Advisor Blog
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.
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.
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5222 Hits
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?
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?
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5180 Hits
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.
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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7515 Hits
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.
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.
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5179 Hits
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.
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.
- Compliance Issues Posed By LinkedIn, Blogs, And Social Networking
- Secure Solutions To Protect Client Data And Comply With New Privacy Laws
- Appointing A Trust Protector To Improve Estate Plans
- Deeper Client Connections Through The Power Of Story
- Financial Services Reform Update
- Trends In Family Offices And Multi-Family Offices
- Advisor Compliance Update
- Managing Portfolio Risk With Stock Collars
- Roth IRA: Beyond The Basics
- How To Talk To Clients In A Post-Crisis World
- Tactical Asset Allocation In Today's Market
- ETFs: The Good, Bad and Misunderstood
- Roth IRA Conversion Techniques
- The New Estate Planning Landscape
- Precious Metals: Can The Rally Continue?
- The 401k Upheaval And How It Affects Advisors
- Seizing The Roth IRA Opportunity With Clients And Prospects
- Privacy Law, Data Security And Financial Advisors
- 2010 Compliance Planning For RIAs
- Using Client Feedback To Drive Referrals
- One Year After The Global Financial Crisis
- A New Model For Life Planning
- Researching Your Prospects On The Web
- Regulatory Reform: Will You Be A Fiduciary?
- Navigating The Maze Of Exchange-Traded Products
- Advisor Self-Care: A Primer And Check-up
- Serving Middle Income Clients
- Actively Managing An ETF Portfolio
- After The Fall: Asset Allocation And Rebalancing
- Crucial Financial Conversations With Clients
- Restoring Investor Confidence
- Life Planning And The Financial Crisis
- Investment Tax Management: Turn Clients' Biggest Expense Into An Opportunity
- Preparing For The Worst: Managing Your Clients In A Bear Market
- Conducting 401k Vendor Searches For Small Plan Sponsors
- Client Retention And Growth In Tough Times
- Asset Protection Planning
- Rational Expectations In Uncertain Markets
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3 Hits
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:
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.
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5429 Hits
Guidelines issued by FINRA yesterday governing how registered reps use social media websites are constructive but highlight the challenge regulators face in structuring advertising rules that keep up with technology.
One can only cheer the suddenly enlightened view of FINRA in releasing the Notice. FINRA has stood silent for several years while social networking exploded. As the FINRA release points out, 46% of American internet users logged on to a social networking site in 2009.
With FINRA issuing no guidance as social media exploded in popularity in recent years, registered reps were absent from the online scene out of fear that they would break undefined rules. So FINRA in to be commended for finally bringing some clarity to this issue.
One can only cheer the suddenly enlightened view of FINRA in releasing the Notice. FINRA has stood silent for several years while social networking exploded. As the FINRA release points out, 46% of American internet users logged on to a social networking site in 2009.
With FINRA issuing no guidance as social media exploded in popularity in recent years, registered reps were absent from the online scene out of fear that they would break undefined rules. So FINRA in to be commended for finally bringing some clarity to this issue.
Where the guidelines go wrong and muddle the rules, however, is in an effort to distinguish “static” and “non-static” content.
To read the rest of my post, please sign up for membership at Advisors4Advisors.
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3 Hits
At a recent session of the Financial Advisor Webinar Series, Mike Williams of Schwab Performance Technologies (SPT) talked about what developments in PortfolioCenter and PortfolioServices.
While we usually don’t invite vendors to talk about their products at our webinars, we made an exception because Schwab is so influential; SPT is used by 3,300 advisory firms and its parent provides custodial services to 6,000 RIAs.
Despite allotting 25 minutes for questions, attendees at the session had more questions than Williams could answer. So we passed along to Williams the unanswered questions chatted in by attendees. In this post, Williams answers those questions.
Do you use ByAll Accounts to connect to custodians that you do not have direct interfaces with?
Yes. Both our PortfolioCenter and PortfolioServices products can leverage ByAllAccounts to acquire account information from financial institutions with which there is no available direct data feed.
When will the custom report enhancements you talked about at the webinar be available?
The first general release of the new report presentations will be in mid-2010. Subsequent releases will occur later this year and throughout 2011.
For the new graphical reporting: will a PortfolioCenter user need the Enhanced Reporting Module (ERM), and what is the cost of the ERM for a current PC user?
Yes, the new report presentations require a PortfolioCenter Enhanced license. The Enhanced Reporting Module is $1,500 year one and carries an annual maintenance fee of $500. Please contact SPT Sales at (800) 528-9595, option 2 for further information.
To see answers to 12 other questions, please sign into www.advisors4advisors.com.
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5427 Hits
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.
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.
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5769 Hits
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?
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
5828 Hits
5828 Hits
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.
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5252 Hits
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.
6121 Hits
6121 Hits
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.
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.
5384 Hits
5384 Hits
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.
5203 Hits
5203 Hits
“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.
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.
5566 Hits
5566 Hits
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.
5252 Hits
5252 Hits
Advisors seeking to capitalize on post-financial crisis business development opportunities may want to attend a three-day conference produced by Advisor Solutions Network starting Thursday, November 5 and running through Sunday, November 8.
I'm one of the speakers along with PR guru Marie Swift, business devleopment coach Steve Saenz, and many others. You can listen to brief interviews of each of the speakers.
5374 Hits
5374 Hits
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.
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.
5256 Hits
5256 Hits
If we host your firm’s website and use our BackOffice content management system, you may have noticed a boost in speed.
That’s because we replaced the main server that powers Advisor Products’ websites and BackOffice last week.
Your website is loading faster for prospects and clients now.
In our drive for constant improvement, we’ve instituted a policy to replace aging web servers before they reach the end of their useful lives.
This means that if, Advisor Products hosts your website, the server housing your website gets replaced on a regular basis.
Your site, thus, is always running on the latest hardware and software.
We’ll keep you posted as we continue to upgrade hardware for other systems.
That’s because we replaced the main server that powers Advisor Products’ websites and BackOffice last week.
Your website is loading faster for prospects and clients now.
In our drive for constant improvement, we’ve instituted a policy to replace aging web servers before they reach the end of their useful lives.
This means that if, Advisor Products hosts your website, the server housing your website gets replaced on a regular basis.
Your site, thus, is always running on the latest hardware and software.
We’ll keep you posted as we continue to upgrade hardware for other systems.
5266 Hits
5266 Hits
The 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar was posted for free distribution to members of Advisors4Advisors.com, a practice management portal site for independent financial advisors.
Advisors interested in getting a copy of the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar can email me for a free six-month membership in advisors4advisors. It will take 10 minutes to register and fill in your profile and then you can download the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar.
The RIA Compliance Calendar was created by Chris Winn of AdvisorAssist, a compliance consulting firm serving RIAs and B-Ds. It lists 27 key compliance activities for RIAs month-by-month, helping organize RIA compliance responsibilities on a timely basis.
