Advisor Blog

Fritz Meyer’s Research Now Comes With Client-Facing Presentations

Fritz Meyer’s monthly investment research now comes with client-facing content for your website, blog or social media pages.

Meyer’s research is currently available as a PowerPoint presentation. Meyer updates his research monthly and advisors can buy it for $50 monthly.

Advisors use the slides in client meetings, webinars, and as the basis for blogs and newsletter articles.

To make it even easier for advisor to use Meyer’s research in client communications, we’re now providing Meyer’s research as ready-to-go videos--at no additional cost.

Each month, we’re creating three two-minute videos that summarize Fritz’s most important ideas for long-term investors.

In addition, advisors also receive scripts of what Fritz says in each of three short videos, which can be used as a basis for writing your blog posts.

You can also use the script to narrate your own Slidecast.  Then, your voice is what clients and prospects will hear.

Finally, we’re providing subscribers MP3 audio files of each of the three short presentations, so you can use Fritz’s narration on a Slidecast branded to your firm.

Making Meyer’s research accessible in so many formats makes it easy for advisors to create their own content, which is necessary for effective social media marketing.

Meyer’s research supports advisors with a long-term investment horizon who utilize a broadly diversified asset allocation strategy.

Please keep in mind that because of the timeliness, we do not submit the Fritz Meyer slides shows (or the videos) to FINRA for advertising review. While all of our other content is submitted to FINRA, you will need to ensure they meet your firm’s compliance requirements if you are making them available to clients.

Fritz provides a free webinar on the second Wednesday of every explaining his latest research and advisors give Firtz rave reviews. Sign up for Fritz's next webinar.
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How Is Document Management Software For Advisors Different From Client Vaulting?

Document management systems for advisors, which enable advisors to create a paperless office, are crucial for record keeping and efficiency. They're legally required for Registered Investment Advisers.

But they are not designed for client access.

To be sure, Document Management Software (DMS) is crucial technology to operating a financial advice business efficiently.

The way you file documents--the software interface the staff uses to file documents--is created by your DMS system. The information stored on your DMS must be logically structured, searchable, and scalable. Of course, security, redundancy, and your service agreement are important factors to evaluate. DMS solutions are complex systems that enable a paperless office.

But they are not designed for client access.

That's why the integration of Cabinet NG's document management software for advisors with AdvisorVault's client vault system for advisors is a big deal.

 

 

By working together, Cabinet NG and Advisor Products have taken the paperless office concept a step further than any other tech vendors serving advisors.

We've made it easy for advisors to post documents to a client vault from document management software.

The integration of Cabinet NG's document management software with AdvisorVault turns documents stored internally into external client communications.

To satisfy books and records rules, investment advisors must retain all documents relevant to servicing clients. Cabinet NG fulfills that requirement, using write once, read many (WORM) disk drives to fulfill Securities and Exchange Commission requirements that your records are tamper-proof.

But, like all other document management systems for advisors, Cabinet NG is not meant to be shared with your clients. So Cabinet NG partnered with Advisor Products to streamline an advisor's work.

Not all vendors are as enlightened as Cabinet NG.

Just about every practice management software app used by wealth managers, financial planners and other investment advisors offers a client online access point. Ebix SmartOffice, for instance, offers a client portal. So do Junxure, MoneyGuide Pro, Finance Logix, Black Diamond, AssetBook, PortfolioCenter, and just about every other app made for advisors. They all offer a way for you to give clients a view of their data online.

But none of those apps used by advisors is dedicated to creating the best client interface that integrates information from other systems.

Those apps provide ways for advisors to create financial plans, manage and report portfolio performance, and manage customer relationships. But none is made expressly to promote client communications.

While the client interface is a secondary goal for these apps, that is AdvisorVault’s sole mission: helping you create a great client experience by making communication secure and easy.

Every tech vendor that integrates with AdvisorVault acknowledges that the client interface it may provide is different from AdvisorVault, a solution dedicated solely to client communications. Not every tech vendor is willing to concede that their app will not be the client portal.

In integrating with AdvisorVault, Cabinet NG shows a commitment to doing what's best for advisors. Together, we can do great things for advisors.

For example, you can set up client folders in Cabinet NG to automatically synch with a client’s vault. Anytime you put a document into a client’s folder in your document management system, it will be automatically uploaded the client’s vault. And if the client does not have a vault, Cabinet NG sets one up on AdvisorVault.

Then, AdvisorVault notifies the client, who comes to your website to view the document. The clients sees that document along with others stored in his vault—portfolio reports, financial plans, brokerage statements as well as wills and trust documents, copies of passports, a medical proxy, and other personal information.

 
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Hurricane Recovery Of Advisor Products Can Serve As A Model For Advisory Firms

Advisor Products staff worked from their homes Monday, accessing company systems online, after Hurricane Irene knocked out power throughout Long Island and at the company's Jericho, N.Y. office.

Though Advisor Products is not an advisory firm, its recovery from the hurricane provides a model for advisory firms to prepare for a disaster.


An estimated half million Long Island residents—270,264 homes and businesses, according to Long Island Power Authority—remained without power as of noon Tuesday.  Advisor Products operations, however, were back to normal.

Advisor Products websites were unaffected by Hurricane Irene. Advisor Products hosts about 1,100 financial advisor websites as well as secure client communications systems, like AdvisorVault, at an SAS 70 datacenter. The hosting facility never lost power and did not even need to resort to using its backup power systems.

However, internal systems for managing the staff and tracking client service requests had to be reconfigured Monday morning as the company implemented its disaster recovery plan and went virtual to service customers.

The professionalism and dedication of the Advisor Products staff has been remarkable:

  • Nipun Manglik, an engineer on the advisor websites Help Desk, says that despite the disruption in power he has ensured all customer services requests made by Advisor Products are responded to within 24-hours by phone.

  • IT Manager Jason Fogelson, whose wife is expecting a baby imminently, provided a desk and electric power to three Advisor Products staffers who do not have power in their homes.


 


While Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it struck Long Island overnight Saturday, it hit the 125- by 25-mile swath of land in its power grid. By the time the wind and rain stopped on Sunday afternoon, widespread power outages had befallen the dense- populated suburban towns across the Island. Trees weakened by a rain-soaked August fell throughout Nassau and Suffolk County.

At 9 a.m., Monday, the company’s phone and email systems had been restored, enabling staff to answer client calls and emails, and the company’s CRM system was back online at 5 p.m., allowing project managers, HTML specialists, and technical support staff access notes about open cases and track client website development projects.

I’m proud of the way our team has performed.
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Hurricane Irene Battered East Coast, But Advisor Websites Hosted By Advisor Products Stayed Live

Hurricane Irene, the biggest storm to hit the New York metropolitan area in 25 years, battered Long Island with 65 mile an hour winds and gusts of 85, but service to Advisor Products websites and customers was uninterrupted.

Long Island, a peninsula-shaped stretch of land jutting east 125 miles from Manhattan into the Atlantic and the home of Advisor Products in Jericho, N.Y., was hit right in its power grid. On Monday morning, 24 hours after the rain and winded ended, a half-million Long Islanders reportedly remained without electric power (including the CEO’s home.)

At Advisor Products headquarters, where no advisor websites are hosted but internal management information systems are maintained, IT managers Steve Gordonson and Jason Fogelson elected late Saturday night in preparation for the hurricane to shut down all internal operations systems. The decision proved wise. Power to the Jericho area turned off and on many times overnight Saturday but by 9 a.m. power outages in the suburban hamlet of 13,045 were widespread.

Fallen trees and power poles can be seen all over Long Island  Monday morning. A map on the website of the local utility, Long Island Power Authority, on Monday morning showed widespread power-outages still affected almost every town on Long Island.

By 7 a.m. Monday, when it was clear the power would not be restored in time for business by 9.m., Advisor Products went virtual, relying solely on web-based apps to service advisory firms. By 9 a.m., Advisor Products VOIP phone system was relocated and restored, enabling customers to call the company.

Advisor Products’ 14 employees were all able to run internal company systems from their homes using the Internet and were available to help customers.

A senior member of the service staff  located in Florida and another staffer in California were unaffected by the hurricane. In addition, contractors worldwide work for the company by accessing Advisor Product’s internal applications online. For Advisor Products, "going virtual" and shutting down its Jericho office, takes a few hours.

While some disruption to daily operations was expected Monday morning, all systems supporting service to Advisor Products clients--including the company's CRM--are expected to be fully operational  by mid-afternoon Monday afternoon.

While the company’s engineering team was well-prepared and responded quickly to Hurricane Irene, Advisor Products recently made a significant new investment in new hardware configuration enabling virtual server technology. It's expected to be launched by the end of 2011 and will make disaster recovery simpler.
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Data Show Advisors Deeply Integrating AdvisorVault's Secure Document Sharing Into Their Daily Routine

An analysis of logins by advisors using AdvisorVault, a secure application for sharing documents with clients and allied professionals, shows that more than 100 advisors averaged two logins into AdvisorVault every business day over the past year.

 

The data show that 25 advisors have logged in an average of 12 times every business day in the past year, and 50 advisors have averaged five  logins every business day over the past year.

One advisor logged in about 8,000 times in the past year, according to the data.

About 700 independent advisory firms now use AdvisorVault to deliver documents securely to clients and other professionals, and a new advisory firm is signing up daily.

One firm is using AdvisorVault to distribute Advent Axys reports daily to 400 advisors, but most RIAs use it to distribute reports and other documents securely to retail clients.

AdviorVault is highly scalable and contains many features unavailable on other systems for secure document sharing with clients.

AdvisorVault Desktop Connector, which is now being beta tested and is expected to be released at the end of September, increases usability dramatically. It allows an advisor to drag and drop documents into a client’s vault without opening a browser. You  don't have to open a browser log in, browse to a client vault, and then select the  document to be uploaded.

Desktop Connector, which works on Mac and Windows operating systems, provides a desktop interface for accessing a secure web-based drive in the cloud. It's as easy to use as Box.net for secure document sharing but includes integrations with portfolio reporting and document management apps advisors need as well as specialized client communications tools and content.

 
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With Market Swinging Wildly, Advisor Products Releases Articles For Advisors To Email Clients

With markets swooning, Advisor Products last week released nine articles for immediate use by advisors who subscribing to our website and client newsletter services. Breaking news coverage from our team of experienced financial reporters, along with interviews with investment strategist Fritz Meyer, were included in the special content release.

It was a week in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average swung 400-points up or down four days in a row. Whipsawed advisors began emailing us Wednesday requesting articles to distribute to their clients. The downgrade of the U.S. Government by Standard & Poor’s and worries about the debt crisis spreading to Europe had sparked uncertainty and panic selling.

Wednesday night, Advisor Products responded by providing an article based on research from investment strategist Fritz Meyer entitled, “Focus On Economic Fundamentals That Drive Securities Prices Long Term, And Don’t Succumb To The Hysteria In The Markets.”

On Friday evening, we released another eight articles:

  • The U.S. Downgrade Was Bad, But Default Would’ve Been Worse

  • Money Market Funds Should Shrug Off U.S. Downgrade

  • Economic Measures Signal Solid Rebound Even As Stocks Fall

  • Take Advantage Of Fed’s Low-Rate Pledge

  • Don’t Panic: The Economy Is Signaling A Recovery

  • European Politicians Can Still Come Back From Vacation And Save The Euro

  • What Does The Downgrade Of U.S. Debt Really Mean?

