Wealth Think

Customer relationship management is more than just an industry buzzword. In fact, for advisors it can be the difference between a profitable business and a really profitable business.

Just as the market volatility of the last few years has been challenging for investors, it’s also been challenging for advisors. In addition to the higher level of effort required to keep nervous and frustrated clients on the books, high volatility in client accounts makes it harder to be confident of fee-based revenue and therefore confident of a practice’s overall financial health.

Funding consideration were part of the reason that the SEC decided to shift oversight of smaller advisors to states. With soaring deficits, how will the states handle the added responsibility of supervising financial advisors?

Whose needs come first?

Most people don’t think about it, but there is a liquidity premium on publicly traded securities just as there is a risk premium, yet most only think about it in the case of extremely illiquid assets such as private equity.

When it comes to web marketing, independent advisors are different from everyone else. Which means there is a good chance you have been getting bad advice. Bad advice about using the web to grow your practice.

There's a lot of passion among advisors who, I think, suspect that there will eventually be standards that don't include them.

Planning for retirement isn’t just about hitting the “magic number.”

Pretirement described was supposed to be for those who were somewhere “between the rat race and the rocking chair," but over the last few years, the concept - if not the name itself - has begun to take hold among a much broader – and younger - group.

In this environment, it is all about specialization and outsourcing. A good retirement plan recordkeeper can allow financial institutions to focus on key customer differentiators