Wealth Think

Russell Armstrong was the 47-year old husband of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" cast member Taylor Armstrong. Tragically, Russell committed suicide on Aug. 15, about one month after Taylor had filed for divorce. His untimely death and the subsequent squabbling by surviving relatives highlight the importance of estate planning whether you're famous or not.

You’ve worked long and hard and now you’ve finally been quoted in the Wall Street Journal or had a bylined article published in the local newspaper. Perhaps you’ve just done a radio or television interview. Now what?

Make no mistake. We are going to sail through a lot of these volatile periods over the next five to 10 years and the profession needs to brainstorm better ways to deal with them that won't harm clients and their investment goals. We need to better understand what's going on. And consumers deserve to be told more than just which way the wind is blowing today.

African-American financial advisors just need to look at The Washington Group, headed by managing partner Leo Tucker, to appreciate the realities and the upside potential of their chosen careers.

Zsa Zsa Gabor has never been one to shy away from the limelight. But when does pursuing fame cross the line for a 94-year-old? That point may have come this week, when her husband of 25 years told CNN that he had started the process of donor matching and blood work so he could turn Zsa Zsa into Ma Ma.

Since I’m such a big proponent of using free publicity versus paid advertising as a business growth strategy, advisors often ask me if it ever makes sense to advertise. In a word, yes.

A recent report from HSBC shows that people across the West -- including the U.S. -- are generally pessimistic about their retirement prospects while those in the East are relatively optimistic. And yet, by every objective measure, citizens in Western developed countries control significantly more assets per capita than their counterparts in Eastern emerging economies. This inconsistency begs the question: Are we ever satisfied?

It's hard to argue that markets like this don’t take their toll on advisors and clients alike. Managing client expectations is challenging enough already, let alone in the midst of all this volatility. How much communication is enough? Does every client need a call? What’s the right way to stay in touch? Many advisors answer these questions with a mix of proactive outbound calls and responses to inbound calls.

How do you talk to your clients about the debt ceiling and budget battles when so many people are strongly -- perhaps not always rationally -- on one side or the other of the political divide? Suddenly, loss of confidence in our country's legislative and executive leadership is driving loss of confidence in the markets and it seems the two are now linked in ways that we may never have seen before.

One of the challenges that we have as professionals is motivating our clients to do their estate planning. Our new television special titled "Trial & Heirs: Protect Your Family Fortune!" debuts tonight and we think it will help motivate your clients to take the necessary estate planning steps that many have put off for far too long.