  • Short-Term Correction Creates Long-Term Buying Opportunity


The content release contained a note disclosing that the articles were not FINRA reviewed and advising advisors to consult their compliance officers before sending them to clients. The articles were for use in emails. They are now being submitted to FINRA.

Sending out breaking news articles is a departure from our usual editorial process. Advisor Products, which has produced client newsletters for advisors since 1996, has a team of financial editors and writers that produce our content. In addition, an Editorial Advisory Board comprised of leading financial advisors review content for technical accuracy, and then the articles are submitted to FINRA for regulatory review. With markets so erratic, however, we truncated our editorial process and released copy without FINRA review.

Would appreciate any feedback on how we did.
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Calm Fearful Clients With Economic Data

With the downgrade of America’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s, clients have yet another reason to be jittery. Telling clients to stay the course is no longer enough to prevent them  from abandoning long-term investment plans in difficult times. The financial crisis and subsequent market meltdown have made it more difficult to convince clients to stick with their investment policies.

Here's a brilliant solution: Fritz Meyer’s slideshows contain 60-plus slides filled with the latest economic data. Meyer presents the case for broad diversification and buy-and-hold investing based on analysis of economic data. Updated monthly, Meyer's slideshows explains key economic fundamentals driving investment markets, and is a voice of reason. Here are four ways to use Fritz Meyer’s slideshows to calm clients and assure prospects, who now more than ever value unemotional advice and analysis framed by a long-term perspective.

  1. Webinars. The Fritz Meyer slideshows can be used by you to create your own webinars. Every month, Meyer conducts a webinar explaining the latest economic data and outlook, and the webinars are available for you to replay 24/7 if you are a member of Advisors4Advisors. After replaying the webinar and hearing Meyer explain the latest data, you can pretty easily use the research in the slides as a script for your own webinar. Post your webinar on YouTube and embed it in your website.

  2. Blogs. People consumer information in different ways. Some prefer viewing a video, while others want to read ideas. The more ways you present information, the more likely your message will be heard. You can pull out a slide or two from any Fritz Meyer slideshow and use it to write a blog entry explaining a particular aspect of the economy or markets.

  3. Newsletters. Your blog entry may not be read by clients who don’t use the Internet. For them, refashion a blog entry for use in a newsletter. A chart showing a recovery in manufacturing or autos, for example, could tell a story about hopeful signs, and your words of reassurance are thus backed by research grounded in facts.

  4. 4. SlideShare. I’ve written previously about this social media application for sharing presentations. The quickest, easiest and coolest way to use the Fritz Meyer’s research with Slideshare is to  create your own “Slidecast.” Simply select three or five slides from the latest monthly installment. Then, create an MP3 recording explaining each slide. If you’re not technically inclined, buy an MP3 recorder that plugs into a USB port, or use your smartphone to make the recording. Then, email slides and recording to be uploaded by your staff or virtual assistant.


 

The Fritz Meyer slideshows are an inexpensive way for advisors to create their own content, which will help you with search engines and prospects as well as with clients. Fritz is beloved for the his common-sense approach and easy to understand analysis.

Fritz Meyer will be addressing the U.S. credit downgrade Tuesday at 4 EST in a free monthly webinar.  Please join us.
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Six Ways Advisor Products Content Can Improve Your Social Media And Online Presence

Advisors are often stumped about what to post to increase their social media and online presence. So here are some ideas about how you can use Advisor Products articles for status updates and tweets.

Not only will these ideas boost communication with clients and prospects, but they’ll also boost your search engine rankings.

Leverage Our Articles. Advisor Products content is FINRA-reviewed and top-quality. If you are a Platinum-level client with Financial Briefs or Featured News on your website, post status updates linked to those articles to bring traffic to your website.

Target It. Advisor Products content has three high-net-worth targets: retirees, pre-retired executives, and owners of business and professional corporations. Target updates to your prospects.

Comment. Find blogs and forums discussing topics related to wealth management and financial planning and link to articles on your website discussing those topics. For instance, a question about converting to a Roth IRA was posted on Mint.com recently. You could post a response and link to this article about Roth IRA conversion on your website. Since links to your website, link popularity, is the most important factor in search engine optimization, this can be powerful.

Distribute Market Data Bank. Advisor Products Platinum provides you with three quarterly FINRA-reviewed features: Market Data Bank, Economy Watch and Quarterly Market Summary. Post status updates referencing this content. Each of these features has a unique URL on your website that you should link to in your updates.

Tweet About Your Videos. Advisor Products Platinum also gives you access to our FINRA-reviewed video library. Just as you update your status using our articles, you can provide links in your status updates to videos like this one about Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts, which we create for your website.

Fritz Meyer Slideshows. These slideshows include about 60 slides each month with the latest data about the economy and is based on research by investment strategist Fritz Meyer. You can post the entire slide show to your website. But it would be wiser to pick a one or two of the slides and post a blog about them with your analysis about the data. (The Fritz Meyer slides are not FINRA-reviewed.)

If you’re tweeting out headlines from the financial news, that’s not valuable. You’ll need original ideas and insightful content. We’re making that easy for advisors.

If you’re not regularly updating your social media, there’s less reason to follow you. Advisor Products Platinum provides you with more than enough content to update your status every day— a few times a day if you want.
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I’m Having A Total Blast -- Thanks!

Just want you to know that I am having a blast.

My wife, Mindy, who handles accounting here at Advisor Products, was asked by one of our clients yesterday if I still cared about Advisor Products.

He was concerned I might be neglecting Advisor Products.

Basically, he told Mindy that I was devoting so much attention to Advisors4Advisors that Advisor Products might suffer.

Fortunately, creativity is expansive.  Like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

I am on a roll. Ideas are springing forth daily about how to make this little tiny corner of the world a little bit better.

A4A makes me think about professional issues objectively, methodically, and daily.

It makes clear how to best help advisors help their clients.

I'm coming from a place rooted in history and knowledge about where this industry has been, and with an idea about where it should go to help people in the future.

Solutions from Advisor Products execute on those ideas.

I have no interest in merely reporting problems affecting you. I want to try to solve them.

I’m not fixing the budget deficit, but I’m doing what I can, and it feels good.

Thanks for caring about what I think. That is most satisfying above all.

 
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Why Integration Of Document Management With Client Vaults Is A Major Advance For Financial Advisors

What if communicating personal information with each of your clients was effortless? That’s no longer a merely a philosophical question. It’s becoming a reality.

Integration of AdvisorVault with Cabinet NG’s document management system, which was announced last week, is a big step toward making communication with clients effortless.



It portends a world in which a financial advisor’s relationship with his clients is more transparent, a world in which communicating with clients about their most personal financial details is automated. It makes advisors more valuable to clients.

The integration allows an advisor to select files in CNG’s document management system—just hold down “Ctrl” and click—to push them into a designated client’s vault automatically. What’s coming next, however, is a game changer:

Advisors will designate “sync” folders in their document management system for automatic synchronization with a client’s vault. You folder for client “John Smith” in your document management system can automatically synchronize with John Smith’s client vault. Anything placed in John Smith’s folder in CNG will automatically be displayed in Mr. Smith’s vault.

The automatic synchronization means client brokerage statements, performance reports, trade confirmations, 1099s and other documents can be pushed to clients without an advisor lifting a finger. For instance, clearing firms typically provide advisors a batch file containing of all their clients’ monthly statements. Using CNG’s tool, each client’s statement can easily be parsed into a separate folder on CNG and then automatically ported to each client.

Document management systems like CNG provide a great way for advisors to organize documents, indexing and filing them so you can retrieve them quickly. It makes documents in advisor’s office accessible anywhere and enables you to back up your records.

Document management systems, however, typically are not made with the features advisors need to share documents with clients. Nor are document management systems typically meant for sharing documents with accountants, lawyers, and other allied professionals.

AdvisorVault, however, integrates a communication module that automatically notifies clients and allied professionals when documents are posted to their vaults and enables notifications to be templated, batched, and automated. AdvisorVault’s interface was built for clients, and it was architected for compatibility with all of the popular browsers used by consumers. In addition, it is integrated with apps advisors use to pull and push data that advisors want to share with clients.

All of this makes the integration of AdvisorVault client communication with Cabinet NG’s document management system a major advance for financial advisors.
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Document Management System, Cabinet NG, Integrates With AdvisorVault, Automating Secure Client Communications For Advisors

Cabinet NG, a leading document management system for financial advisors, has integrated with AdvisorVault, streamlining a financial advisor’s work and improving client service.

Cabinet NG has developed an interface to allow its users to automatically synch specified folders in its document management software to AdvisorVault, a secure platform for advisors to share documents with clients and allied professionals.

If an advisor designates a folder in CNG that contains documents to be shared with a client, the contents of that folder is ported over to AdvisorVault. The advisor does not need to open a browser and upload the documents to the client folder.

This simplifies and automates an advisor’s workflow dramatically. The integration of a document management system with a secure client vault will enable automation of client communications and makes it easy for advisors to provide clients with meaningful personal data regularly.

For example, an advisor can batch file all of clients monthly brokerage statements from Schwab, Fidelity, Pershing or TD Ameritrade using CNG. When statements coming from a brokerage are filed, they can be designated to be placed in a folder that can be synched with AdvisorVault.

The integration represents the only first phase of tasks advisors want to automate in using their document management system to share documents securely with clients.

CNG and Advisor Products are interested in working with advisors who want to automate the most common tasks in sharing documents with clients. Please let us know if you have an idea about how we can automate document management to make your client communications more meaningful and productive, and sign up for a webinar on the Cabinet NG integration with AdvisorVault.
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Advisors Love Investment Strategist Fritz Meyer, According To Ratings & Reviews

Ratings on Advisors4Advisors for Fritz Meyer’s slide show earlier this week are fantastic. Advisors can actually love an investment strategist!

“Fritz is the most helpful webinar speaker I've heard. I can apply the information immediately in my practice,” says PeterK805.

“This ought to be mandatory listening/learning for the financial news media,” writes DTSDriver in his review. “PS: Congress, likewise!”

“Fritz Meyer is an American treasure,” says GeorgeS216. “He is concise, provides facts and charts that back up his thesis and provides his commentary with easy to understand logic. Bravo, Fritz and thank you!”

Those were not cherry-picked. They were just the first of 106 reviews by attendees who reviewed Fritz Meyer’s presentation earlier this week on the economic outlook.

By the way, we’re shortly going to announce a price reduction on Fritz Meyer’s Economy Slide Shows, pricing it so any advisor who wants to educate clients on economic fundamentals driving investment markets can afford it.

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Top Five Myths Perpetuated By So-Called SEO Experts

You’ve probably received an email from an SEO expert listing the mistakes preventing your website from ranking higher in search engines.  Problem is, the “expert” is mostly spewing half truths and distortions. Here are five top myths those snake oil SEO salesmen peddle:

5. W3C Validation errors will negatively affect your search engine ranking.
W3C validation compares the code of a website to strict rules about how the code is formatted.  Many of the rules have little or no affect on how a website is ranked by search engines or appears to visitors.  Matt Cutts, a prominent engineer from Google, confirms this. If you still don’t buy it, try the W3C validator on your favorite websites.  I tried it on amazon.com and got 505 errors.


4. Incompatibility with Opera will make you rank lower.
Of course, you want your site to work on all browsers, even the 0.56% using the Opera browser in the U.S. , according to StatCounter.  However, if your site doesn’t look quite right in Opera, it has no bearing on your search engine rankings. Search engines read through the source code, which has no connection with idiosyncrasies of the rarely-used Opera browser.