Winn delivered a presentation entitled, “2010 Compliance Planning For RIAs” last Friday at the Financial Advisor Webinar Series. You can replay the session at advisorproducts.com. (Members of AdvisorsforAdvisors.com are eligible for free CFP CE credit on the replay.)
At the session, Winn answered about 15 questions from attendees. But we ran out of time and could not answer many questions chatted in by attendees. Winn, who writes a blog about RIA, B-D, and Registered Rep compliance issues at Advisors4Advisors.com, will be answering many questions that we did not have time to answer at the webinar.
Please join us at advisors4advisors.com to access Winn’s blog, obtain CE credit for the webinar, and download the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar.
Advisors interested in getting a copy of the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar can email me for a free six-month membership in advisors4advisors. It will take 10 minutes to register and fill in your profile and then you can download the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar.
The RIA Compliance Calendar was created by Chris Winn of AdvisorAssist, a compliance consulting firm serving RIAs and B-Ds. It lists 27 key compliance activities for RIAs month-by-month, helping organize RIA compliance responsibilities on a timely basis.
Winn delivered a presentation entitled, “2010 Compliance Planning For RIAs” last Friday at the Financial Advisor Webinar Series. You can replay the session at advisorproducts.com. (Members of AdvisorsforAdvisors.com are eligible for free CFP CE credit on the replay.)
At the session, Winn answered about 15 questions from attendees. But we ran out of time and could not answer many questions chatted in by attendees. Winn, who writes a blog about RIA, B-D, and Registered Rep compliance issues at Advisors4Advisors.com, will be answering many questions that we did not have time to answer at the webinar.
Please join us at advisors4advisors.com to access Winn’s blog, obtain CE credit for the webinar, and download the 2010 RIA Compliance Calendar.
5406 Hits
5406 Hits
It's been just over a year since we started the Financial Advisor Webinar Series in the throes of the global financial crisis, and I have to say it's been one of the most fulfilling experiences in my career.
The Series started out as a way to support advisors at a time when it looked like the global economic system was about to collapse, and it was originally known as The Financial Crisis Webinar Series. Over the past year, as we backed away from the edge of the abyss, we've continued the webinars every Friday at 4 p.m.
We've been privileged to produce sessions that inform advisors about how to run their businesses better and cope with the upheaval of recent months. And advisors have responded.
About 200 advisors attend the live sessions and another 300 listen to replays every week. And more advisors steadily continue to participate.
Last week's session featured compliance specialist Chris Winn, of AdvisorAssist, offering tips on 2010 compliance planning for RIAs. He was great. (See comments from attendees below.)
We ask advisors to fill in a survey after each webinar. The average rating of attendees at this session was 4.4, putting it among the highest rated of the 49 sessions we've produced.
What amazes me is that from last February, when we started systematically tabulating the ratings of each session, through the end of August, only two sessions had better than a 4.4 average rating. However, five of the last eight sessions has a rating of 4.4 or better. (And we're getting these high scores despite my clumsy skills as a moderator!) Your feedback is genuinely appreciated.
Please remember that many of the sessions are eligible for continuing education credit from the CFP Board of Standards. Also, keep in mind that you can receive free CE credit by attending any of the live sessions, and you can get CE credit on replays of many sessions by becoming a member of our new advisor practice management portal, Advisors4Advisors.com.
Below is feedback from attendees of last Friday's session about RIA compliance. Please join us at an upcoming session or log in to A4A to discuss any webinar with other advisors.
Comments and feedback from advisors who attended 2010 RIA Compliance Planning with Chris Winn of AdvisorAssist:
- Thank you - just keep doing it.
- Very informative. My first look at Advisors for Advisors.
- Excellent
- Great timing for a compliance webinar. Thank you for the presentation.
- Good topic coverage
- It is refreshing to have someone who can speak compliance language in easily understandable terms. Chris obviously knows his stuff.
- Great session. One of your best yet.
- Terrific content! Wish we had time for more questions.
- Very informative, good supporting visuals, well presented.
- Really great info...too much for one hour!
- Great webinar. The best one that I've seen from Advisor Products
- This one was fantastic
- No complaints
- Excellent, Chris made the subject matter very understandable. Thank you
- Very informative
- Great webinar! Gets you started thinking about the different issues to address.
- This was truly a great webinar and I thank you so much for providing this to us. Great job!
- Excellent presentation. Very helpful.
- Excellent content
- Considering the amount of potential info and the time available it was very well done.
- I thought it was great, would love to get copies of the slides.
- Well done and useful
- Fantastic + extremely useful - one of the BEST you have ever hosted. full of very useful + actionable items.
- Great Webinar. Can't think of anything you could have done to improve it.
- Excellent - very good topic choice - obviously, a topic like this will have many basic components to it as well as some issue some just venturing into the fray may think are overwhelming, but the presenter did a nice job of balancing so there was something for everybody (more than likely) to take away
- It was helpful. thank you.
- Outstanding informative and very comforting.
- I learned a few new things such as the potential for the SEC to raise the minimum assets under management to $100,000,000 to be registered with them
- Important issues most advisors don't work with on a daily basis
- Nice outline of issues.
- Covered a lot of material I already knew but was good to be reminded anyway.
- Good overview for office manager, though went fast and I'll need to review the replay
- Good coverage of some of the basics of compliance. The idea of a Compliance Calendar is useful.
- Good information. Condense and do more frequently.
- I thought it was very well done. Chris is knowledgeable and shared that information well. I appreciated his willingness to spend extra time answering questions afterward.
- It is a dry subject, but overall it was packed with important info.
5384 Hits
5384 Hits
JasonV510 says Act! is “flexible for client tracking and management but not great for the true financial professional.”
TaylorF519 says MoneyGuide Pro “really takes its job seriously and wants to put the best and most innovative product out there!”
Of PortfolioCenter, TerryH770 says: “I was originally skeptical of Schwab owning the software, but to this point it has only been beneficial.
These comments aren’t quotes from a reporter’s interviews.
They’re comments from real advisors talking about software applications for advisors.
They’re not made up. They’re not filtered. And they’re as close you come to truth about an advisor’s practice management applications as you can get.
As a reporter who had to become an entrepreneur to do my job the way I wanted to, I’m excited to be living in the middle of the information revolution.
Most reporters aren’t so happy, however. With regular people reporting the news instead of professional reporters, man daily bites dogs and regular people cover it without journalists.
Sure journalists are still going to be needed to give us insight into big news stories. But much of the content once created by newspapers and magazines can be replaced and made better by empowering people to report the news.
JasonV510, TaylorF519, and TerryJ770 are more important than anything I can say as a reporter.
Sure, I’m pretty smart, and I write well. But what you say matters more, and the collective intelligence of a group of users of an advisor practice management application is more important than my assessment.
That’s what’s happening now at advisors4advisors.com. Advisors are logging in every day and rating the applications they use in their practices. That's why we called it advisors4advisors.
