Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch Confirm Our Trends

What happens to the financial advisors and clients of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch? We have said for some time that the financial service industry has a broken business model. We have also stated that financial advisors and their clients are at the mercy of management, especially if those advisors don't run their employee practice like they are a business owner. If your firm went under, could you move your clients and pick up quickly? Financial advisors no longer are individuals that work with clients and generate production. Every advisor is a business model that should be able to stand on their own regardless of the corporate heaquarter's direction. Those advisors who go through a merger process can confirm that the acquiring firm will usually bring in their technology or new account numbering system and operations. At fiSMART, we show financial advisors how to run their practice like a business regardless of whether they are an independent fianancial advisor or an employee advisor at a major bank or wire house. Read more about our solutions here.

Time is Money, Less Time Equals More Money

The financial advisor should provide a thorough financial plan and not some short version that is a marketing substitute the advisor or his/her firm calls a plan. Today's client should have the financial plan back to them in no later than two weeks if the advisor is organized. Keep in mind, that any advisor is welcome to figure out the steps needed to make financial planning a profitable revenue stream for the practice and at the same time, a tremendous experience for the client. At fiSMART, we have programs already designed to give the advisor the step by step procedures to make this happen.

Wealth Management Systems and Processes

Organization and execution are key in any financial and wealth management practice. So often, financial advisors do not run their practice in a systemized method. After all, you are a business model. However, all too often, a business is run reactive, instead of proactive. By placing step by step systems and processes in place as reminders for you in terms of execution of the financial planning process, you are able to eliminate confusion among your team as well as with your client. We live in an "On Time Delivery" world and the financial advisor can no longer hide behind the concept that the plan takes a tremendous amount of time to prepare it.

For more resources on the progressive wealth management systems and processes that I use click here.

How to Work Smarter Not Harder

In response to Doug's comment below:

We have all probably taken many personality which have proven to be worthless? Our Communication Assessment is a powerful new way to look at yourself, your team and your clients. It's more than just the type of personality you are. It's about how you communicate that personality to get results.

This instrument is a tool that defines the way you communicate and relate with other people. The results are applied to different situations, such as how you see yourself, how you are at work and even how you are when things go wrong. It is not a psychological analysis. It doesn't try to determine your morals, your I.Q., or the influence your upbringing might have had on you. It does not attempt to place any kind of values on you or your behaviors, it simply helps clarify the way you communicate and relate to others.

Your Communication Assessment will enable you to better understand people allowing you to improve your communication with others in every aspect of your life.

The core of our profile and assessments is a highly accurate instrument that quantifies communication and relationship styles in a way that is new and unique. The profile and assessment is a series of twenty-four different groups of words. From each four-word group, participants choose one word that is most like them and one word that is least like them. The resulting information explains to the participants how they see themselves, how others see them, how they are at work, areas that might need improvement, and useful advice for how they can modify themselves in difficult situations where they need to get along with others.

Forming a Team of Strength (Part 2)

(Read previous post first)

So often, advisors pair up with other financial advisors to start a team. While this is an excellent wealth management solution most of these advisors continue with the habits they established in their early years... that is, doing all the work themselves. After all, those habits brought them this far, right? To go to the next level advisors have to understand they are a business model, not advisors with production. Our Communication Assessments were developed after much frustration and mistakes in forming successful teams. These assessments take away the fear that you developed your team with the wrong people or that you could. Instead, you form a Team of Strength that takes your business to the next level with everyone focused on what they love to do best. This is great for a work environment which displays confidence. The same confidence that clients' sense when they are in your offices.

Adult Day Care or A Team of Strength (Part 1)

It is great to see a dysfunctional team come to our offices after having gone through our Communication Assessments. Countless times, we have shown how a team can be reorganized based on the strengths of team members instead of job descriptions. With the title "financial advisor," so many of these individuals are required to do it all even if they are on a team.

Yes, when you first start in the investment industry, you have to prospect, network, handle your own operations, mange the money, contact the clients, and much much more. Even after advisors pair up with other financial advisors, they continue trying to be all things to all people. This is an unhealthy and detrimental business model for a financial planning organization and can only lead to anxiety, stress, and discouragement.

The good news is it doesn't have to be this way. Tomorrow I will explain how we can help change a financial planning and wealth management practice from an adult daycare into a Team of Strength.

Hurricane Gustav Questions to Ask Oursleves.

Our thoughts, prayers, and hearts reach out to the people of Louisiana as the power of Hurricane Gustav reminds us how precious life is and how quickly our lives can change.

Hurricane Gustav forces us to press some important questions to our financial planning and wealth management practice. As a financial advisor, how have you prepared your clients for emergency evacuation? How organized are your client's financial affairs so that they could operate from another location if they had to leave their hometown? What about your financial practice? What is your emergency evacuation plan?

Answer these questions and tomorrow I will give you a way to find the answers your clients need as well as preparing your practice for such a scenario.