Continue reading
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Free Videos Teach Private Wealth Managers & Financial Advisors About Search Engine Optimization

Financial advisors who want to learn about search engine optimization (SEO) can visit Advisor Products Learning Center, which features 18 videos about SEO techniques for private wealth managers, financial planners, and other independent financial advisors.

The 18 videos about SEO techniques for financial advisors are just one section of Advisor Products Learning Center, a free resource for independent financial advisors to learn about marketing.

The 18 videos cover key SEO concepts financial advisors need to know about including:

External Links Pointing to Your Website - SEO for Financial Advisors

Financial Advisors Can Go Local for Search Engine Optimization

Financial Advisors Can Use Videos To Improve Search Engine Rankings

Why Financial Advisors Should Develop a One Page Internet Strategy

Metadata for Search Engine Optimization for Financial Advisors

Optimize the Titles in the Title Bar - SEO Techniques for Financial Advisors

Optimizing URLs for Financial Advisor Websites

Semantic Markup for Search Engine Optimization for Financial Advisors

Submitting Your Site Map to Google - SEO Techniques For Advisors

Using Keywords and Website Writing Best Practices for Financial Advisors

Writing Social Media Profiles for Financial Advisors

 

Advisor Products is a leading marketing technology company serving financial planners, private wealth managers, and other independent financial advisors.

 
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Niche Marketing, Search Engines And Financial Advisors

If you’re a financial advisor, here’s how to use a marketing funnel on the Web to create a path connecting you with your target clients or niches.

Maybe your target is 50- to 65-year old teachers with at least $500,000 of qualified plan assets, retired doctors in your locale, or retired military officers. Whoever it is, you create the marketing funnel by offering valuable content to them—videos, articles, and tweets.

Once a month or once a quarter, you create a video or article with helpful ideas for dealing with financial issues crucial to your target client—something like, “The Five Biggest Financial Mistakes Business Owners Make In The Decade Before Retiring.”

When a business owner stumbles upon one of your free reports, he can read it and submit his email address to sign up for your free email newsletter. Later, you market webinars to your target audience. Eventually, you become a trusted source of information and get hired by some of these people.

The funnel relies on search engines to bring you leads. That’s because videos and articles about your areas of expertise are indexed by search engines. The more intelligent content you post, the higher the likelihood of getting traffic from your target market.

When a pre-retired professor has made one of the five biggest mistakes addressed in your articles or wants to avoid those mistakes, he is going to search for a solution to his problem on Google. Your site stands a chance of coming up in his research. Your success largely depends on how trusted you are as a source of information.

The biggest factors establishing yourself as a trusted source are how many sites link to your videos and articles and the trustworthiness of those websites.

The number of external links to your website and the trustworthiness of those sites are measured by Google’s algorithm and determine your ranking in search engine results.

If The New York Times links to articles and videos you create about financial planning and wealth management for doctors, that’s better than if small town newspaper does it. And if 20 important sites like The New York Times link to you, that’s better than if just two do it.

Advisor Products helps financial advisors do this kind of marketing.

We can provide you the content on an ongoing basis. Or, if you’re on a tight budget, you can hire us only to establish the framework enabling you to easily post content that you create.

For more ideas, see videos we offer about search engine optimization in the Learning Center of the Support Section at www.AdvisorProducts.com or call 516 333 0066 #224.
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Geier Financial Group: An Advisor Products Client Profile

I look at all of the websites my company builds. Geier Financial Group drew me in and I called Tom Geier.

Tom, 57, told me his brother, Joe, started the firm 15 years ago.

Joe Geier is a CPA and Tom is a CPA/PFS, which is the AICPA's credential for a Personal Financial Specialist--which in some ways is actually better than a CFP designation.

Joe started the advisory firm 15 years ago and Tom joined about 11 years ago.

"Joe and I had always talked about working together and we took the opportunity when it came up," says Tom, who quit his job as a corporate VP of finance to work as an advisor.

I'm a sucker when it comes to family businesses. What caught my attention about the Geier brothers is that these two guys are doing a few things right.

The website that I looked at is for Geier Financial's newly founded mutual fund company, Geier Funds.

I noticed right away that the writing on the site is clear and concise. You just don't see good writing like that too often on advisor websites. (The copy unfortunately was not written by our writers, but was a team effort at Geier.) Bravo!

The site is one of Advisor Products Designer Websites, which costs just $1,500 to build. Geier got its money's worth by thinking through the information architecture of the site, organizing the site's structure logically. Kudos to Geier's marketing staffer, Melissa Jordan.

What really made me curious is that Geier has an advisory firm in addition to the mutual fund, and the advisory firm has a track record that can be advertised by the mutual fund. Few advisory firms have mutual fund. I'd guess that one in 500 advisory firms start a fund. So that makes Geier pretty unusual. It's about as rare to find an advisory firm with a track record, and Geier is also has a track record, and its performance is impressive.

The track record is GIPS® compliant. GIPS is short for Global Investment Performance Standards, a set of standards for reporting investment performance established by the CFA Institute.

It's wise for an advisory firm to maintain a track record that can be used in advertising, especially if you think you might want day start a mutual fund. While the up-front cost and hassle of establishing an accounting system to report portfolio returns properly are not trivial, the benefits can be significant. Geier is a good example of that.

From the start of 2002 through September 30, 2010, Geier's Strategic Capital Preservation Composite, which represents all of the performance on all fee-paying assets managed by Geier, showed an annualized return net of expenses of 6%.

The fund is actively managed using technical analysis and fundamental research, says Tom Geier, its portfolio manager. He uses a trend following strategy. As a flexible fund, GAMTX allocates its investments primarily among stocks, bonds, ETFs, REITs, and other investments that are selected mainly for their long-term growth potential. It's marketed as a conservative growth, absolute return fund.

In addition to the mutual fund, Geier Financial's advisory firm is actually two businesses. One on side of the company is a family office catering to athletes, mostly baseball players, like former Baltimore Orioles great Cal Ripken and Yankee first basemen and Baltimore-native Mark Teixeira, as well as other ultra-high–net-worth individuals. That part of the firm manages money for about 15 clients and provides full-service financial planning including bill paying.

The other part of the advisory firm, according to Tom Geier, consists of about 130 clients who are friends and relatives of the Geiers and Geier Financial's clients. Geier Financial has 15 employees, four of whom are advisors. In January, The Baltimore Sun published a flattering story about the firm.

I asked Tom Geier what his firm's minimum is and whether he and his brother should be working with the 130 smaller clients when working with UHNWi's in family office is more profitable and scalable. "They're friends and family," he says. "You can't say no to them."

Tom Geier says Geier Financial manages $150 million, and about $30 million of it is in the mutual fund. The smaller clients not getting family office services have been moved into the mutual fund, which Tom Geier says has reduced their fees.

Interesting advisory firm.
  5658 Hits
5658 Hits

AdvisorVault Upgrade Results In 400% Increase In Speed

AdvisorVault, a fully-encrypted online application enabling financial advisors to share files with clients, has been upgraded to a server with 64-bit dual processors and six cores.

Before the upgrade, AdvisorVault’s integrations with Schwab PortfolioCenter and Advent Axys could process two advisory firm uploads concurrently, and any additional advisory firms attempting to upload their data would be placed in a queue. As a result of the upgrade, AdvisorVault’s processes four uploads simultaneously in one-quarter the time.

The new server uses dual Intel XEON X5650 2.66GHz sixcore CPUs with 48GB of RAM. That’s a lot of processing power.

Moving AdvisorVault to new hardware enables a software upgrade to the 64-bit version of Microsoft SQL Server, the database powering AdvisorVault.

The hardware and software upgrades increase AdvisorVault’s speed 400%.

While AdvisorVault is much faster for advisors and clients—as well as lawyers and accountants granted access—the hardware upgrade is most noticeable to advisory firms using AdvisorVault’s integrations with desktop portfolio management software (PMS) applications, Advent Axys and Schwab PortfolioCenter. Data upload is four times faster than the previous hardware configuration.

Sixty-four bits is the size of the program instructions and memory addresses that can be used by a computer processor. A 64-bit processor can use more than 32 times the amount of physical memory of a 32-bit processor.

Portfolio reports are now processed at four times the speed because more data can be accessed from RAM instead of the server’s hard drive.

Process more than four uploads concurrently without slowing AdvisorVault will be simple now. We’re monitoring the throughput and will add services as needed. Software development now under way will improve AdvisorVault’s scalability across multiple enterprises.

AdvisorVault can be added to any advisory firm’s website for $1,000 a year or integrated into websites hosted by Advisor Products for $2,100 annually. Schwab PortfolioCenter or Advent Axys costs an additional $1,500 a year.

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5170 Hits

Financial Advisor Marketing Videos

Financial Advisor Marketing Videos was launched on our website yesterday, and it is a powerful marketing presentation for knowledgeable, ethical, and open financial advisors.

At Advisor Products, we’ve been experimenting with different video techniques over the last year. We’ve learned that advisors need two types of videos: “update videos” targeted to clients and “marketing videos” targeting prospects.

Update videos don’t need special effects, expensive equipment, or professional talent. They are one-take videos, just two or three minutes in length, so you don’t have to edit them. You can produce them yourself in your office by creating an inexpensive video studio. If you need to edit videos, it’s going to complicate things and make it less likely you will use this medium.

Marketing videos are different. You don’t need music, a teleprompter, or actors, but you do need to edit marketing videos. Financial Advisor Marketing Videos from Advisor Products fill this need.

With Financial Advisor Marketing Videos, an advisor sitting in front of a plain white background is interviewed by me. I’m off-camera and my voice is removed in post-production editing, along with any awkward phrasing or words misspoken. What remains is a financial advisor speaking to the camera about how he practices—his compensation scheme, investment strategy, specialties and all-time favorite clients.

While the advisor is the star, my questions and direction helps keep the advisor focused, concise, and factual. The resulting video conveys the candor and credibility of a TV news interview. It’s honest.

For financial advisors who have studied wealth management, believe in themselves, care about their clients’ success, and practice with integrity and professionalism, Financial Advisor Marketing Videos are extremely effective. These attributes are capture under the glare of bright lights.

The three advisors who have used our approach were all so satisfied with the results that they agreed to allow us to use their videos as samples. Check them out.

Morgan Stone
Pat Jennerjohn
Glenn Mickelson








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5494 Hits

CIMA®, CIMC®, and CPWA® CE Credit For Advisors4Advisors Webinars

Financial advisors with a CIMA®, CIMC®, or CPWA® designation from the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA®) can now receive up to 100 hours of continuing education credits from webinar replays at Advisors4Advisors. Along with IMCA CE credit, Advisors4Advisors offers continuing education on about 50 webinar replays to Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) licensees.
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  6689 Hits
6689 Hits

How Can A Financial Advisor’s Website Generate Referrals From Attorneys, Accountants And Allied Professionals?

For advisors wise enough to be concerned about security of client data secure and privacy rules, AdvisorVault provides an excellent solution for sharing files with clients. But it enables you and your clients to share files with accountants and attorneys, and that’s really important.

AdvisorVault is a highly specialized file-sharing application created specifically for financial planners, wealth managers, investment consultants, and other financial advisors.

It’s not a document management system (DMS). Those systems lack features advisors needed to share documents with clients. For instance, AdvisorVault is integrated with a messaging system that automatically emails clients when you post a new document, and you can also post documents in batch for all your clients or a group or them and automatically notify them.