Members of advisors4advisors see the average rating of an advisor app from a group of advisors who use that app and they can also see each individual rating by an advisor for financial planning, customer relationship management (CRM) and portfolio management software (PMS) applications.
We cover just about every PMS, CRM and planning application, and we’re adding new categories of apps every week. Last week, we added rebalancing software and this week we’re adding account aggregation systems.
We also have asked all of the major providers of practice management apps to fill in detailed specifications checklists about their products in the advisors4advisors review section.
This allows advisors to compare different practice management apps feature-by-feature, side-by-side.
The independent advisory industry’s vendors have filled in their specifications on advisors4advisors so far, including EISI, E-Z Data, MoneyGuide Pro, Schwab Performance Technologies, SunGard, Morningstar, Orion and Redtail.
Just about every major vendor in the industry is participating or planning to do so in the next few weeks.
Please contribute to the discussion. Join us at advisors4advsors.com. Come feel the power of the Internet.
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5414 Hits
At this afternoon’s webinar at 4 p.m. ET, Blane Warrene, an operations consultant, is going to talk about how advisory firms can embed their processes in their CRM.
This is the single most important way to improve your efficiency, scalability, and client service.
To help Blane illustrate how you do this, I asked three of the leading CRM vendors specializing in the independent advisor market (Junxure, Redtail, and XLR8) to provide two-minute videos showing how you use theirn software to embed your workflows.
We’re going to show each of the two-minute videos at Blane’s presentation today and post them for members of advisors4advisors.
Register for today’s webinar here.
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5110 Hits
Empowering independent advisors to share ideas, Advisors4Advisors (A4A) today started allowing advisors to post links to articles, videos, and other online content.
The three news sections on the A4A home page—Market & Economy News, Industry News and Technology News—now accept advisor submissions.
To post news items, an advisor clicks on “Post An Article” and submits a headline, description, and link. The item must be approved by an editor before it is posted.
This is the latest integration on A4A of advisor-generated content. A4A recently enabled advisors to rate the industry’s practice management applications.
Advisors every day are adding new ratings and reviews of software applications for portfolio reporting, financial planning, and customer relationship management.
A4A also networks independent advisors who practice the same way. Advisors using the same three portfolio management, financial planning, and CRM applications they use in their practice are placed in groups.
In addition, A4A provides detailed reviews of dozens of advisor applications. All major vendors providing software to independent advisors have access to a site where they fill in matrixes detailing their specifications. The matrixes are displayed in the Review section of A4A and enable advisors to compare apps feature-by-feature, side-by-side. A4A is the first and only website to make this information easily accessible.
A4A has about 1,000 members and is in beta. Additional information and a 30-day trial membership are available at www.advisors4advisors.com. If you’re interested in becoming an A4A sponsor, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The three news sections on the A4A home page—Market & Economy News, Industry News and Technology News—now accept advisor submissions.
To post news items, an advisor clicks on “Post An Article” and submits a headline, description, and link. The item must be approved by an editor before it is posted.
This is the latest integration on A4A of advisor-generated content. A4A recently enabled advisors to rate the industry’s practice management applications.
Advisors every day are adding new ratings and reviews of software applications for portfolio reporting, financial planning, and customer relationship management.
A4A also networks independent advisors who practice the same way. Advisors using the same three portfolio management, financial planning, and CRM applications they use in their practice are placed in groups.
In addition, A4A provides detailed reviews of dozens of advisor applications. All major vendors providing software to independent advisors have access to a site where they fill in matrixes detailing their specifications. The matrixes are displayed in the Review section of A4A and enable advisors to compare apps feature-by-feature, side-by-side. A4A is the first and only website to make this information easily accessible.
A4A has about 1,000 members and is in beta. Additional information and a 30-day trial membership are available at www.advisors4advisors.com. If you’re interested in becoming an A4A sponsor, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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5584 Hits
While we normally average a 4.2 rating from attendees, last week’s session of the Financial Advisor Webinar Series received a 4.4.
The session offered ideas about how to advise clients on Roth IRA opportunities. While entitled, Seizing The Roth IRA Opportunity,” it was not so much about jumping on the marketing bandwagon for Roth IRA conversion as it was about the complexity of the conversion decision.
Featured presenter Ben Norquist of Convergent Retirement Plan Solutions illustrated the dynamics of the conversion decision using a tool he recently launched, the Roth IRA Conversion Optimizer.
Here are the unabridged comments attendees provided us in the exit survey:
· It was one of the best Roth seminars I have attended.
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5601 Hits
Advisor Products’ Quarterly Market Summary becomes available Monday for the fourth quarter of 2009.
QMS is a comprehensive analysis of activity in stock and bond markets and examines a range of asset classes.
It is utilized as a companion piece with quarterly performance reports provided by RIAs.
Written by a veteran financial reporter and edited by one of the nation’s leading financial editors, QMS is delivered to subscribers as an eight-page Microsoft Word document 10 days after the end of every quarter. You can cut, paste, and edit QMS to fit your needs.
Each quarterly release of QMS typically covers performance of:
S&P 500 large cap stocks
Russell 2000 small cap stocks
Growth versus value stocks
Corporate earnings
Foreign stocks
Emerging markets
U.S. Dollar versus Euro
Fixed income markets
Two versus 10-year Treasurys
Corporate bonds
Economic growth
Fed interest rate policy
U.S. Retail sales
Consumer confidence
Unemployment
Consumer Price Index
Because of the time sensitive nature of the content, QMS is submitted for review by FINRA only after it is distributed to RIAs. Registered reps, therefore, should consult with their broker/dealer about its use.
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5432 Hits
The tragic events in Haiti are being recorded and reacted to live on Twitter. To see the live feed, click here.
Text YELE to 501501 to give $5 for earthquake relief in haiti. Your cell phone will be charged $5.
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5058 Hits
Way back on page 72 of the regulatory reform white paper released yesterday by the U.S. Treasury is some pretty big news for financial advisors.
“We propose the following initiatives to empower the SEC to increase fairness for investors,” says the Treasury white paper. “Establish a fiduciary duty for broker-dealers offering investment advice and harmonize the regulation of investment advisers and broker-dealers.”
Entitled, Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation, the white paper makes official the Obama Administration’s intention to put registered reps and advisors at RIAs under the same set of regulatory rules. That’s not a surprise to anyone.
“Retail investors are often confused about the differences between investment advisers and broker-dealers,” according to the white paper. “Meanwhile, the distinction is no longer meaningful between a disinterested investment advisor and a broker who acts as an agent for an investor; the current laws and regulations are based on antiquated distinctions between the two types of financial professionals that date back to the early 20th century. “
What is a surprise is that the Administration is asking to impose a fiduciary obligation on brokers. Of course, only advisors at RIAs are now fiduciaries, and thus obliged always to do what is in a client’s best interest. That is a much higher standard of care for clients than is imposed on registered reps, who must only ensure they are giving advice suitable for their clients.
