Wealth Think

Most financial professionals are not as referable as they think they are or as they need to be to garner a lot of great referrals.

Growth is a goal -- and a hurdle -- for many firms. So what are advisors doing to attract new business?

Facebook ad campaigns offer users a lot of data, but what you do with that data is up to you. Dave Grant said he learned some important things from his first experience using Facebook ads and that gave him some ideas about what to change going forward.

As a financial advisor working with couples, it is important to appreciate the lifecycles of a couple and how you can help your clients during each phase of their lives together.

"If an advisor wrote a piece of business and hasn't called the client in over a year, it can't really be considered stealing," says advisor Jeff Arber. Agree?

Mutual funds may not be on a hiring spree right now, but Longboard Asset Management Portfolio Manager Cole Wilcox is seeing demand increase elsewhere.

Advisory firms that truly seek to distinguish themselves as strong, sustainable businesses should be utilizing a business tool that already has saturated most other industries: the dashboard.

Assessing your current business is an absolutely mandatory analysis you must make to achieve success. The assessment needs to address where you are today, where you want to be at some point in the not to distant future (perhaps three years) and the gaps between the two.

Gen Y planners foresee RIAs booming and perceive fundamental flaws within the wirehouse model. They see advisors making big mistakes with next generation clients. They have fears about the future of the industry along with some ideas on how society should change to create a more financially secure world.

Working with clients can be difficult. You need to balance rational tasks of navigating capital markets with non-rational challenges of managing client emotions. In many ways, navigating client behavior is more complicated than navigating capital markets, since human emotions can swing wildly and less predictably. Check out some helpful ways to stay ahead of the curve.