AdvisorVault is loaded with features and integrations that make client communications easier, providing a crucial component to an advisor’s online advice platform for clients.

In addition, AdvisorVault enables collaboration with attorneys, accountants, consultants, and other allied professionals. You can share a client’s entire vault with an attorney or accountant, or you can limit access to a single folder or a single file.

Your clients have a “Manage Professionals” feature in their vaults. When clients fill in the name and email address of their lawyer or accountant, it triggers an email to you requesting that you grant access to that professional to the client’s vault.  

AdvisorVault’s collaboration features thus make your website the hub for clients to manage all of their advice professionals.

Meanwhile, in the course of sharing information via AdvisorVault, you communicate build a new network of attorneys, accountants, consultants, and other professionals that can result in referrals.

Most advisors are jury-rigging systems for sharing documents with clients and allied professionals, or just ignoring privacy rules. However, security and privacy is likely to be an issue of interest to regulators in the months ahead, however.

For just $2,100, you can get AdvisorVault with a website—along with access to a database of hundreds of FINRA-reviewed articles, eight hours of service, automated website archiving. Or, for just $1,000 a year, you can add AdvisorVault to a website Advisor Products doesn’t host it.

Adopt this comprehensive client communication system with so many compelling benefits is sensible.
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13 Hits

Advisor Products Websites Now Come With Videos About Wealth Management

A library of FINRA-reviewed videos for advisor websites is now packaged with every Advisor Products Platinum website.

When you buy a website from Advisor Products, a library of videos can be personalized to your branding and posted to your website explaining the online tools you provide clients.

Crucial information about trusts, Roth IRAs, and wealth strategies is communicated to clients and prospects in the videos. How clients use AdvisorVault to access their portfolio reports and retirement plans is explained along with information about they can view their insurance and estate planning documents.

In addition to showing clients how to use your online advice platform, the videos market your services to prospects.

In showcasing features of the online platform that you make available to clients, the videos about AdvisorVault and Client Portals help you market your services to prospects.

The videos are part of our Video Library Dashboard.  With VLD, you get a selection of videos to choose from that can be posetd on ay page of your website, and your logo is automatically embedded in any video you post. VLD comes with a AdvisorSites Platinum, which costs $2,100 annually and comes with eight hours of service from our staff, automated website archiving, a databse of hundreds of financial articles, and AdvisorVault.    

 To see samples of the videos, you must be registered with Advisor Products. If you are already registered, log in here.
  5127 Hits
5127 Hits

You’re Probably Not Driving A Car You Bought In 2001 And Should Not Have The Same Website Either

If you're still using a "framed" website, here's another reason to upgrade your site to our .NET website platform: we'll automatically create an XML sitemap for you to submit to search engines. XML site maps help search engines index a website, making it more likely to appear in search engine searches.

Advisor Products stopped building framed websites several years ago when it became clear that search engines were discriminating against them.
Web technology changed and we created an easy upgrade path.

Upgrading to our .NET website engine makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your website and will give each page on your site a unique URL. You're even able to rewrite URLs using SEO-friendly keywords.

Advisor Products charges $250 to upgrade an old framed template website. The cost of upgrading a custom website depends on the number of pages and other factors and you'll need to contact us for a quote.

You’re probably not driving a car you bought in 2001. And, if you are, you probably don’t expect it to perform the same way as a 2011 model. Your website is not much different.

If you're still using an old framed site, now’s a good time to upgrade. Give us a call at (516) 333-0066 x224.
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3 Hits

Presentations About Investing By Economist Fritz Meyer

Financial economist Fritz Meyer, after 15 years as investment strategist at Invesco, recently left his post and launched his own firm to provide advisors with institutional-quality macro analysis at an affordable price. Advisor Products is distributing Meyer’s research.

A PowerPoint slide show for advisors to present at seminars, webinars, and client meetings is the first product of collaboration between Meyer and Advisor Products.

View more presentations from AdvisorProducts.

The monthly scripted and editable 45-minute presentations contain dozens of tables and charts. The slides guide advisors through illustrated analysis of key economic issues and their effect on investment strategy.

Meyer’s research is targeted to advisors utilizing broadly diversified portfolios and Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT).

While most advisors adhere to the precepts of MPT, it's difficult to produce a monthly presentation with the latest economic data and that concisely explains how fundamental trends affect a broadly diversified portfolio constructed for long-term investors.

Meyer’s research provides an advisory firm the benefits of a full-time investment strategist at a fraction of the cost.

Meyer is also blogging about the economy monthly on Advisors4Advisors.


Working with a great thinker of Fritz Meyer’s stature is an exciting partnership for Advisor Products. We're having fun.


Meyer spoke at a webinar entitled, Modern Portfolio Theory Is Alive And Well.


Modern Portfolio Theory Is Alive And Well And Here's How To Use It Right Now from Advisors4Advisors on Vimeo.

  5853 Hits
5853 Hits

We'll Make A Studio-Quality Marketing Video About Your Firm At The TD Ameritrade Conference For Just $1,000

If you want a professionally-produced three-minute marketing video for your website, please schedule an appointment now.

Advisor Products will be shooting videos Friday, January 4 from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. PST at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

We've got a professional TV crew coming and we'll be using studio-quality lighting and cameras .

We'll shoot five- to 10-minutes of you answering questions about your firm's value proposition.

Your video will be edited down to three one-minute segments and branded with your logo.

The file will be posted online for you to download and we will provide you with detailed instructions about how to post the video to YouTube and embed in in your website—all for $1,000.

If you have an Advisor Products Platinum website, we'll post the video on YouTube and embed it on your site for you.

If you were to hire your own crew and video editor, it could eaily cost you two or $2000 to make a video like this. 

Schedule your session at https://tungle.me/advisorvideos. Please give us your name, email address, and phone number in the subject line so we can contact you with detailed instructions.

If you have any questoins, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
  5159 Hits
5159 Hits

AdvisorVault Desktop Connector Simplifies Secure Document Sharing For Financial Advisors

AdvisorVault Desktop Connector, which enables financial advisors to drag and drop any file on their desktop to a client’s vault, is headed for testing shortly and we are seeking beta users.

AdvisorVault is a fully encrypted web-based system for financial advisors enabling secure sharing of personal financial documents with clients, estate planning attorneys, and accountants.

Desktop Connector enables advisors to drag and drop any file to a client’s vault from the desktop and eliminates the need to open a browser and upload files.  You can also drag and drop files from a client's vault to your computer locally.


Compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems, AdvisorVault Desktop Connector lets advisors view all of their clients’ vaults and drill down in each vault’s folders.

AdvisorVault  Desktop Connector simplifies secure document-sharing with clients. Just open Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, navigate to a document on a local drive or network, and drag and drop it from Explorer or Finder into a client folder in Desktop Connector.

You don’t need to open a browser, navigate to a client’s vault, browse your local drive to select the target document, and wait for the document to upload. All of those steps are eliminated.

Desktop Connector will be available at no additional charge to AdvisorVault users.

AdvisorVault integrations with Schwab PortfolioCenter, Advent Axys, Albridge Solutions, MoneyGuide Pro, and other leading professional applications imports client reports in batches.

Desktop Connector allows advisors to quickly post reports one-by-one from any application—even those not integrated with AdvisorVault. For example, while AdvisorVault has no integration to post a batch of all your client reports from NaviPlan or Sungard financial planning applications, an advisor using Dektop Connector can individually drag and drop client reports from these apps into AdvisorVault.

If you would like to volunteer to be a beta tester, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
  6061 Hits
6061 Hits

A Video Holiday Wish (In Song) From Advisor Products

Unfortunately, a few members of the Advisor Products staff, who can sing really well, were out of town or camera shy, but we nonethless posted this holiday greetings to our friends.

Thanks for making 2010 great, and happy holiday!

  5113 Hits
5113 Hits

A Video Studio For Financial Advisors For Under $750

Financial advisors can build their own video studio for $750 or less. We did it and it was easy.

You can buy a support system for a backdrop for $150.

For the backdrop, we wanted that clean, white look that is in vogue on the Web right now. So we bought a white blanket at Bed Bath & Beyond for $30 and draped t over the support system.

For lighting, we used a kit that costs about $500.

For the camera, we used a Creative Labs Vado that costs $65. We also used an $8,000 professional camcorder.

See below the difference beween the two camcorders.

I'm not happy with the lighting and will work on it in the weeks ahead. Should not be hard to make it look really good. Maybe I'll splurge and buy a better camcorder than the $65 Vado.

To see future posts on this topic, visit Advisors4Advisors.com.

An Advisor Products webinar about how financial advisors can produce video updates and optimize them for search engine rankings received a 4 1/2 star-rating from from attendees.

Here’s the video we made with the $65 camcorder.


Here’s the video we made with the $8000 professional unit.
  5406 Hits
5406 Hits

The $27,000 Advisor Website Package: A True Tale

There’s an old saying in the financial services industry: insurance is not bought, it’s sold.

I’m seeing that with advisor websites.

Advisor websites are getting sold. Instances of price-gouging and sales hype have come across my desk more often lately in the sale of advisor websites.

Admittedly, my evidence is anecdotal, but in the 15 years since founding Advisors Products, I’ve only seen this level of hype once before—during the dotcom boom of 1999.

The rise in unsavory sales of advisor websites accompanies a shift in the industry in favor of local independent design shops. Advisors are using local designers and consultants more often, getting sold “branding packages.” In fact, local design firms and independent are now the main competitors to Advisor Products.

Advisor Products has focused in recent years on developing client portals for advisor websites, which shifted the company away from competing with traditional advisor website development companies. We often work with independent designer and marketing consultants because advisors utilize our “backend” tools—AdvisorVault, portfolio performance reporting, email newsletters, financial advisor content—while hiring  independent consultants for marketing and design assistance.

What I’m seeing is that a small number of these local design firms and independent consultants are using the technical mumbo-jumbo as an excuse to overcharge advisors, and sometimes problems are arising with misleading claims about search engine optimization or an advisor website.

This week, I worked with an advisor now on the hook for $27,000 for a website, logo, and SEO copywriting package that gives him far less than what Advisor Products provides for about a third of the cost. He’s switching to Advisor Products.

The site looks good, but it was built using an open-source content management system (CMS) template.

Open source CMS platforms are great. The big ones, WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, are growing explosively, and local design shops have flocked to them, and for good reason.

Open-source platforms publish their source code, enabling programmers all over the world to develop plug-ins and overlays. So if you want to add a blog you your Joomla site, for example, Joomla has an app store and you choose from a long list of add-ons, called extensions, that are free or low cost.  

Cool features like blog moderation, integration with email newsletters, event calendars, news headline display, and other functionality can be added easily to a website using the extensions. Apps stores for Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla make it easy to display a Twitter-stream on a page of an advisor website, add and manage polls, or embed videos you post on YouTube.

Point is, the advisor who called this week was sold a template website built on Joomla plus a few website pages of copy that had been optimized for search engines, and a logo. Total cost: $27,000.

In addition to overcharging by a huge amount, the advisor is very limited in his ability to change content on his website because of an extremely restrictive configuration of the Joomla CMS platform.

Advisor Products works with many outside designers and marketing consultants and the vast majority are good and honest. We don’t have a monopoly on great graphic design and our development process enables advisors to use their favorite designers and consultants and leverage our specialized tools.