The Treasury says in the 89-page paper that RIAs and Registered Reps are the same to retail investors. “In the retail context, the legal distinction between the two is no longer meaningful,” says the Treasury white paper. “Retail customers repose the same degree of trust in their brokers as they do in investment advisers, but the legal responsibilities of the intermediaries may not be the same. The SEC should be permitted to align duties for intermediaries across financial products. “
“Standards of care for all broker-dealers when providing investment advice about securities to retail investors should be raised to the fiduciary standard to align the legal framework with investment advisers,” according to the Treasury Department. “In addition, the SEC should be empowered to examine and ban forms of compensation that encourage intermediaries to put investors into products that are profitable to the intermediary, but are not in the investors’ best interest.”
The Administration is calling for new legislation:
• requiring that broker-dealers who provide investment advice about securities to investors have the same fiduciary obligations as registered investment advisers
• providing simple and clear disclosure to investors regarding the scope of the terms of their relationships with investment professionals
• prohibiting certain conflict of interests and sales practices that are contrary to the interests of investors.
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5263 Hits
When the U.S. economy seemed like it might collapse last October, Advisor Products hosted a webinar for advisors in an effort to help to help them cope.
Attendees were so grateful, we did it the following week.
Pretty soon, it became clear that advisors wanted us to bring them this information regularly. Thus was born the Financial Crisis Webinar Series, which brings advisors leading thinkers from the financial advisory profession every Friday at 4 p.m. EDT
We’ve now hosted 32 webinars , replays are always available, and since January we have offered continuing edcuation credit for Certified Financial Planner® licensees.
Last week, we upgraded our registration platform. As a result, you are now be able to receive continuing education credit when viewing webinar replays.
With the new registration system, you register just once. We’ll drop a “cookie” into your browser—a short line of text—on your computer's hard drive—and you’ll be recognized without registering the next time you return. If you use a different computer, you’ll need to log in again, however. Before this upgrade, you had register your information each time you wanted to view a webinar replay.
The new registration system also allows you to access videos and request more information about our services from the Advisor Products website. Videos explain our client portal system, newsletters, AdvisorVault, and Online Reporting for Advent Axys or PortfolioCenter.
Advisor Products clients will continue to use their existing log-in credentials for accessing the BackOffice for managing your website, email newsletter, and newsletter. That is unaffected by these changes.
It is our privilege to be able to bring you The Financial Crisis Webinar Series. Join us this week to hear Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, speak about the link between operational efficiency and human capital.
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5174 Hits
In a hilarious double-play, comedian Jon Stewart last night hammered Lenny “Nails” Dykstra, a former Mets centerfielder turned financial-advisor-in-bankruptcy, and then tagged TV financial personality Jim Cramer with a jarring comedic blast.
Stewart began a segment on last night’s show by focusing on the irony of the bankruptcy filing by Dykstra, who touted himself in recent years as a successful investment advisor and was profiled in 2008 as a “financial whiz kid” on the HBO program Real Sports. Dykstra, who told a Real Sports reporter that he did not read books because it was bad for his eyes, reportedly was sued by 20 creditors by the time he filed for bankruptcy on July 7.
Stewart revived his public humiliation of Cramer by playing an interview of Cramer on the HBO show in which he hails former Mets hero Dykstra’s as a brilliant financial advisor, “one of the great ones in this business.”
The irony of the baseball legend turned stock-guru’s misfortune provided Stewart with great material. Dykstra, 46, became a New York Mets hero for hitting a walk-off home run in Game 3 of the 1986 World Series, when the Mets defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games to win one of baseball’s most memorable World Championship Series.
Cramer, the extremely energetic host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” and founder of TheStreet.com, is a former hedge fund manager. Prone to hyperbolic rants, Cramer was the subject on March 4 and March 9 of scathingly funny blasts by Stewart. Stewart, the popular host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” assembled a string of video clips in which the self-proclaimed “infotainer” of finance made glaringly wrong investment predictions. Stewart wrecked any credibility Cramer might have had in the financial media by showing Cramer urging stock investors to “be buying things and accept that they’re overvalued, but accept that they’re going to keep going higher” a few months before the global financial crisis caused a stock market collapse. Stewart and Cramer’s public showdown became famous and then faded—until last night.
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The launch of advisorsforadvisors this month is moving ahead and our growing list of bloggers began providing important content for advisors. Some of the posts:
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From what I can piece together, an ongoing thread on the discussion board of the National Association of Personal Finance Advisors has been for months creating excitement about NAPFA members engaging in a link exchange program.
I feel obliged to clarify the benefits of a link exchange program, which may have been overstated by some NAPFA members on the discussion boards. (Please keep in mind that I don’t have direct access to the NAPFA discussions and have to piece together snippets of information relayed to me.)
A link exchange program among groups of advisors allows one advisory firm to display on its website links to other advisory firm websites.
You may ask: Why would an advisor want to link to another advisory firm? The answer: To increase your website’s “link popularity,” a factor in a site’s search engine ranking.
What advisors must realize is that link popularity is just one of many factors that determine your natural search engine ranking. Many other factors, such as your site’s content and your URL are more influential in the algorithms used by search engines to rank your site. Moreover, search engines discourage gimmicks to enhance search rankings.
“Some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites,” Google says in addressing link schemes. “This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results.”
Advisors who expect a link exchange program to bring a lot of new traffic to their sites are likely to be disappointed.
Despite all this, Advisor Products is creating a link exchange program for advisor websites. While the potential for abuse exists, we want to respond to requests from advisors asking for this feature and we will try to educate advisors about how to best utilize the tool.
We’re now programming a new feature in our content management system, BackOffice, to enable your firm to add a “Link Exchange” page to its website. This will allow you to quickly add links to other firms that will be displayed on your marketing website. The page on your site will be pre-formatted to look attractive and easy to read.
While enabling link exchanges with other advisory firms is unlikely to greatly enhance your site‘s search engine ranking, we want t be responsive to advisor requests for this feature and do believe a link exchange program that expands beyond advisory firms can be used productively as long as it is not used excessively.
If you have suggestions about how you would like the link exchange page to be created on your website, please let us know.
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4878 Hits
Mike Vikauskas, who quit being a financial planning in 1981 to start a financial planning software company, is taking Money Tree Software forward even as he plans his exit from the company.
Vitkausas is stepping down from day to day activities to spend more time on volunteer activities in his church. It’s part of a succession plan that Vitkauskas has envisioned for years.
But even as he leaves, Money Tree is moving forward on the path set by Vitkausas over the past three decades by launching a new advisor application, Distribution Solutions, which helps advisors create retirement plans for baby boomers.
To see a video about Distribution Solutions and read more about what's happening at Money Tree, please register for a free trial of advisorsforadvisors, our new practice management website for advisors.
