As a techie, I'm often asked what apps I find the most useful and frequently quiz others to find out their favorites. I'm not a big gamer and swore I'd never whirl an angry bird. Wrong. My son thought it might come in handy on my business trip to Australia and he was right.
However, I am always interested in productivity apps. Since ClientWise is a financial advisor coaching company and focused exclusively on serving the executive coaching needs of financial professionals, I’m always trolling for apps that will enable our clients to become more productive, execute more consistently and lead more balanced lives.
In that spirit, here are 19 of my favorite iPad apps:
- PaperPort Notes: The single best note-taking tool I've encountered and I have 11 loaded on my iPad.
- Evernote: Terrific way to keep track of web clippings and notes that I want to reference later.
- StumbleUpon: I can always find a good article, video and picture if I'm looking for relevant content.
- Zite: My daily magazine, customized to my needs.
- DropBox: Who could live without a hardrive in the sky.
- Our Daily Bread: More for my Christian friends, but a great way to begin my daily meditation.
- Reeder: A simple way to keep track of all my RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Feeds
- QuickOffice PRO: Yes, it's "expensive" as far as Apps go ($24.99). That being said, it offers an incredible level of functionality for anyone using Microsoft Office, including the indispensible Word and Excel.
- 1Password: Helps keep track of all those passwords and consolidates into 1.
- CardMunch: My friends at Tannery Wealth Management showed this to me at one of our ClientWise quarterly workshops and I thought it was a joke, but it works seamlessly. You simply take a picture of a business card with this app and it converts it into a contact automatically. No need for the old card scanner back at the office!
- iBooks2: Introduced multi media textbooks, which is great if you’re working on a new certification or teaching a class.
- Retirelogix: Helps estimate future income needs
- Tapfolio: Offers an incredibly easy way to interact with the stock market.
- Voice Memo and Dragon Dictation: Record conversations, post voice updates to social networking sites and send e-mails via dictation. Thanks to an article in Horsesmouth for the tip on these apps.
- Splashtop Remote and Wyse PocketCloud Pro: Whether your desktop is in another room, across town or across the country, you can access it remotely 24/7 with either of these remote desktop apps, which cost $9.99 and $14.99 respectively.
- BizXpense Tracker and TDF Tracker: two ways to track expenses when you’re on the road. Another hat tip to Horsemouth for these two.
Feel free to let us know about the apps that increase your productivity.
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Sometime this spring, Sheryl Sandberg will join the ranks of the few self-made women billionaires. Oprah Winfrey and Meg Whitman are the other two. (Sandberg's stake will be $1.6 billion if Facebook goes public at $100 billion.)
Her consistent message to other women: Own Your Own Success! This message applies to all professional women, and especially towards women financial advisors.
By the way, here’s a nice profile of Sandberg in the NY Times. She is an accomplished speaker also, and here is one of her many excellent presentations.
When Sandberg joined Facebook in 2008 as COO, the company had 70 million users and no business model. Today, the company has 845 million users and may be valued close to $100 billion. One might think that the boy billionaires of Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Peter Thiel, Jim Breyer, Eduardo Severin, Sean Parker, and Yuri Milner) would owe Ms. Sandberg a debt of thanks.
Sandberg is a polished and effective speaker. Her message to women in all careers is that you must take responsibility for your own careers and not blame men for holding you back.
Sandberg notes that, throughout the world and in all professions, women are underrepresented in the seats of power and position. Of the 190 heads of state, 9 are women. In all of the parliamentary bodies around the globe, only 13% are female. Looking at corporate America, women comprise just 16% of C-level positions.
Nonetheless, Sandberg’s right-between-the-eyes assertion for all professional women is…Own Your Own Success.
Women can do this by focusing on three points:
- Sit at the table.
- Make your partner a real partner.
- Don’t leave before you leave.
Her first point stems from a personal experience of Sandberg’s, from when she attended a business meeting where two other women of influence and importance…had a curious reluctance to join the table with the “guys”. Sandberg’s rejoinder: No one gets to the corner office by sitting on the sidelines. Embrace your “awesomeness” as well as your success!