Advisor Products builds websites for firms using open source CMS when appropriate, depending on your circumstances. In fact, we’re in the process of integrating our proprietary financial advisor content and compliance tools for advisor websites with an open-source CMS platform.

But the growth of open source CMS platforms has allowed some greedy operators to take advantage of advisors who don’t know much about website development. So watch out.

If you want to work with a marketing consultant or design firm and also leverage AdvisorVault, Client Portals and other apps we provide to financial advisors, we welcome your business. And if you want us to evaluate the deal you are getting from a local designer or marketing consultant, we’ll give you an honest assessment.  

We’re transparent.
  5039 Hits
5039 Hits

Using Your Apps As A Marketing Tool

Having a great client portal doesn’t only make your firm more efficient, it also helps you acquire new clients. When financial advisors buy Client Portals from Advisor Products, they can post two videos to their websites that demonstrate the benefits of these advisor technology platforms to clients and prospects. The videos are free for any financial advisor that purchases an Advisor Products website with AdvisorVault or Client Portals.
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  5474 Hits
5474 Hits

SEO For Financial Advisors Without The Hype

To financial advisors, search engine optimization (SEO) is arcane. As a result, financial advisors seeking SEO assistance are often sold on hype.

A couple of months ago, for example, an advisor who’s been a client of Advisor Products for years, told me that he was thinking of moving his website. A consultant, who is now making the rounds with advisors, had told him Advisor Products could not build a blog site for him with social media features to help boost his website’s search engine rankings. 

So I asked the advisor exactly what the consultant was offering him. The answer: a WordPress blog site. WordPress is a free open-source content management system. Anyone can use it! If he wanted a WordPress blog, we could build it for him. Any web developer can! (A WordPress blog can’t integrate the Advisor Products compliance engine used by broker/dealers—at least not now—but he this advisor is not affiliated with a B/D and did not need the compliance engine. So we added a WordPress blog to his website with all of the social media features he was looking for and saved him from rebuilding his site from scratch.

Still, the episode alerted me to the fact that Advisor Products needed to make social media and SEO more understandable and accessible to advisors. Although we had produced about 10 educational webinars for advisors over the last couple of years addressing social media and SEO for financial advisors, we needed to do something make it easier to get started with SEO and social media marketing—something that would  it less arcane and more affordable.  

After months of planning, Advisor Products last week began offering a comprehensive suite of practical SEO and social media services geared specifically to financial advisors.  

Our approach is modular. It allows a firm with a tight budget to get started with search engine optimization of their website for local listings and map listings. But we also allow an advisory firm that already has done some SEO work to improve their search engine rankings by adding a series of blog posts packed with their keywords, profiling their target clients in SEO-friendly write-ups, or utilizing social media marketing. The six SEO services are:

Advisor Products’ suite of SEO services is different from others because we have clearly defined a full range of SEO engagements for advisors, eliminating the mystery so you understand what you’re getting. We’re not hiding behind a bunch of jargon and making promises we can’t keep.

One other way our service is different is that we’re going to teach you SEO techniques that you can use every day. Simple tips, like telling you to post comments on consumer financial websites like Mint or Motley Fool with a back-link to related information on your website, can improve your search engine rankings. We’ve written blog entries and provided educational webinars about ideas like this for many months, and we are now going to provide educational content regularly to advisors using our SEO services.

SEO is no longer something you can outsource to a firm and let them handle. The growing popularity of blogs, status updates, and information sharing on social means advisors and their staff must get involved in creating content to improve your search engine rankings.

What do you think? Are you mystified by SEO? Have the educational blog posts and webinars we’ve been conducting helping you? Are you going planning on using SEO techniques on 2011?
  5131 Hits
5131 Hits

The Semantic Web And Financial Advisors

The Semantic Web automates activities that now require human intervention by structuring information on the Internet. In a few years, Semantic Web will enable your phone to alert you when you’re out of milk, locate a mobile grocery service cruising your neighborhood, and request a milk delivery to your door. The Semantic Web is a long way off from realizing its potential, but it is now powering search engines and that’s why advisors need to know about it.

The Semantic Web, a phrase coined in 1999 by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Internet, will utilize many computer languages and technologies to make machines talk to each other. One of the languages is HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), the language of used to develop web pages.

In Web 2.0, standards are taking hold governing the use of HTML to program Web pages. For instance, the standard way of marking up text you want to emphasize on a Web page has been using <i> to format a font with italics or <b> boldface type. While tagging text with that code formats the typeface, it does not indicate how important the italicized or boldface information is.

Now, with the Semantic Web taking hold, the tag <em> (emphasis) is used instead of <i> or <b>. The <em> tag is one of many Semantic HTML tags that can be used by search engines to index information on the Web.

Web crawlers used by search engines to index information on the Internet now look for Semantic HTML tags to determine the most important ideas on a page. The Semantic Web thus automates a process that once could only be accomplished with human interaction and allows search engine algorithms to make information the Web more useable and seaerchable.

For advisors, understanding the Semantic Web is important because it enables creating a site that is easy to be indexed by search engines. The easier it is for search engines to index your website and understand the information it contains, the better your search engine results will be.

At Advisor Products, we now program websites using Semantic HTML. This makes it more likely that advisors with Advisor Products websites will be ranked higher by search engines.

In addition, our BackOffice content management system, which is packed with features for managing financial advisor websites, includes a user-friendly “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editor that creates Semantic HTML.  

WYSIWYG Web-page editors allow advisors and their staff to changes on their website. These user-friendly editors are used throughout the Web to post text to blogs, status updates, profiles and other Web pages. But they are controversial because they often don’t produce clean, Semantic HTML.

Advisor Products’ BackOffice HTML editor is programmed to allow financial advisors to produce Semantic HTML and boost advisor search engine rankings.

Semantic HTML provides six levels of heading tags, tagged as H1 through H6.Search engines will give more weight to the text within these tags. But you must select Heading 1 through Heading 6 to use these Semantic HTML tags.

In addition to making it easy for you to post Semantic HTML, we are hand-coding HTML tags where needed when financial advisors purchase any of our search engine optimized (SEO) copywriting solutions.
  5215 Hits
5215 Hits

Tweet To Your Clients, Prospects, & Referral Sources Using Advisors4Advisors

Advisors4Advisors has integrated with Twitter to enable financial advisors to “tweet” A4A content to clients, prospects, and referral sources in an instant.

Advisors4Advisors aggregates investment, industry, and technology news every business day.

Veteran financial reporters Mary Rowland, Bob Casey, and Andrew Gluck aggregate respectively the investment, industry, and tech news advisors need to read by scanning dozens of websites, blogs, and news releases daily. The reading list is emailed as The Daily Digest to members of Advisors4Advisors.

The Twitter aggregation allows you to tweet any of the content to everyone following you on Twitter.

To use the Advisor4Advisors Twitter integration:

1. Log in to Advisors4Advisors
2. From the home page, click on the headline of any article you want to Tweet
3. Click on the Twitter icon to automatically open Twitter and tweet the article

The Advisors4Advisors integration automatically opens a browser with your Twitter account, inserts the headline of the article as a tweet, and creates a shortened bit.ly link to the article. You simply press “Tweet” to send the headline and link to all of your followers.

To try it, register for a free trial at Advisors4Advisors.com.
  5090 Hits
5090 Hits

Secure, Encrypted Communications Between Advisory Firms And 401(k) Plan Participants

I was just monitoring one of our employee’s phone calls with a client and came across a great use of AdvisorVault to work with 401(k) plans.

I routinely monitor our help desk and sales calls every day. We use a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone system that enables me to “barge” calls with neither the client nor the staff member knowing I am monitoring the call. It keeps me in touch with what advisors need and whether we are giving good service. All advisory firm owners should have this VOIP system feature. (I posted about this at Advisors4Advisors.com.)

I barged a call just now in which an advisory firm wanted to give AdvisorVault access to a 401(k) plan sponsor. This is a great idea for advisory firms working with 401(k) plans.

Say ABC Advisors is advising XYZ Manufacturing on its 401(k) Plan.

ABC Advisors can give XYZ employees their own client vaults with their 401(k) information.

ABC Advisors can also give XYZ’s HR Department access to certain folders of each XYZ employee’s vault.

That allows XYZ, the plan sponsor, to place documents about the 401(k) plan into each client’s vault, but ABC Advisors can limit XYZ’s HR Department from seeing all of the client’s/employee’s documents.

AdvisorVault enables collaboration with third-party professionals. We always envisioned advisors giving access to a client’s vault to the client’s attorney or accountant. AdvisorVault has very elaborate controls for collaboration with third parties and advisors are telling us it helps them build a referral network of tax and estate planning professionals.

The advisory firm can enable third parties to see a client’s entire vault, just a folder in a vault, or just a single document in a vault. The third parties can be enabled to upload documents and get all the features of AdvisorVault, and the advisory firm that pays us controls the system. Advisors love this.

But we never imagined using the third-party collaboration features to enable advisors to work more efficiently with 401(k) plan sponsors. This is a great idea!

If you are advising a 401(k) plan for a group of doctors, for instance, you can enable the plan sponsor to post tax-related documents, educational articles, required disclosures, plan amendments, and all sort of other required information. And if you hope to turn some of the plan participants into wealth management clients, this is a great way to get to know them.

Please let me know what you think. Are there any caveats or questions we need to consider as advisors start using AdvisorVault to serve documents securely to 401(k) plan participants?
  5176 Hits
5176 Hits

What Happens When An MBA Student Researches 30 Investment Advisory Marketing Firms?

MBA student Jonathan Poyer contacted me in late June for help with a research project on investment advisory marketing companies. I vaguely remembered Jonathan contacting me five years earlier when he had an internship at Orion Advisor Services, but don't know him. Advisor Products tries to be transparent and behave nicely, however, so  I directed him to our website and offered to connect him with our marketing and sales department.

A month later, after completing his research, Jonathan contacted me again to thank me. In an email, he told  me how difficult it was to get straightforward answers from marketing companies specializing in serving investment advisors but that  Advisor Products was different.

Because he was indpendent and unbiased, I asked Jonathan to summarize what he learned in doing his research. Here’s what he says.   

This summer, as an MBA intern at Brigham Young University, I chose to work for Gemini Fund Services; a company I worked for previous to business school.  I worked on a great project putting together a business plan for a new entity that Gemini has been looking into.


A major portion of my project this summer was to obtain market research on third party marketing firms in the investment advisory space; especially those that provide marketing services for mutual funds.  I spent over a month working on this project; speaking with over 30 firms as I wanted a comprehensive understanding of the industry.  Since I had been in the business a number of years, I obtained information through contacts at the major custodians.  In addition, I found a number of firms through Google searches, marketing events, and others through references on marketing collateral or websites.  All told, I was able to interview almost 30 different people that focus on assisting investment professionals with their marketing initiatives.  The two major questions that I sought to answer included: what key services do you provide and what is the general pricing for those services. 

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  7508 Hits
7508 Hits

Get 38 Hours Of CFP® Continuing Education Credit On Advisors4Advisors

You can get 38 hours of CFPâ continuing education credit on Advisors4Advisors, a practice management portal for advisors. And if you sign up for a free six-month membership to A4A, you get it for free!

Simply register for our next webinar and you’ll receive an email with six-month free trial of A4A after the webinar.