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5037 Hits
On advisorsforadvisors, the new practice management website, advisor blogs are being aggregated, which makes it easy for advisors to see what other advisors are blogging about. This can give you ideas for your own posts or inspire you to start writing your own blog. More importantly, being listed on the blogroll can help boost your blog's search engine rankings.
One of the factors search engine algorithms use for ranking your blog site is “link popularity,” a measure of how many sites link to your bog combined with how much traffic those sites attract. Since advisorsforadvisors is a portal for advisors, being listed on the blogroll can boost your blog's ranking by search engines.
To further leverage the blogroll's effcts on yor search ranking, you might ty blogging about posts by other advisors. The web of connections among blog posts can be very influential in boosting traffic to your blog.
For example, let’s say your blog is listed on the advisorsforadvisors blogroll and you post about using Section 72(t) of the Internal Revenue Code to take IRA distributions. If another advisor listed on the blogroll posts a comment on his blog about what you wrote—clarifying something you said in your post or perhaps disagreeing with you—and links to your blog in his post, that’s going to boost your blog’s search ranking. When a consumer Googles "Section 72(t)," your post is more likely to come up.
Algorithms used by Google and other search engines place more weight on link popularity when links are based on content. (They also can penalize link popularity schemes, as mentioned in my previous post.) Creating a web of links based on other advisors' blog postscan be effective way gain traffic..
advisorsforadvisors makes it easy to track what other advisors are blogging about. We list advisor blogs and display the most popular posts on all the advisor blogs. The list of advisor blogs is just one art of the "Research" section of the site, which includes blogrolls covering 25 topics advisors want to follow.
If you’ve been a member of advisorsforadvisors for more than 30 days, please email me the name of your blog and its URL and we’ll add it on our advisor blogroll.
The blog section is only one small way advisorsforadvisors is helping independent FAs. Sign up for a free trial.
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3 Hits
One year ago, America’s financial system teetered on the edge of ruin. Happily, we avoided the worst. However, in the year since the crisis erupted and securities prices collapsed, even the most successful advisory firms suffered decimated fees and are earning a lot less. Worse still, confidence in all things financial—including advisors—has been similarly debased. Are you planning your comeback yet?
With Labor Day behind you and the final quarter of 2009 closing in, it’s time to start planning your firm’s recovery. It’s a good time to think strategically about you’re going to make 2010 a better year.
Part of your 2010 recovery plan is likely to focus on serving existing clients, and that what this post is about. It’s about making sure you know what your clients think about you and aligning your services and marketing with what clients want.
Julie Littlechild, the CEO of Advisor Impact, took me on a tour of Client Audit, a tool to systematize the client feedback process. Click on the image to the right to see a two-minute video about Client Audit or see my full review and a nine-minute demo at A4A.
With Labor Day behind you and the final quarter of 2009 closing in, it’s time to start planning your firm’s recovery. It’s a good time to think strategically about you’re going to make 2010 a better year.
Part of your 2010 recovery plan is likely to focus on serving existing clients, and that what this post is about. It’s about making sure you know what your clients think about you and aligning your services and marketing with what clients want.
Julie Littlechild, the CEO of Advisor Impact, took me on a tour of Client Audit, a tool to systematize the client feedback process. Click on the image to the right to see a two-minute video about Client Audit or see my full review and a nine-minute demo at A4A.
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5224 Hits
SunGard WealthStation, a leading financial planning application with 125,000 users, has posted its specifications on advisorsforadvisors, a practice management website for independent advisors.
Posting of the specifications enables advisors to compare WealthStation to 10 other financial planning apps feature by feature, side-by-side.
With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, 20,000 employees and customers in 70 countries, SunGard is the world’s largest financial services technology firm. Its WealthStation product for financial planning is used by many banks and brokerages as well as about 1,500 RIAs.
According to the specifications SunGard posted, WealthStation:
· Provides an interface that is meant to be shared with clients
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5577 Hits
An Advisor Products client emailed us yesterday asking about our account aggregation capabilities. Specifically, the question was about CashEdge.
Since we receive a lot of questions from advisors who would like to provide aggregated account information to their clients, I am going to answer some questions here.
The aggregation interface offered by Advisor Products comes with our Client Portal system.
Feeds from two account aggregation companies currently are integrated into Client Portal: ByAllAccounts and Advisor Exchange. CashEdge is not currently integrated with Client Portal.
ByAllAccounts is a Woburn, Mass. company founded by James Carney along with Martin and Ellen Dickau in 1999. Carney is the President and CEO. An entrepreneur who had succeeded in two previous tech start-ups—a systems integration firm sold for $50 million in 1992 and an engineering technology software company that went public in 1996—Carney was not involved day-to-day in the early years of BAA. The company, along with just about all of the aggregation vendors, foundered for a few years after the tech bubble burst in 2002.
About six years ago, Carney became more involved in day-to-day operations at BAA and it was purchased by State Street Bank in August 2004 at a time when State Street was considering opportunities in the wealth management business. But BAA was not a good fit for State Street after it backed away from the wealth management backoffice support business and in 2008 Carney and his partners bought back BAA.
Since then, BAA has grown by focusing on feeding reconciliation-ready data from held-away accounts into portfolio management software (PMS) systems, including Schwab PortfolioCenter and Advent Axys. By focusing on aggregating data clean enough for a PMS system, BAA has gained traction with about 475 advisory firms and is currently bringing in about 15 new advisory firms monthly.
Advisor Exchange of Glenview, Ill. was founded in 2006 by D. Keith Ross, a successful options trader. Ross began his career as an options analyst in 1976 after graduating from Princeton University. In 1979, he became a member of the American Stock Exchange and a registered options trader on the floor of the exchange. In 1983, Ross formed Ceres Partners, specializing in risk arbitrage and options market making. In 1988, he became a member of the CBOE and was a market maker until 1999.
With a background in electronic trading, Ross was drawn to the account aggregation business by its potential for growth. Ross struck a deal to license aggregation interfaces from Cash Edge, an account aggregation vendor, and has been building a platform for advisors leveraging CashEdge interfaces with about 7,000 banks, brokerages, credit card companies, qualified plans, and other sources.
Ventures like Advisor Exchange always take longer than expected, however. Advisor Exchange has been building its advisor platform for the last three years and is expected to release a new version over the next three months. About 125 firms now use AE’s aggregation system.
CashEdge, meanwhile, is showing renewed interest in the advisor market. In 2006, when it licensed its feeds to Advisor Exchange, CashEdge displayed little interest in the independent advisor market. CashEdge had been almost singularly focused on a successful system it built for cash management at banks. However, about 18 months ago, CashEdge hired Tom Roberts as a senior VP of its wealth management business and Roberts has expressed renewed interest in developing better systems for advisors.
The Client Portal system enables a revolutionary new way to manage clients: straight-through processing of client-associated tasks from your CRM, financial planning, and portfolio management software to your clients’ portals.
