Yes, some clients may leave your firm. But as has happened during previous times of turmoil, independent advisors will come out way ahead.

We have witnessed the destruction of the giant Wall Street firms and people’s confidence in them. As much as the public distrusts Washington politicians, the public trusts Wall Street even less. Your marketing effort must communicate how you’re different from Wall Street salespeople. (I’ll be talking about how to separate your firm from Wall Street at our webinar this Friday at 4 p.m. ET.

Instead of dwelling on the market’s collapse, start planning how you’re going to come out of this mess on top. Stay focused on behaving like the firm you’ve always wanted to create. Decide who the ideal clients are that you are going to want to work with most. That’s the first step in preparing for the next phase of this financial crisis—rebuilding and recovering. Doing it now in the throes of the crisis may seem like a lot to ask, but only by envisioning the future you want to create will you be able to actually take steps in that direction.

Declaring your ideal clients is important because it provides a roadmap for your marketing, client-acquisition, and client-retention efforts. And you are going to be fielding questions from many scared investors in the months ahead who no longer want to work with a broker affiliated with a once-swaggering financial giant, but you need to decide which of these people are the best-fit for the advisory firm you are trying to build. While asking you to think about anything other than the crisis may be difficult, there is no shortage of good reasons to declare your ideal clients now:

• It’s differentiates you instantly from the giants. Bank of America and Citigroup are firms for the masses. By specializing, you create exclusivity. Your firm is a boutique that excels in handling certain types of clients, and you cannot afford to spread yourself too thin because your service is so personalized.
• You’ll establish yourself as an expert. When you elucidate who you work with, you attract more of that type of client, thus cementing your expertise for a certain type of person’s needs. Consider how you select a physician when you have a specific health ailment— you want the doctor who specializes, right? A GP is fine for routine care. But when you have a problem to be addressed, you want a specialist. People with money issues want a specialist, too.
• You can charge more, work less, and maintain a smaller client roster. Serving a very select group of clients frees you to dedicate yourself and your time to their unique needs. It’s a lot simpler, cost-effective, and time-efficient for an independent advisory firm to provide outstanding service to a smaller number of clients with similar needs than to compete with Bank of America.
• You get more bang for your marketing buck. It’s expensive to advertise to the masses—especially in an industry as commoditized as financial services. It’s expensive to try to create marketing materials when you’re trying to be all things to all people. A tighter focus makes your advertising and marketing goals clearer and more achievable.
• You establish relationships with a strategic network. Once you’ve identified the ancillary services that your clients most often require, you can establish or further cement relationships with your strategic alliances. Seek out CPAs, estate attorneys, and insurance brokers who’ll be knowledgeable about the services your ideal client frequently requires. Suddenly, you have a team and a referral network.
• You do what you’re best at and enjoy most. Most independent financial advisors genuinely care about their clients and want to help them, and part of the helping-people equation is chemistry. You’re much more likely to feel chemistry with the clients that you really believe you can help. Paring down your client base to the subset of ideal clients that you most want to help allows you to offload clients who aren’t as good a fit for your firm.