Already a member of A4A? Just click on one of the webinar titles below and sign in to A4A to view the session. Watch the session for at least 50 minutes and take a 10-question quiz when it’s over to receive CFP® CE credit.
  3 Hits
3 Hits

Advisor Products Implements Managed Intrusion Detection And Prevention

Advisor Products has implemented a unified threat management system to detect and prevent malicious activities on all of its web servers.

Adoption of the Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) by Advisor Products had been requested by a large financial institution seeking to use AdvisorVault, a secure system that allows financial advisors to share documents with clients and allied professionals and that is integrated with several portfolio management software applications.

Hackers and malicious activities by rogue employees of tech vendors and advisory firms pose a growing risk, as more advisors are utilizing Web-based applications to communicate personal financial information to clients and improve efficiency.

Advisory firms are not only under pressure from cybercrime and insider abuse, but also face increasing compliance demands, as state and federal regulators tighten rules protecting client privacy and on establishing effective and measurable security.

The intrusion detection and prevention system implemented by Advisor Products adds a new layer to the company’s already elaborate security systems. The IDPS service monitors all Advisor Products servers 24/7 to identify malicious activity, log information about suspicious activity, attempt to block these activities, and automatically report them to technicians and engineers on the Advisor Products team. Some of the features include:

  • Enterprise Grade Firewall. A sophisticated enterprise-grade firewall managed by certified security experts.

  • Best In Class Intrusion Prevention. The system is carefully maintained and managed by a world leader in vulnerability and intrusion protection research and used by many of the world’s largest enterprise.

  • Best Practices Management. Change management, incident management and all aspects of the service are monitored for compliance with times-tested management practices.

  • 7x24 Incident Response. The service provider’s engineers monitor and respond to critical security events 7x24, 365 days per year and report critical issues to the Advisor Products tech team immediately.

  5420 Hits
5420 Hits

Bug Fix Allows Collaboration On A Single File In AdvisorVault

The bug fix to AdvisorVault that I mentioned in my blog entry on June 29  was made a couple of weeks ago, and I just realized I forgot to write an update about that.

Advisors who use AdvisorVault can now share a single file with an accountant or estate planning lawyer.

While you all along have been able to share a client entire vault or a single folder, the bug had prevented advisors from sharing a single file with an outside professional.  

For financial advisors, being able to share client documents securely with attorneys, accountants, consultants, and other allied professionals is an important feature in AdvisorVault.

It's one of those rare examples where a seemingly small technology feature  provides a big benefit.

Advisors say that collaboration with other professoinals is a natural way of creating a referral network of professionals.

In the course of sharing information about a client in AdvisorVault, allied professionals wind up communicating more efficiently and more frequently. And since secure file-sharing  in AdvisorVault is easy, the feedback I've gotten from advisors is that it's getting used a lot.
  5173 Hits
5173 Hits

Quarterly Market Summary Makes Performance Reporting Easier

Quarterly portfolio reporting can be stressful enough for financial advisors — dealing with delivery of the reports electronically or in the mail is a major hassle — but the task is even more difficult when you must write a market commentary to accompany your quarterly client reports.



Next time you need a quarterly market update to send with your portfolio reports to clients, take a
free trial of Quarterly Market Summary from Advisor Products.



Quarterly Portfolio Reporting

Quarterly portfolio reporting is a major hassle for RIAs. Printing, collating, and stuffing is time-consuming, and everything must be absolutely perfect.



When quarterly portfolio reporting is further complicated by having to research and write a quarterly commentary, the project becomes downright stressful.



Making matters worse, the trailing 10-year total return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index shows an annualized 1.6% loss! Long-term investors have been slammed!



Getting help with writing about what’s happening in the markets makes quarterly portfolio reporting easier.



Quarterly Market Update

There is no substitute for your own words in explaining portfolio performance to your clients. So Quarterly Market Summary enables you to personalize your message to your clients.



Most of the content you need to write to accompany your performance reports is comprised of facts about the economy and markets. Quarterly Market Summary provides you with that text. You simply personalize it.



Outsource To Financial Writers

Why reinvent the wheel? Is it smart to spend your time or assign staff to compile statistics summarizing performance of stocks, bonds, industries, interest rates, foreign markets, GDP, inflation, employment, currencies, and other key data? Are you professional writers? Will you proofread everything?



Quarterly Market Summary is written by a seasoned financial journalist. A financial editor with 30 years of experience re-works it. It’s then proofread by yet another financial writer and sent for review to several financial advisors.



Quarterly Market Summary is delivered in a Microsoft Word document so that you can rewrite and repurpose it easily.



Quarterly Market Summary Free Trial

To take advantage of our no risk, free trial offer,
register with Advisor Products. Registration also gives you access to replays of our educational webinars and our MarketingSmart e-newsletter for advisors.



If you are already registered with Advisor Products,
log in here for your free trial of Quarterly Market Summary.



To see a sample and get more information about Quarterly Market Summary, visit
our site.








  5250 Hits
5250 Hits

Bug Fix Coming For Collaboration With Outside Professionals In AdvisorVault


A fix is on the way for a bug in AdvisorVault that will enable advisors to share a single file with an allied professional.



AdvisorVault was developed principally to enable financial advisors to securely store files they want to share with clients, but it also enables advisors to collaborate with professionals outside your firm--CPAs, attorneys, geriatric care managers, personal coaches, business consultants and other professionals with which clients work.



You can enable an allied professional to have permission to view and upload a client's entire vault or just a single folder in a client's vault. You can also enable an allied professional to access his or her own vault and only see what you post in that vault. These collaboration features are working fine.



However, we have discovered a bug in the app that is preventing advisors from sharing a single file in a vault. We expect that bug to be fixed in the next upgrade release at the end of July.



We've been releasing upgrades and bug fixes monthly and just last week issued the latest release. That last release cleaned up a problem with moving an advisor's clients.



Now, if an advisor leaves your firm or if you want to switch the advisor for a client, it works smoothly.



We also fixed sporadic problems with creating a folder structure for firms using our online reporting solution for Advent Axys and Schwab PortfolioCenter.



While these are minor bugs, we know they are annoying and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Continue reading
  5950 Hits
5950 Hits

Just Got This Angry Email Message Firing My Company

“Please cancel my subscription immediately,” said the email message. “I am requesting a one-month refund due to the very poor service that I received. In fact, I sent emails and phone messages with no response and a one week delayed response to a phone call message that I sent.”



Advisor Products is not perfect. We can always do better. But this was over the top! What did we do?



Even though it was 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night, I had to get to the bottom of this right away.



I checked our CRM and could find no notes about her calls this past week or anything about her company.



I called her right away and left a voicemail message.



“Whatever we did, I'm sorry,” I said on the voicemail. “I can’t find any record about this project we’re doing for you. So please call me back and let me know what happened.”



She called back thirty-minutes later.



“I’m sorry,” she said, “You don’t host my website. It’s a competitor of yours but I called you back because you sounded upset about my complaint.”



I thanked her for calling back and couldn’t resist:



“You can see the difference between us and our competitors," I said. "On a Friday night at 8 p.m., you have the owner of the company calling you back to respond to you.”



Advisor Products service is good. We're not perfect, but we return your calls promptly--almost always the same day that you call us.



We're the No. 1 choice for financial advisor websites and secure client communications that is integrated with your CRM, portfolio management and financial planning software.










  5560 Hits
5560 Hits

Content Management System Passwords Expired


To improve security, Advisor Products today killed passwords advisors use to access our content management system.



The next time your firm logs in, you'll be required to create a new password.



The new password requires a combination upper and lower case letters, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters. Such passwords are harder to remember, but they’re also harder to hack.



This change was not made in response to any incident. It is one of numerous new policies we have implemented company-wide.



When you log in, please read the new password requirements carefully. They’re just a few lines but you need to read them to understand what to do.



Here’s a post I wrote about
creating strong passwords and another post about the password app I use. Chrome users may also want to consider LastPass.



Please call our help desk if you have any problems at (888) 274-5755.



We apologize for any inconvenience.







  5246 Hits
5246 Hits

Why Do Many Advisors Fear Niches?


Advisors are poor marketers in general, and one of the silliest things they do is fear targeting a niche. What are you thinking?



If I went into the website business in 1996 by making websites for any schnook, I would not have been able to compete with Intuit, Google, WordPress, and other giant technology companies aiming for a mass clientele. By specializing in advisors, I’m able to add content and technology tools that my niche group needs and values. I can provide solutions that the giants cannot afford to create because serving my niche is too much work for them.



To me, the case for specializing is so easy to see, and I just can’t understand why advisors have so much trouble with it. Yet over the years, advisors’ fear of niches has come up again and again.



Once, and I promise this is true, I was working with an advisor on the phone, reviewing marketing copy I had written that would move him into a niche. He yelled at me. “I don’t want to be different! I just want to sound like everyone else!”



Another time, I was on a conference call with a very high-powered firm whose chief investment officer told me in front of the firm’s executive leadership that he didn’t want to describe his process in detail to me. “You know a lot about the investment business and that’s why we hired you!” he barked. ”We do what everyone else does. Just write about that.”



Just this past Friday, at a webinar entitled,
Successful Marketing For Advisors, John Anderson, of SEI this past Friday did an excellent job of telling advisors how to market their practices.



Sure enough, during the Q&A period, an advisor chatted in a question raising her fear that marketing to a small niche like divorcees might scare away other potential prospects. Such fear is totally misplaced.



Having marketing copy on your website that emphasizes your niche will gain you clients in the long run, assuming you are good at working with that niche. Here are some reasons why.



Commoditization Of Investment Advice. The Web is relentlessly commoditizing investment advice. Online brokers are better at serving the mass affluent. Segmenting the investor market to differentiate your services can be a source of competitive advantage. Specialized advice will command a premium price and make your clients more loyal.



The Web Favors Niche Marketers. If the keywords used in marketing copy on your website are terms like “financial planning” or fee-only financial advisors,” you stand little chance of gaining high rankings in search engines. However, if your marketing copy contains keywords like “financial advisors serving Indian hotel owners” or “estate planning for shopping center developers,” you have a far better chance of gaining favorable natural search results. If you want to learn more about this topic, see this recent
webinar on Search Engine Optimization conducted by Advisor Products.



Professional Satisfaction. Serving a niche enables you to help people in more meaningful ways. If you are an expert in understanding the wealth management needs of layers, doctors, owners of bakeries, car dealers or other small business, or some other market segment, you will find yourself going far deeper into their financial lives and advising them on business issues as well as personal finance. Your advice becomes more meaningful because it is so targeted. The professional satisfaction you’ll gain can make your job more satisfying.



If you need some help thinking about a niche, start by considering whether the answer is obvious.



Three weeks ago, I was speaking with an advisor I’ve known for many years. When I asked him to tell me about his firm, he never mentioned that he had a niche. In an elevator speech that sounded a lot like many other wealth management firms, he told me he uses DFA Funds and provides financial planning.



He is from India, and I felt I was treading on delicate ground, but I asked him if he targeted Indian immigrants. That’s when he told me that 60% of his clients are doctors of Indian descent.



This advisor is not marketing to Indian doctors currently and did not realize that he can probably get a lot more Indian doctors as clients by sharing the specialized knowledge he has gained by working with this niche.



Many Indian doctors are first-generation Americans or emigrated here from India. They have common experiences and financial issues. For instance, they almost all had little money during their residency and are tempted to spend crazily when they start making money. Many of them have parents and siblings still living in India that they need to assist financially. Many accumulate great wealth and fear raising spoiled kids. The expertise of this advisor in dealing with financial issues of Indian doctors is valuable.



