Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

In his latest post, advisor Mike Patton takes stock of the year just ended, including the recent addition of a tax engineer (cost aggregation specialist) to his stable of professional contacts.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Part of this week was spent in Wash DC attending the Investment Advisor annual conference. While there, I met some great people and was able to “pick their brain” a bit. It has been a long held belief of mine that you can learn something new from everyone you meet. It’s interesting to me to hear of the different ways advisors approach their business, specifically, the services they offer, and how they price them.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

This past year I have learned that my mentor was right. I am not saying that you have to give up what you value, go on spending sprees, or do whatever it takes to fit in. I have learned that you just have to know who your client is, and in order to serve them best, how you dress yourself may make your job a little easier. We all have uniforms that we have to put on for certain occasions to get the job done, show our worth, and look professional. The first impression is very important.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Last week I wrote about my upcoming Webinar and some marketing plans. Here's how those two items have developed.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Remember the commercial about the guy who slaps his forehead and says, “I could’ve had a V8”? I felt like that guy recently, but instead of a V8, I was reminded of something so fundamental and important that without it, success would be more difficult to achieve. Instead of just coming into the office every day and going about my work, I need to make sure I am doing exactly what I need to be doing. Let me explain.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

It’s interesting to me how a company will adopt certain phrases like Trusted Advisor or Total Wealth Management but not change the culture of their organization. Without a fundamental shift in philosophy, the phrase is little more than a hollow marketing slogan.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

There’s an idea prevalent among investment advisors, especially those using a fee-only business model, that marketing is a dirty word. They like to brag about how they don’t need a marketing plan because they do such a great job that their existing clients already refer more business their way than they can handle. To admit to having actually marketed their practices would be akin to wearing a scarlet letter trumpeting their lack of virtue on their chests.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

The key to growing any business often lies in how the company’s products and services are marketed. A sound marketing plan is the growth engine behind a business and will shape how the world perceives that business and the uniqueness of its offerings.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Many independent advisors are proud to be not very good marketers. But that pride may very well goeth before their fall.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

Planning to me is a comprehensive process involving a series of steps, whereby after a thorough analysis of a client’s situation, you recommend certain strategies. Often, products are involved but that should never be the intent of the process. Therein lays the difference between a planner and a product-pushing salesman who calls himself a planner. I’ve had a number of clients tell me that they had a plan done with a particular company (that will remain anonymous) and it seemed like all they were doing was trying to sell them a product.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

lum TV circumvents the conventional wisdom by adding a twist: if you can’t get the affluent to watch mass media, bring mass media to the affluent by broadcasting in and about the towns and regions where they come together to party, hobnob and let their hair down. As a macro-trend watcher, I believe this is an important innovation. A new distribution channel, such as Plum TV, has many hurdles to its success, including the prevailing shift to the internet for information. But if it were to thrive, it would affirm a fundamental ingredient required in any successful media enterprise: that it brings together an audience with a shared identity.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com

I am now in the process of finalizing my investment policy—as a firm—so when the time comes I am ready to act. Most of this policy is complete and covers the general types of investments I will recommend such as individual stocks, mutual funds, closed end funds, separate accounts, etc. Also, the screening process I will use to pick the investments. I am now in the process of putting it all down on paper.

Sponsored By:

DWS Scudder, the U.S. retail brand name of Deutsche Asset Management, provides financial advisors with a comprehensive selection of innovative investment strategies.
www.dws-scudder.com