The second two points of Sandberg’s are directed more to the formation of families, and the need for real partnerships among wives and husbands. Sandberg speaks from personal experience here. She and her husband are raising two young children.
For financial advisors who are women, Sheryl Sandberg’s words should have particular resonance. Despite the fact that women control more than 60% of the assets in this country (see this Allianz study), the percentage of financial advisors who are women remains at only 30%.
As Sheryl Sandberg and other highly successful women will attest, success isn’t simply a destination; it’s a journey. Ms. Sandberg has achieved prominence and incredible income and wealth. However along the way it seems she has found purpose, fulfillment and meaning. Owning, embracing and living fully the journey of success is the key. Being willing to bring your full self without holding back, sitting at the table with the table with the ‘guys’, taking a stand and unflinchingly sharing your thoughts and knowledge is paramount for achieving high levels of gratifying success.
As Ms. Sandberg says, you won’t get to the corner office by standing on the sidelines being a wallflower. Own your power. Own your journey. Own your success!
Finally, here are some questions that may cause you to think still deeper:
- What would owning your success mean to you?
- What would it look like; entail, provide, cost?
- What can you do today to begin or strengthen that success journey?
- What obstacles do you need to remove or overcome?
- What will it take for you to fully embrace your power and success?
Thank you, and all the best!
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Twelve months ago, it all didn’t seem possible. Matt Shafer, Mark Barber, and Jeff Winkler aspired to create a nationally-recognized financial advisory team with a broader reach, which also took advantage of the fact that each of them was officed in cities that were thousands of miles apart. However the year-ago reality was a far cry from their bigger aspirations.
Matt, Mark and Jeff had originally joined forces at the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney office in Boca Raton, Florida. However, family dynamics and other opportunities drew them apart. Jeff had returned to Detroit, and Mark to Boston, their respective places where each of them had grown up. Although the trio had achieved some success, it didn’t really meet what they wanted to accomplish as a team. Moreover, few others believed that the three of them could make a “virtual” team work together effectively.
The changes began with their decision to hire a financial advisor coach with ClientWise. Although the three of them had a general idea about their goal to create a team with a broadly-based, national scope, they were unclear as to how to get there. To create and fulfill their vision, the coaching partnership seemed like the only way to go.
Matt, Mark and Jeff engaged ClientWise and selected their coach, Tracy Stevens, a MCC-level financial advisor coach with 30 years of experience in coaching leaders, financial advisors, and entrepreneurs. What also became apparent to them is that they needed additional data points, in order to identify the gaps in their team structure, planning, and execution strategy. In their case, a 360-degree feedback analysis would seem to provide the best assessment of where they actually were. (A 360-degree assessment provides the coachee with firsthand information that is gathered from peers, supervisors, subordinates and clients; and provides an unvarnished perspective of the “current reality”.)
As difficult as it might have been for the team to face the undisguised truth, the 360-degree assessment provided them with an objective starting point. As their coach Tracy Stevens says, “The data is the data.”
Armed with the results from the assessment, the team collaborated with their coach to build their own 11-point plan to achieve their vision. As their coach, Tracy used many of the powerful techniques that make coaching so effective. Partnering with the team. Active listening. Powerful questioning. Brainstorming. Using direct communication. Checking in regularly to see how the plan was working. Offering observations on what she had seen work effectively in the past, and also giving the team the choice to select which observations would be most helpful to implement.
One of the powerful revelations of the initial assessment was that the team had a collective dynamic that was, potentially, very potent. On the flip side, the assessment also revealed some conspicuous gaps, most notably in communication styles and strategies, both internally and externally.
Today, the team is transformed. They have daily (virtual) meetings, first thing in the morning, rain or shine. They are fully accountable to each other, and have brought in their assistants as accountability partners. They have identified their unique and complementary skills sets, and defined their roles and responsibilities. Yet, the most telling example of this transformation is that they are actively identifying and planning their 3-5 year goals as a unit. This all wasn’t possible one year ago.
A further recognition (and celebration) of their yearlong transformation is this article, recently published in Worth magazine. Focusing on one of the central tenets of their value proposition, i.e. identifying and managing portfolio risk, the Worth piece serves as a marker to the team, their clients, and to the marketplace, that the Shafer Barber Winkler Group is becoming one of the leading wealth advisors on the national stage.