Since we receive a lot of questions from advisors who would like to provide aggregated account information to their clients, I am going to answer some questions here.
The aggregation interface offered by Advisor Products comes with our Client Portal system.
Feeds from two account aggregation companies currently are integrated into Client Portal: ByAllAccounts and Advisor Exchange. CashEdge is not currently integrated with Client Portal.
ByAllAccounts is a Woburn, Mass. company founded by James Carney along with Martin and Ellen Dickau in 1999. Carney is the President and CEO. An entrepreneur who had succeeded in two previous tech start-ups—a systems integration firm sold for $50 million in 1992 and an engineering technology software company that went public in 1996—Carney was not involved day-to-day in the early years of BAA. The company, along with just about all of the aggregation vendors, foundered for a few years after the tech bubble burst in 2002.
About six years ago, Carney became more involved in day-to-day operations at BAA and it was purchased by State Street Bank in August 2004 at a time when State Street was considering opportunities in the wealth management business. But BAA was not a good fit for State Street after it backed away from the wealth management backoffice support business and in 2008 Carney and his partners bought back BAA.
Since then, BAA has grown by focusing on feeding reconciliation-ready data from held-away accounts into portfolio management software (PMS) systems, including Schwab PortfolioCenter and Advent Axys. By focusing on aggregating data clean enough for a PMS system, BAA has gained traction with about 475 advisory firms and is currently bringing in about 15 new advisory firms monthly.
Advisor Exchange of Glenview, Ill. was founded in 2006 by D. Keith Ross, a successful options trader. Ross began his career as an options analyst in 1976 after graduating from Princeton University. In 1979, he became a member of the American Stock Exchange and a registered options trader on the floor of the exchange. In 1983, Ross formed Ceres Partners, specializing in risk arbitrage and options market making. In 1988, he became a member of the CBOE and was a market maker until 1999.
With a background in electronic trading, Ross was drawn to the account aggregation business by its potential for growth. Ross struck a deal to license aggregation interfaces from Cash Edge, an account aggregation vendor, and has been building a platform for advisors leveraging CashEdge interfaces with about 7,000 banks, brokerages, credit card companies, qualified plans, and other sources.
Ventures like Advisor Exchange always take longer than expected, however. Advisor Exchange has been building its advisor platform for the last three years and is expected to release a new version over the next three months. About 125 firms now use AE’s aggregation system.
CashEdge, meanwhile, is showing renewed interest in the advisor market. In 2006, when it licensed its feeds to Advisor Exchange, CashEdge displayed little interest in the independent advisor market. CashEdge had been almost singularly focused on a successful system it built for cash management at banks. However, about 18 months ago, CashEdge hired Tom Roberts as a senior VP of its wealth management business and Roberts has expressed renewed interest in developing better systems for advisors.
The Client Portal system enables a revolutionary new way to manage clients: straight-through processing of client-associated tasks from your CRM, financial planning, and portfolio management software to your clients’ portals.
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5766 Hits
advisorPMS, a portfolio management software system, is being officially launched today, promising to usher in a a new era for advisors.
advisorPMS costs $1,000 a year for unlimited users, just a fraction of the licensing fees charged by industry leaders Advent Software Corp. and Charles Schwab. The program, which received rave reviews from technology writers at all advisor trade publications, is being offered in a desktop application and also runs on a web server hosted by advisorPMS for $10 a month. In addition, advisorPMS offers a CRM add-on and financial planning module for free.
“We know we will take a loss on the early adopters,” says advisorPMS founder and CEO, Brad Slavemen, who also runs a successful financial planning practice in Angola, Texas. “But we will make it up on volume.”
advisorPMS website
advisorPMS costs $1,000 a year for unlimited users, just a fraction of the licensing fees charged by industry leaders Advent Software Corp. and Charles Schwab. The program, which received rave reviews from technology writers at all advisor trade publications, is being offered in a desktop application and also runs on a web server hosted by advisorPMS for $10 a month. In addition, advisorPMS offers a CRM add-on and financial planning module for free.
“We know we will take a loss on the early adopters,” says advisorPMS founder and CEO, Brad Slavemen, who also runs a successful financial planning practice in Angola, Texas. “But we will make it up on volume.”
advisorPMS website
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5344 Hits
I received a call from an advisor last Friday that taught me a lesson, one that perhaps many advisors can also learn from.
The call was from a longtime client of Advisor Products. We don’t speak often, but I always enjoy it when we do.
On Friday, she opened my eyes to the fact that Advisor Products needs to do more to educate advisors about what we offer. So I’m going to host a monthly webinar about how Advisor Products helps advisory firms retain clients and gain prospects. Please join me for the first session Wednesday, April 15 at 4 p.m.
Back to the lesson I learned and how you might be able to learn from it.
The advisor who called me is responsible for marketing at the firm, but she didn't know about important ways we could help her firm.
She didn’t know we just completed an interface with the CRM software used by her firm (XLR8) that enables her firm to assign her clients To-Dos in XLR8 and programmatically update them in a client’s personal portal. She didn’t know that Advisor Products 18 months ago more than doubled the number of articles available for newsletters and websites from 20 a quarter to 50. She didn’t know we now provide marketing videos or that we added search engine marketing services.
Advisor Products constantly updates advisors about how to benefit from what we do via:
A sales team tasked with calling each of our clients every six months
A CRM system that records all email correspondence with each client and stores notes by our staff about every phone call
A “BackOffice” for each advisory firm to manage their newsletter and website and that prominently displays updates about our products and my blog
The list could go on but there’s no need to beat the point to death.
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5246 Hits
In the 2000 romantic comedy, “What Women Want,” after he accidentally sustains an electric shock, advertising executive Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) finds himself suddenly able to read women's minds. Gibson uses his newfound ESP to create better ad campaigns and make his boss, Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt), fall head over heels for him.
Apart from the hilarity that ensues, the movie shows how important it can be to get into the heads of the people we care about. That’s what Advisor Products is doing right now with its clients and what advisors must do with their clients.
Advisor Products this morning sent an email to people we care about—advisors that are our clients—inviting them to a webinar where I will speak about marketing opportunities created by using our website services.
The webinar invitation included a link to a survey asking advisors they want from us, and we made the survey findings available. Like Mel Gibson, we now can see into the minds of our clients.
Advisors, to succeed in this environment, must work toward the same transparency, openness, and cooperative communication. How?
Whenever you rebalance a client’s accounts, complete a client’s review, or perform key services to clients, ask the client how you did. Creating a survey and emailing a link to your clients to fill out will take just a few minutes. Ask your clients how you’re doing. Ask them what they want.
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5129 Hits
Do advisors understand the extent of the public’s mistrust? Are they doing enough about it?
I don’t think so.
Advisors have failed to embrace transparency as much as they should. Even NAPFA, traditionally the industry’s strongest advocate in the fight against unethical behavior in the financial services business, has missed the opportunity.
