Sometimes you have to relearn what you already know. A meeting with a prospective client reminded Mike Patton that you can’t approach every person the same way.

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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

Spurred on by the advisors she works with, Angie Herbers offers her own take on the CFP Board's latest actions.

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

Globalization. We hear the term over and over nowadays yet it’s often hard to define succinctly because it encompasses myriad issues. At its core, globalization means to make worldwide, and as we know, virtually every industry—particularly financial services—is conducting business around the globe. As part of that financial services community, advisors—whether they’re attuned to it or not—are being touched more and more by globalization. Advisors’ failure to embrace and prepare for the ever-increasing changes that globalization will present to their businesses will ultimately determine their future success.

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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

Our nation is often described as a melting pot, but I think it’s also somewhat like a popcorn popper. People from different cultural backgrounds are likely to pop up anywhere in the country, even in places you might never think to find them. For example, there are sizable communities of Somalis in Lewiston, Maine; Latinos in Fargo, North Dakota; and Pacific Islanders in Des Moines, Iowa.

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

A couple of years ago, my partner Bob Clark told me about an advisor he knows in Columbia, South Carolina, named James Wilson. A past chair of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), Wilson has been one of the leaders of the financial planning profession for many years. Yet, probably the most notable fact about him is his approach to taking new clients: He doesn’t take (or rarely takes) on clients who are under the age of 50.

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

One of the benefits of working with advanced planning networks is that they can add the right kind of specialist to deliver a better solution for the client than an advisor might be able to achieve working on her own. Private Placement Life Insurance is a powerful solution that’s also powerfully intricate. In the late ’90s PPLI was first offered by several small companies, and then, mainstream players such as New York Life, AIG, Sun Life, Prudential, and Mass Mutual joined in and the solution’s appeal grew.

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

Maybe some of us are just lucky and end up in the right career. I know I’ve been passionate about my career over the last three decades, and I hope I enjoy the next three decades as much. But I also believe there are actions that help us maximize our talents and emit joy for the sheer experience of using them while we’re here on earth. Ideally, we also get to make a contribution to others along the way. As Mom to two 20-somethings, I’ve been considering the subject a lot recently.

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

Mike Patton's just finished his IPS template and now, as he considers the universe of alternative investments, finds he's already faced with the need for a revision.

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

Mike Patton's “What's Important to You” document helps him understand the needs of prospective clients. In this post he offers suggestions for creating your own.

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 responding to reader mail, Angie Herbers notes that the political beliefs of professional advisors—like their religion and their race—have no place in their objective advice. The same is true for financial columnists.

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

An advisory practice’s marketing plan contains opportunities and weaknesses, key messaging, market and competitor analysis and financial projections. Having a robust marketing plan in place will bring independent advisors one step closer to influencing how their clients and potential clients perceive them—and help advisors reach their goals.

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 the latest post Mike Patton takes readers through a typical week in the life of an independent advisor—client meetings, writing and distributing an electronic newsletter and shopping for insurance.

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 news is full of senior government officials involved in sex scandals, highly paid CEOs charged with options backdating, reputable writers and journalists caught in literary fraud and plagiarism, and well-known attorneys convicted of racketeering. Why does there seem to be so much more lying, cheating, and stealing going on lately? Is our society in the midst of a moral meltdown?

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

Amid the hubbub over the potential for more regulation of the financial services industry arises an important question: whose interests are being served? The libertarian in me eschews restrictive oversight that smacks of social control, but the protective side wants to save the innocent from the fools and the crooks.

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

Mike Patton has found that when ethical standards are sacrificed for gain, someone suffers and it's usually the client.

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