Practice management

In another move to ramp up its services to affluent and high-net-worth clients, Bank of the West has formed a team dedicated to helping its wealthiest customers with their personal real estate lending needs.

While we spend most of our efforts the rest of the year covering advisors in the bank channel, we set aside one issue to devote to the bosses: the program managers.

Many advisors will say they grow via referrals. Fine, but how often do you really get a big referral? In the meantime, here are some other ways to grow your practice.

Standing out is tough when the crowd is so large-so here are some ways to make yourself unique, build your "brand" and outpace the competition

John Thiel of Merrill Lynch points to Apple's innovative marketing

Personal experience has prompted one Ameriprise advisor and his team to build an unexpected niche.

Here's how to turn inactive clients into productive ones.

Profitability has become a serious challenge for independent broker-dealer firms, according to a survey by Cerulli.

The community, called Connect: Professional Women’s Network, will provide content and news on topics including finding success, creating new businesses and balancing work and life. The group is aimed at helping female professionals connect with other female professionals.

Gordon Morse worked Smith Barney and Bear Stearns, managing and developing branch offices, before working at Raymond James.

The group, which collectively manages $18 billion of client assets, plans to meet on a regular basis and provide “thought leadership” to independent and wirehouse advisors.

The Baby Boomer retirement flood is the gift that keeps giving and financial advisors are seeing huge growth opportunities to counsel small business clients on exit planning strategies as they close in on their golden years.

Four successful women advisors focus on what they could have done better and the lessons they learned from their mistakes.

The lack of women on corporate boards and in executive suites in the United States is hampering profitability, and investors and investment advisors can do something about it, according to Joe Keefe, President and Chief Executive of Pax World Management and Pax World Funds.

Women are so dedicated to nurturing clients, they often forget to take the time to think about where they are in their careers.

According to a Schwab study, 45% of independent advisors are bullish about the market in the six months. However, a second, first-time survey of 504 high-net-worth investors found that only 29% are bullish about the market.

LinkedIn is the hands-down preferred mode of social networking for advisors, because it offers plenty of resources to gather client leads and personal privacy.

To become the industry’s SRO, FINRA estimates it will cost roughly 15 times less in start-up costs than estimates in a study commissioned by the Financial Planning Coalition, which includes CFP Board, FPA and NAPFA.

Financial advisors meeting with female clients need to know their silence does not mean they do not understand, and nodding does not mean they agree.

“I think this would absolutely impact all of our small business owners,” said Karen Nystrom, manager of public policy and advocacy with NAPFA. “We agree that more oversight is needed but where we differ is the most cost effective way to get there.”