Many consumers who trusted advisors during the bull market are now skeptical, and those who were skeptical are now cynical. Worse still, consumers who were cynical of advisors are now in contempt of them.
If you don’t believe it, read the comments from readers responding to reporter Ron Lieber’s article in this past Saturday’s issue of The New York Times, “How A Personal Finance Columnist Got Caught Up in Fraud.” Lieber bravely reported that he—The New York Times’ personal finance columnist—had hired an advisor who is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his connection to irregularities alleged to have been discovered in his clients’ accounts.
From the first reader’s comment (“The lesson I have learned is that you can't trust financial planners.”) to the last (“It is worth the time and effort, obviously, to be in complete control of one's assets.”), the public’s outrage boils over. Yet financial advisor discussion boards, trade magazines, and conferences are not addressing “the trust issue.”
There’s no mad scramble to find solutions, no urgency to address the trust issue. Look at the lack of comments on my blog posts in the past few weeks.
On March 11, in Closing A Door On Madoff Opens A New Era, I wrote that a new era for investment advisors had begun. “It’s an era in which trust is founded on undisputable proof presented at repeated regular intervals. Advisory firms must proactively adjust their behavior and business processes to succeed in this fearful new world.”
On March 12, a post entitled, “Your House Is On Fire,” chastised advisors for a lack of care in performing due diligence on alternative investments.
On March 19, a post entitled, The Elephant Wrecking Your Revenues said it plainly: “If you are not moving toward a more transparent relationship with clients, then you are not changing with the times and will be left behind. You will be crushed by the elephant.”
While this blog now has hundreds of readers every day, not a single advisor commented on any of these posts. It’s as if advisors don’t want to deal with the trust issue.
In my view, transparency through technology is the best hope for assuring clients they can continue trust you with their money and for convincing prospective clients that your firm can be trusted with their money.
I was fortunate enough to begin researching Web 2.0 technology three years ago and saw the beginning of the age of transparency unfold right before my eyes back then. That spurred the reinvention of my company, Advisor Products.
Advisor Products recently implemented a system that automatically records phone calls and automatically deposits audio files in each advisory firm’s folder in our CRM system. Every staff person here knows what he says to our clients is easily retrieved, encouraging outstanding service. I’m hoping to add even more transparency by allowing advisors to rate our performance for every service call we handle.
My research into Web 2.0 also caused Advisor Products to develop a technology platform enabling advisory firms to practice with greater transparency to their clients. The platform extends CRM systems used by advisory firms beyond managing your staff to manage your clients. It integrates a CRM with personal client portals. It also interfaces with performance management software systems, enabling clients to see every transaction posted to their accounts.
We now live in an era of Google Earth, a twittersphere, a place where sophisticated investors will no longer be satisfied with mere promises about your honesty, integrity, and fidelity. They want proof. Either advisory firms reinvent themselves and figure out how to survive in this untrusting, fearful new world or online discount brokers will gain at your expense.
This information is, of course, self-serving. But that does not diminish its value or validity. I’ve aligned my business with my beliefs and values, and my strong desire to be honest. I encourage you to do the same. It also happens to be good for business.
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While the economy has escaped the most frightening doomsday scenario, the financial crisis is far from done with us. Department stores and malls remain practically empty in Long Island most weekdays. Getting into fine restaurants on a Saturday night no longer requires reservations weeks in advance. Workers at my local Home Depot are so fearful of losing their jobs that they're actually friendly and service-oriented now. Meanwhile, in our corner of the economy, many advisors worry that over the next couple of years clients who have been disappointed by their portoflio's performance will fire them.
However, the setback suffered by clients in their retirement portfolios and the rampant distrust of financial advisors unleashed by the Madoff scandal are likely to cause advisors to rethink the way they practice. Advisors will reinvent the financial advice business. As with earlier financial crises, change will follow. Progress will come inevitably. And a winner when this crisis ends is likely to be Life Planning.
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5429 Hits
Pat Allen's question about my previous post about RIA regulation touches on an important issue. She wrote:
“I've been thinking that the reason Investment Advisors are more communicative on the Web is that they are not regulated by FINRA. Is that right--would you expect that a different advertising standard will be applied? One consequence of which would be that IAs will be discouraged from blogging, tweeting, etc.?”
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5210 Hits
A former president of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) was charged by the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission yesterday with accepting $1.24 million in kickbacks, dealing a highly embarrassing public relations blow to NAPFA, a champion of consumer rights, advisor integrity, and applying the fiduciary standard to advisors.
The SEC complaint alleges that James Putman, founder, majority owner, and CEO of Wealth Management LLC of Appleton, Wisconsin, accepted $1.24 million in undisclosed payments derived from investments made by the unregistered investment pools. Simone Fevola, the firm's former President and Chief Investment Officer, was charged along with Putman for taking undisclosed payments from the unregistered investment pools.
The SEC also alleges that Wealth Management, Putman and Fevola misrepresented the safety and stability of the two largest investment pools and placed clients into these investments even though they were inconsistent with some clients' objectives.
According the SEC litigation release, the agency filed an emergency civil action in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin to obtain an order to freeze the RIA’s assets.
The SEC alleged Putman and Fevola sold clients the private deals from May 2003 through August 2008. In 2006 and 2007, the SEC says, Putman and Fevola each accepted at least $1.24 million in undisclosed payments derived from certain investments made by the pools.
According to the SEC, Wealth Management claims currently to have approximately $102 million of its clients’ assets invested in the pools. However, the SEC says that the pools have “limited remaining assets and that it appears likely that the reported values of the pools are substantially overstated.” The SEC's complaint alleges that the pools' assets are largely illiquid, and Putman has provided redemptions to investors based on what the agency believes to be overstated valuations.
"As we allege in our complaint, Putman and Fevola put their own financial greed ahead of the safety and stability of their clients' investments," said Merri Jo Gillette, Director of the SEC's Chicago Regional Office. "They abused the trust that their clients placed in them, and emergency enforcement action was necessary to prevent further harm to those clients."
The SEC's complaint charges Putman, Fevola and the RIA with fraud. In addition to seeking emergency relief, the SEC's complaint seeks permanent injunctions barring future violations of the charged provisions of the federal securities laws, disgorgement of the defendants' ill-gotten gains plus pre-judgment interest, and financial penalties.
According to Putman’s biography on his firm’s website, Putman was co-founder and the first President of the Northeast Wisconsin Chapter of the International Association for Financial Planning (IAFP), now the Financial Planning Association. He served on NAPFA’s Board of Directors in 1995 and 1996 before being elected as President of NAPFA and serving his term in 1996 and 1997.
Wealth Management’s website features the cover of Financial Advisor, the trade magazine for which I write, which wrote a story quiting him a year ago. (A previous version of this post incorreclty characterized the FA story as "flattering.") It also features a cover story from Bloomberg Wealth Manager Magazine, entitled “Pooled Assets: Why Some RIAs Are Creating Customized Investment Vehicles,” in which Putman is quoted extensively. The site also features a Worth Magazine (my former employer) cover story from July 2002 in which Putman was selected as one of the “Top 250 Financial Advisors In America,” and the cover from Medical Economics’ November 2006 list of the “Top 150 Best Advisor For Doctors.”