To me, creating marketing materials for this niche is a no brainer. Yet this advisor and others like, I suspect, don’t realize they already have a niche and can capitalize on it with just a bit of strategic marketing and planning.



To figure out your possible niches, download the market segmentation worksheet we have made available on A4A. In segmenting your clients, you may find some obvious commonalities among them. Are a few of your clients:



  • working for the same local company?

  • working in the same industry?

  • of the same ethnic group?

  • in the same profession?

  • in the same socio-economic group?






In a story that will be published in the upcoming issue of Financial Advisor, I interviewed several firms that only serve doctors or that specialize in doctors. I realize that pointing to a few firms won’t convince you. But it is such a clear example of how niche marketing works. When it’s released on the Web around June 1, please take a look at that story.



Though I hope I am helping you, maybe I am missing something. Maybe there’s a good reason why advisors avoid niches. If so, please let me know by posting a comment.



And if you have had success in working on a niche market, please also post a comment and share your ideas.










  5198 Hits
5198 Hits

Our Commitment To Do What's Best For You


Some advisory firms feel they must work face-to-face with a local designer to build their website instead of working over the phone with an Advisor Products project manager. They feel that their branding is too important to be managed by Advisor Products.



I don't agree. Our designers do a great job. But who am I to argue?



So we price our services so you can use a local graphic designer and still use Advisor Products for hosting. Hosting is where we add the most value.



When we host your site, you get our content management system, BackOffice. That’s built specifically for advisory firms and has oodles of features just for advisors. Compliance review workflow, website archiving, pre-formatted pages created specifically for advisors that you can easily add to your site, a secure client vault system, and integration with 16 apps used in advisor practices that convert data in your internal systems into client communications. Plus, we provide 10 or 15 wealth management articles monthly to aupdate your site and now we’ve started offering videos on personal finance topics.



Candidly, many advisors don’t value publishing wealth management content on their website. But your clients are getting bombarded with financial information from so many sources. Why forfeit the opportunity to be their trusted source of financial ideas?



Providing clients with authoritative educational information on a broad range of personal finance topics—even if you don’t agree with every word in every article we write—promotes meaningful conversation with clients. Moreover, with technology enabling you to select every article and video that appears on your website or e-newsletter, you control the content that your firm distributes. You can even customize the content for each individual cleint's personal interests!

Continue reading
  5643 Hits
5643 Hits

Mysteries Of Search Engine Optimization Revealed

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mysterious thing. There’s technical mumbo to know and it seems really powerful.



So I was really proud earlier this week when our Operations Director, Jim Voss, in a 45-minute presentation, made SEO pretty simple for advisors to understand and execute.



The point of the webinar was to show you how you can use the Advisor Products content management system, BackOffice, to help optimize your website for search engines. But the webinar contains so much information about SEO basics that the self-promotional part of the session is only incidental.



What makes me so happy is that this webinar demonstrates that Advisor Products is really trying to do the right thing. We’re not trying to hide behind technical complexity and charge you for SEO. We’re creating realistic expectations about SEO, educating you about it, and giving you the tools to do it yourself. (Of course, you can hire us to help you if you need it.)



Attendees on average rated this webinar with four out of five stars. Among the many favorable comments we received from attendees was this:



“Need to see it twice a year, every year. Best damn webinar you've ever done. We advisors forget this stuff. We don't work on our sites but once a year or so. Keep doing this one, we need it more than we can tell you.”



Check out the webinar.




  5378 Hits
5378 Hits

Add An Event Calendar To Your Website


Advisor Products made it easy today for advisors to add an event calendar to their websites.



If you want to conduct webinars about investing, for instance, you can advertise those events from your website. You can also list offline events, such as client appreciation dinners, picnics, and other events you want clients and prospects to attend.



The video below shows you how to create an event calendar page from the AdvisorSites BackOffice and how to add an event.





Advisors can couple the event calendar page with a GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar license to leverage the event calendar. You can use GoToWebinar or Advisor Products Email Newsletter feature to email invitations.



If you create a webinar in GoToWebinar, you insert the registration link on your event page. Anyone visiting your site can thus sign up for your webinar.



After you conduct a webinar, you can edit its description and link to a replay of the webinar. Adding a list of all your educational and marketing webinars to your event calendar is a powerful marketing and client communications tool.



The event calendar also makes it easy to charge for events and accept payments by credit card through PayPal. To charge a fee for a webinar, you’ll need a PayPal account. PayPal gives you a link and button that you can add when setting it up an event in your event calendar.



The event calendar page alone won’t bring people to your webinars. You need to advertise the event and send emails to get people to sign up. But the event calendar page is a great way to show prospects about activities at your firm. If you host an online monthly webinar or an offline monthly client seminar, listing the events in the event calendar shows prospects that your firm is involved with clients and making an effort to educate and keep in touch with them.



The event calendar is one of many different types of pages you can add to your website yourself from the AdvisorSites BackOffice. You can also call our help desk at (888) 274-5755 for assistance. There is no charge for adding the event calendar page to your website.



Please let us know what you think of the event calendar. Will it be something you add to your website? How can we improve it?








Continue reading
  5677 Hits
5677 Hits

Advisors Putting Client Data At Risk



To save money, some advisors are putting client data in jeopardy, and the trade press isn’t helping matters.



I’m talking about two incidents in the past few weeks, one involving Google Docs and the other involving a CRM called Zoho.



I was hosting a
webinar on February 12 about CRM systems for advisors when the Google Docs platform came up during the Q&A period, and I mentioned that Google Docs was not secure. An advisor chatted telling me it indeed was secure.



Without verifying it myself, I hesitated telling attendees at the webinar that Google Docs was secure. But I felt obliged to report what he said. So I told attendees an advisor had chatted in to say Google Docs was indeed secure.



After the webinar, I emailed the advisor and asked if he had any substantiation that Google Docs was secure, and I also did some research. Within minutes, I found a Google forum
post that said documents to Google Docs could not be protected with their own password. I sent another email to the advisor with that link. He never responded.



To get the facts, I asked two seasoned engineers from Advisor Products to check into Google Apps’ security.



Google Apps offers a Standard and Premier Edition. Their findings, which pertain to the Premier Edition targeted to businesses, show that it would be reckless for an advisor to store client data on Google Docs.



It may be okay for an advisor to use Google’s calendar and other features. But if you want secure document storage and sharing, be aware of the following limitations:





  • You can’t force users to create “strong passwords.” Google has a tool that rates the strength of a password when you create it. The tool’s requirements are not up to professional standards. A strong password requires using non-alphanumeric characters (i.e., !, @, #,$, etc.). It is also at least eight characters and preferably 12. By default, Google Docs requires only six-character passwords, and it allows you to create a password as short as four characters. As long as your password contains a combination of four letters and numbers, Google’s password-strength rating tool will tell you your password is “strong.”




  • Google does not automatically force expiration of passwords. Some broker/dealers now require that vendors automatically kill passwords after three months and require users to create new passwords.




  • The way Google Docs passes access to documents via email is inherently flawed. If you use Google Docs to share a document with a client or another professional, Google enables you to send the link by email. Email is not secure. Moreover, anyone who receives the email with the link can open the document—without a password.




  • Documents on Google’s servers are not stored encrypted. They’re encrypted when you upload them and when you download, but not stored encrypted. This could be an issue if a Google’s server storing your document is breached.




  • Google Docs doesn’t accommodate the hierarchy of users with different permissions that advisors need. Document-sharing vendors in the financial services business enable different roles and rights for their staff, advisors, advisory firm staff, a B/D’s compliance department, outside professionals and advisor works with, and clients of advisors. Google Apps has just two levels of authorization.




  • Google Docs does not have bulk upload capabilities, enabling you to upload performance reports, financial plans, rebalancing reports, and other documents in batches.




  • Google Docs and Apps do not integrate with financial planning, portfolio management or other practice management apps used by advisors.






Google is a remarkable company and it could address these issues. But with its vast audience and potential, it has priorities other than serving the tiny independent financial advisor market.



Google Apps Marketplace enables third-party vendors to leverage web interfaces. Third-party apps are likely to address some of the security issues posed by Google Apps and provide features and integration needed by advisors. But it will take months—probably years—for an advisor to pull together an integrated suite of professional apps that leverages Google Apps. But it will require stitching together specialized components from different vendors in the App Store, which would complicate matters for advisors significantly. Anyone who tells you advisors can use Google Docs today is reckless.



Which brings me to Zoho CRM, the subject of a rave review in one of the trade magazines for independent advisors.



Zoho is a web-based CRM that is integrated with Outlook, Facebook, and several other popular consumer applications. In addition to CRM, Zoho also offers an extensive suite of web-based software for word processing, spreadsheets, invoicing, online meetings, calendaring, sharing documents and more.



“Combining Zoho CRM with Zoho email and Zoho Docs gives you robust CRM, integrated email that includes email storage, plus an integrated online entry-level document management solution at an unbeatable price,” the article says.



“Perhaps the greatest differentiator for many potential purchasers is security,” says the article. “Overall, the security capabilities of the application are impressive.”



Zoho is indeed an impressive application but documents are not stored in encrypted format. Zoho’s website says passwords are encrypted but says nothing about whether documents you save on its servers are stored encrypted.



Since the security information on Zoho’s site was vague, I called Zoho to ask about its encryption.



I could not understand everything the salesman said because of his thick Indian accent (despite the fact that I've grown pretty good at understanding Indian accents because my company outsources many development projects to India). Initially, the Zoho salesman told me all documents were indeed encrypted. But when I questioned him further, he suggested a security specialist call me back.



The security specialist called back the next day. While he was polite, I had difficulty understanding everything he, too, said because of his accent. He confirmed that documents stored on Zoho Docs are not encrypted.



An April 2007 post on a Zoho forum said the company “may consider encrypting the entire Zoho server.” Apparently, Zoho has not gotten to that yet.



Encrypting passwords is important but inadequate for most advisors who took the time to learn about security. Not encrypting the documents means a hacker who breaches Zoho’s servers would be unable to read the users’ passwords, but he could read the documents stored on its servers. It’s an obvious risk. In addition, some Zoho employees have access to the files stored on Zoho Docs and could read them. That would not meet the standard advisors should insist upon, standards that are now required in some states and that are likely to become federal law in the months ahead. Zoho Docs security may be fine for most businesses but not for financial advisors who are responsible for protecting client data.



Moreover, financial institutions are putting advisor vendors through security audits and requiring that they have documented security policies and procedures in place. One large B/D, for instance, requires documentation on 20 policies, and each policy is a multi-page document covering how a vendor handles passwords, back-ups, security incidents, and business continuity. Another requirement: All new hires at tech vendors must be given a criminal background check. Some B/Ds also now require vendor systems to detect and stop intrusions.



(Interestingly, RIAs shrewd enough to use the web-based apps approved by large BDs get all of these security benefits for free, while reps are paying for them.)



Like Google Apps, Zoho Docs doesn’t allow advisors the role-management and user hierarchy features that advisors need. Nor is it integrated with advisor systems. It would take months for Zoho to address these and other shortcomings, assuming Zoho wants to specialize in the independent advisor market.



To be sure, Zoho and Google Docs cost less than applications that are created for advisors. That’s because Google and Zoho are not specializing in advisors. If they did, you’d pay more for all the features. Advisors who move to these apps as they are constitute]d now are risking a lot more than they realize and are paying for it in the long run by not getting the right features to handle their needs.



