Wealth Think

The more you hear about the SEC examination process, the more you realize that the examiners can't quickly recognize the honest advisors from the crooks, and are generally more interested in finding fault with the honest advisors than identifying the crooks.

When the call comes from compliance that your branch examination is imminent, some advisors decide it’s time to take a vacation while others take the vapors. But branch exams should not be stressful or painful – if you follow these basic steps and integrate them into your practice.

Why not tap into your affinity with clients to create a powerful marketing message, and solidify your hold on that group?

Bill Dwyer, the independent giant’s president of sales and national marketing, talks about his firm’s progress.

In the past 11 years, we’ve had two major bear markets and experienced the near collapse of the world financial system. Not surprisingly, many advisors lost revenue, lost clients and some even lost confidence in their ability to protect their clients’ assets during times of turmoil. Yet during this 11-year period of global upheaval, a select group of advisors prospered.

It seems we have reached the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of regulatory efficiency. If the SEC is spending weeks on trivial issues and completely missing Bernie Madoff then it is clear that something is seriously broken.

I’m all for the notion of having options, but if you look at just the ETF universe there are more than 1,000 on offer

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?