The allegations of wrongdoing against a former NAPFA president could not have come at a worse time for the group, which is part of a troika with FPA and the Certified Financial Planner® Board of Standards lobbying Congress for creation of a new Self Regulatory Organization to oversee financial planners. Last month, another NAPFA member, Matthew Weitzman of AFW Wealth Advisors in New York City, was caught up in scandal and was reportedly the target of an SEC probe, according to a story by New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber, who was one of Weitzman’s clients.
In a post here just yesterday, I mentioned that the continuing string of scandals involving RIAs make it unlikely that any effort to further regulate RIAs could be thwarted by NAPFA, FPA and the CFP Board. But revelations about Putman are particularly sad because he held himself out as a leader of NAPFA, an organization that is dominated by members with great integrity, advisors who have always been at the forefront in campaigning for issues in the interest of consumers. To see NAPFA’s reputation stained by a few bad members is heartbreaking.
For years the "fee-only" brand and NAPFA's brand itself were slowly compromised.The fee-only brand starting about 10 years ago was embraced and then abused by advisors who take hidden sales fees and behave unscrupulously. (NAPFA did try saving it by trademarking the term "fee-only," but was met by harsh criticism and gave up the fight.) Now, however, the NAPFA brand itself has been abused, which will inpsire a new skepticism from the press and cause confusion among consumers.
While NAPFA has remained a beacon of light in the sometimes shrouded world of financial advisors by supporting a fiduciary standard, it also increasingly became a marketing machine for advisors who used the referral network and favorable press garnered by NAPFA to grow their businesses and who were little interested in the high ideals of many the group’s members. Perhaps the news about Putman’s troubles will cause an introspective discussion among NAPFA members and help the group reclaim its high moral ground.
One other good thing that may come of this is that maybe—just maybe—a reporter in the consumer press will write about the idiocy of these “top financial advisor” lists, which sell magazines but stink at figuring out which advisors are really the best. There is no substitute for real research, which these magazine stories always fail to do. While the articles in Worth and Medical Economics were great marketing for Putman’s firm, these publications can’t possibly research all of the nation’s advisors and find the best ones without a massive effort, an undertaking they are unlikely to know how to effecutate or finance.
There ought to be rule prohibiting advisors from using the “top advisor” lists as the centerpiece of their marketing effort when the list is old. Worth has done several new lists since 2002, but Putman’s website does not mention this. It just has the cover from Worth’s 2002 issue on the home page. The same true of the Medical Economics list from 2006 on Putman’s site, which makes no mention of the more recent lists by the magazine, which presumably left out Putman.
Putman-SECComplaint.pdf (1.10 mb)
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Beta testing of the Advisor Products Inc.'s (API) application for Online Reporting For PortfolioCenter has been a great success and we are now focused on improving web reporting for advisory firms using PortfolioCenter.
Beta testers gave API Online Reporting For PortfolioCenter rave reviews and some great suggestions for improving the application. Seven advisory firms participated in the beta test by uploading their client reports to our server, which successfully parsed client reports and deposited them into secure folders accessible to clients.
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While the economy and stock market has been tanking, we have been experiencing one of the strongest growth spurts in our 12-year history. Much of the increased demand for our products can be traced to AdvisorVault 2.0, our new secure online vault platform that allows advisors to share documents with clients.
AdvisorVault is pretty much a no-brainer for advisors. AdvisorVault is less expensive than standalone online vault platforms marketed to advisory firms. Such standalone vaults are not integrated with a marketing website, website content, email newsletters system, and other features that we offer to help advisors market and communicate. Some standalone vault systems do offer many features that are valuable to advisors, but they don't provide the same value as AdvisorVault. They cost about the same or more than what we charge for a website packaged with AdvisorVault, and AdvisorVault offers all the same features or more than the standalone vault systems. Point is, even though other companies may specialize and sell nothing but an online vault, AdvisorVault works as well or better.
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Everyone knows that TV and the Web are melding. Videos are increasingly being used on the Web. comScore.com yesterday reported that U.S. Internet users viewed 12.7 billion online videos in November 2008, a 34% increase over the same time a year earlier. On YouTube this past November, 5.1 billion videos were viewed; more than 146 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 87 videos each, and the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video.
What’s really scary is that in my lifetime, we’ll probably be able to click on the couch that Oprah sits on and see its manufacturer and lowest price vendor. (My wife will bankrupt me!)
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A Hamilton County Indiana Superior Court judge froze financial advisor Marcus Schrenker's assets and those of his wife late yesterday, after Schrenker reportedly parachuted out of his company-owned plane over Alabama Sunday while the plane continued flying on autopilot before crashing into Florida swampland two hours later. A manhunt is under way, according to reports.
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If you’ve been yearning for a way to use the Internet more effectively with clients, check out our new Personal Client Portal platform. It fills a gap between your firm’s existing software applications and your clients. This is a new type of application, and there is nothing else like it.
Your financial planning, performance reporting, and customer relationship management applications are disconnected from your clients right now. Our new portal system bridges the gap between your applications and your clients.
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Questions?
How and why does the Advisor Products system work?
In today’s times, when consumers have become more demanding and tech-savvy, financial advisors must use content marketing to attract, inspire, engage, and convert their prospective customers.
A good content strategy is focused on developing and distributing consistent, valuable content to engage and retain prospective customers and target audience, via your website. Our content library provides financial advisors with fresh, high-quality financial content that is updated regularly, improving SEO along the way. And our automated e-newsletter and social media tools allow advisors to reach out to clients and prospects in an easy-to-use manner, providing frequent touch points for optimal brand building.
- Differentiate you from competitors
- Expose clients and prospects to your brand message more frequently
- Build an ongoing relationship with customers
- Increase your follows and fans on social media
- Drive more prospects to your website
- Help convert prospects into leads
- Increase number of pages indexed in Google
What products and services do you offer?
Can I buy services if my website is not hosted with you?
What can I expect during the onboarding process?
What if I have questions after my website is built?
Seeing is Believing.
See how easy it is to get started with our all-in-one digital marketing platform that drives leads, encourages referrals and increases client engagement.
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Advisor Products delivers high-quality, FINRA approved financial news articles and branded weekly financial videos published automatically to your financial advisor website. We also offer marketing tools like our easy-to-use financial blog, automated financial enewsletters, social media marketing tools to help financial advisors disseminate content quickly and easily.
Advisor Products delivers high-quality, FINRA approved financial news articles and branded weekly financial videos published automatically to your financial advisor website. We also offer marketing tools like our easy-to-use financial blog, automated financial enewsletters, social media marketing tools to help financial advisors disseminate content quickly and easily.
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