In running a technology company that has served independent advisors since 1996 and that provides a secure document sharing between advisors and their clients, I’ve been humbled in trying to meet the demands of the profession. (Writing about technology for advisors is easy; making technology for advisors is difficult.)



While you may want to believe that some inexpensive application is going to be a panacea, use your common sense.



Be as skeptical as you are when you read an article in a consumer personal finance magazine about an investment that promises returns of 10% annually through good and bad times.



If an app for advisors sounds too good to be true, it probably is.













  6116 Hits
6116 Hits

401(k) Webinar Hits The Mark With Advisors

Last Friday’s webinar with Charles Epstein, the 401(k) Coach, was a big hit, as you can see from the comments from attendees shown below.



Epstein is a financial advisor who achieved success in the 401(k) business, so much success that he started a coaching program that has trained about 1,200 advisors. He’s also one of our featured bloggers on
Advisors4Advisors.



Epstein is a pragmatist and offered real world wisdom that advisors appreciated. GoToWebinar, the tool we use for running these sessions, indicated that every single one of the attendees was “highly interested” in Epstein’s presentation. I can’t recall any other speaker who was able to hold the interst of the audience as well as Epstein.



Epstein’s session is available for replay at
Advisor Products and on Advisors4Advisors.



Epstein provided a handout that can be used by fiduciaries to conduct an meeting with a plan sponsor that is a prospect, and it can be downloaded by members of A4A in the Advisor Rewards section of your profile.



Epstein will be doing another webinar in April or May.
What did you think of the webinar? How can we improve it?



  • Very good overview of the 401k market for advisors. I like it when speaker provides resources like he did. Would like to see more on how to market services to companies.




  • More events with Mr. Epstein




  • Outstanding. Short and to the point. Thank you for taking the questions.




  • I thought it to be great information




  • It was good. I am interested in hearing from someone experienced in fiduciary plans the top shelf plans where advisors take on ERISA 3-38.




  • Interesting topic and completely new to me




  • A transcript, available upon request by an attendee, would help a great deal.




  • Good




  • Excellent webinar.




  • Very good session...only complaint is he went a little fast, but the slides and a replay is available so it is no big deal. Thanks very much.




  • It was excellent, and I especially appreciated your allowing download of slides. I wish I had known throughout the presentation however, because I was feverishly writing down each slide!




  • I really like your webinars. If I could change anything, it would be to keep them to an hour. I don't know how you do this because I don't think there is a lot of wasted time, but I personally struggle with the dual desires of wanting to continue learning and also moving on to the next, scheduled thing. This is fairly minor but I would prefer they be a little shorter.




  • Make a CD of the audio




  • Great Information.




  • I think it was very good. Thanks for coordinating and brininging important topics to us RIA's.




  • Excellent topic. Presenter moved a little fast and glossed over a few complex topics.




  • Sensational amount of information packed into an hour. Great job with the questions at the end of the program, Andy. They were delivered clearly, and you moved the answers right along without letting the speaker get bogged down.




  • I liked it.




  • Very good webinar. Good topic!




  • I liked it. It was helpful.




  • Very informative. Discussion included many topics I was not aware of especially fiduciary responsibility issues for the advisor to a plan.




  • Very good. Always like more take away, actionable items to implement. Not always just a sales pitch to sign up for a new program.




  • I appreciated the information. I would be interested in hearing the additional portions of the 401k Coach program on A4A.




  • Great timing for me since I am entering this service area.




  • Very informative




  • Good info & resources. Would like to hear Part 2 from Charlie (the remaining 3 steps)




  • This was a great webinar. Moderation intro was a little too long and slow




  • Very good and any process template or handouts would be appreciated




  • Spectacular. Thank you so much.




  • Awesome good information. Sometimes it is helpful to identify those things that "you don't know you don't know" and then provide resources to fill in the gaps.




  • Bring back for steps 4,5,6




  • Charlie is terrific!




  • Terrific very informative insightful and useful




  • Sometimes Charles moved onto a slide before giving the audience time to process what was on the slide. Being able to download the slides before the presentation would have been helpful




  • It moved very fast for me since I'm not active in this part of the business now, but it was a great presentation.




  • There was a lot to cover. Better to sometimes just commit to a 90 minute program. Thanks.




  • I thought it was informative. He had to fly through his slides, so I feel like I need to go back and look at them again.




  • Give and take questions




  • The audio was in and out and when I called the # the password was invalid it said.




  • Great questions Andy






  5824 Hits
5824 Hits

Advisor Products Has A New Address


Advisor Products has moved. Our new address is:



333 Jericho Turnpike

Suite 333

Jericho, NY 11753



Our phone number remains the same at (516) 333-0066 or (888) 274-5755.

Continue reading
  5244 Hits
5244 Hits

Performance Reporting For Advisors Going Independent

For advisors going independent, producing monthly or quarterly performance reports is unfamiliar ground.



Without a documenting the process and choosing a technology platform to implement a system, performance reporting can be overwhelming.



Advisors4Advisors, a practice management portal for independent advisors that I started about six month ago, recently produced a webinar to help brokers making the transition to independence and who have never before had to use portfolio-reporting software and manage the delivery of performance reports to clients.



Two seasoned executives from Orion Advisor Services were our guest presenters for the session. Orion is a portfolio reporting services that is used by about 200 independent advisory firms. The firm got its start in 1999. Originally the system was built by CLS Investments, which manages about $3 billion in assets, to produce client performance reports and then it was offered as a product that could be used by other RIAs.



Bill Wostoupal, the head of business development, and Randy Lambert, who runs operations at Orion, did a great job of explaining the performance reporting process RIAs must go through without making it sound like a commercial for Orion.



They also came up with a template process and worksheet that new RIAs can use to develop reporting procedures internally. The template process and worksheet is useful to RIAs no matter what portfolio reporting system you use.



The process Orion provides is a template that you can adapt to your needs, and the worksheet makes it easy for you to document the process and embed it in your CRM system. If you embed your firm’s performance reporting process in your CRM system and assign staff to each step in the workflow, then your firm will be more efficient. Staff will be held accountable and reporting tasks will not be dropped or handled improperly.



Members of Advisors4Advisors can down download the Performance Reporting Workflow Worksheet for free.



You can view a replay of the session here.









  5762 Hits
5762 Hits

Keebler Kills At Roth Conversion Webinar And Proves Some Advisors Are Nuts


Bob Keebler killed at yesterday’s session of the Financial Advisor Webinar Series. Attendees who filled in our post-webinar survey with ratings and comments on the session raved.



Keebler over the past decade has established himself as the premier educator of financial professionals on IRAs.



While he lacks the showmanship of other IRA experts, Keebler is great at making IRA esoterica understandable. He does not try to make things simple but clearly explains the arcane.



Keebler received the highest rating of any speaker since we started the weekly webinar series in October 2008. With five being the best score, attendees gave the webinar overall a 4.7 rating, and that was dragged down ratings on my performance as moderator. Keebler’s rating, without mine factored in, was an astounding 4.8!



In fairness to all of the other presenters that have come before Keebler, advisors are incredibly critical. No matter what we do on these sessions, some attendees complain.



If we go beyond one hour to take questions, some attendees ream me out in the surveys for letting the sessions go long. If we don’t take many questions because we want to end on time, I get an earful from some attendees about that.



Even Keebler, who was obviously great, got some flak for speaking too fast, and several attendees several attendees actually gave him a rating of 1.



What this demonstrates is that some advisors are really nuts. They complain no matter what you do for them.



On the other hand, more than half of the advisors on the session took the time to fill our post-webinar survey and the vast majority gave us great ratings. And the fact that a small handful of advisors found something to give us poor ratings is not all bad. At least they care enough about what we’re doing to express an opinion.



If you’re a member of
Advisors4Advisors, you can get CFP Continuing Education by viewing a replay of the session. If you’re not a member, you can view it (with no CE credit) at the Advisor Products webinar page.



I’d ask one favor of you: We have plans to automate the attendee ratings from the post-webinar survey to feed the ratings module in A4A, but we’ve not gotten to it yet. If you’re one of the 1,500 members of the A4A community, please take a minute to go to the Events page on A4A and rate the Keebler webinar and any other sessions you’ve attended.



Below are comments attendees gave us on Keebler’s session, in answering the question, “What could we do to improve the webinar?






  • Good topic and good presentation - thanks!




  • Excellent




  • Excellent! Great info!




  • Excellent




  • The content was excellent, but you should have allowed more time & had Bob speak in more depth about various of the issues




  • Don't change a thing.




  • Very informative




  • Excellent. All excellent material that I can use to communicate with clients




  • Thank you




  • This particular webinar was very helpful. However, in other webinars (last week's) this survey form did not populate at the close. Therefore, in order to receive CE credit, I must call in or email advisors4advisors the following week. This has been frustrating since it has happened multiple times. Improvements here would be much appreciated!




  • Great seminar. The best one I have heard on this topic by far.




  • How to market this concept?




  • Very useful. This will be a bigger topic than many advisors realize this year.




  • Liked it, very helpful




  • I think it is really excellent. Perhaps being ab;e to access the slides as soon as the webinar begins would be great it was hard to keep up at times




  • I thought the webinar was great and there's nothing that comes to mind to improve it.




  • Great webinar, extremely useful, looking forward to receiving the two-pager.




  • Excellent!




  • I thought it was very good and put together well. My only issue is that it went by so fast. I will probably have to listen to it again once you get it online.




  • Great information!




  • Awesome. This helped me raise the bar on evaluating CPA quality!




  • Very in-depth discussion. I think the opportunity to print out the front/back handout in advance of the webinar might have helped. It would have been good to be able to read.




  • Very good...Bob is a little fast in delivery.




  • Absolutely, wonderfully informative.




  • Splendid. No suggestions.




  • Wow! May be the most relevant subject and best speaker possible. Excellent info. I have attended many of your webinars the past year and found this one and the Don Phillips webinar last Feb to be the best. Thanks for making this available.




  • This was one of if not the best webinar I have attended on advisors for advisors.




  • Bob did a great job of answering specific questions. He went well beyond the basics which have been outlined many times. Nice work!




  • Great job




  • Honestly....a little hard to keep up but I'll download the presentation....thanks.




  • You might consider posting the handout, in addition to the slides, prior to the start of the webinar. Overall, time well-spent! Thank you.




  • Every time I listen to a presentation on ROTH conversions I pick up new information




  • It was great, a real eye opener on Roth conversions.




  • Great speaker




  • This was the best ever. Bob Keebler was the sharpest, most knowledgeable presenter you have ever had. My head is still swimming.




  • Have Bob speak again-Great Webinar!!!




  • Very informative




  • Great presentation and useful material. More info on case studies will be handy as I visit with clients down the road.




  • Good topic. thanks.




  • Great Seminar. Thanks Andy!




  • I'm a CPA/PFS and not a CFP. Can I get CPE credit for these webinars?




  • One of the best yet, but too many questions..




  • Excellent, thank you for allowing it to run over for questons.




  • Awesome!




  • Very knowledgeable speaker




  • Difficult to cover it all on this topic. Nice job though.




  • I have heard several presentations on htis issue and this was the best in terms of being understandable and detailed at the same time.




  • It was a great overview of all concepts regarding the topic.




  • I thought it was great. One of the best sessions on ROTHs and conversions I've listened to. Bob is very knowledgeable and I'm sure I'll go listen to the replay when questions hit me in the middle of the night! Thanks again!






  6296 Hits
6296 Hits

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