In order to contact them directly, go here.
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With all of the attention paid to the Super Bowl commercials, this past Sunday (“Just My Shell” and “Matthew’s Day Off” were two of the well-regarded standouts), I have been thinking about some of the more inspirational commercials of my memory.
Financial advisors who are thinking about the impact of their own marketing efforts, might draw a page out of the Steve Jobs story.
Right at the top of all-time marketing messages, was “Think Different”, the Apple campaign that served notice of Steve Jobs’ return to the company that he co-founded. In 1997, Apple was a far cry from what it is today, and had certainly not yet become the iconic name that it has become. Steve Jobs had recently re-joined Apple as interim CEO, when Apple had acquired NeXT.
Many of you may also recall that, in 1997, Apple was hardly the icon that it has become today. In fact, Apple was really struggling. The board had just ousted Gil Armelio, their CEO, and the company was bleeding cash. Compared to the rarefied levels of today, it’s hard to believe that the stock was bumping along at a 3-year low. ($6 per share!)
Jobs wanted to infuse a dispirited Apple workforce with some of his own strongly-held values and personal beliefs. He turned to Chiat/Day to create the “Think Different” advertising slogan. As part of this campaign, they created this commercial, known as the “Crazy Ones."
What I love about this commercial is how much it embraces Jobs’ personal credo of how ANY one can change the world, as reflected in this 1994 interview:
“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.
I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
Making these comments in 1994, Jobs forecast what was yet to come for him…one of the greatest second acts (or third) in U.S. corporate history.
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I’m working with a financial advisor, the CEO of a very successful financial advisory team, who is in the midst of an especially vexing problem that is taxing every ounce of his innate creative ability. His current Value Proposition (VP) has brought him to $ 3+ million in annual revenues. However, he has realized that this VP has taken him as far as he can go…without cloning himself. He wants to “take it to the next level”, which in his case is building his optimal team and doubling his revenues in three years. To do this, he needs to create a fresh VP.
For the past two weeks, all of his brain cells have been working overtime. He’s been: reading books and articles, spending Saturday mornings at the library, surveying his clients, conferring with his team, etc. You name it; he’s been doing (almost) everything that he can think of find a VP that “hits it right on the nose”! He’s been truly blocked and stymied from arriving at a VP that he feels really, really good about.
Until recently. The other day, I called him to check in and, lo and behold, the fog had cleared and his thoughts had crystallized brilliantly. He had completely broken through and arrived at a VP that was smack-dab where he wanted it. And the best part of the story is this. This epiphany all came to him in the midst of a monster workout at the gym!
It turns out that this CEO/Advisor experienced the classic 4 Stages of the Creative Process, where the left and right hemispheres of the brain share the responsibilities of creative thinking: Saturation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. (For more, see this very good article by Tony Schwarz in the Harvard Business Review.)
- Saturation: All creative breakthroughs happen by virtue of what came before. In this stage, the left half of the brain absorbs itself in what it already knows. During Pablo Picasso’s African period, (1906-1909), he was strongly influenced by African culture. In doing so, he immersed himself by viewing African artifacts at the Palais du Trocadero. In the CEO/advisor’s case, he read and thought widely and deeply for two weeks straight, as he sorted, organized, and prioritized his various thoughts related to his desired VP.
- Incubation: When our left side of the brain gets stuck, sometimes it helps to simply walk away from the problem. Incubation happens unconsciously, at times. In the CEO/Advisor’s case, the intense exercise triggered the left side of his brain (i.e. logical and analytical) to shift to the right side (i.e. intuitive and thoughtful) in order to access new ideas and solutions.
- Illumination: Ah-ha moments happen at the oddest times, and oftentimes NOT when we are consciously attempting to think creative. While shaving in the morning, driving to the office, sleeping…and in the CEO’s case, in the midst of a powerful workout at the gym!
- Verification: During the final stage of creativity, the left-brain takes over again. This is where your creative breakthrough is challenged and tested. In the CEO/Advisor’s case, this will happen when he puts his VP to paper, tests it with his colleagues and clients…and sees if it really resonates.
Ultimately, creativity is about using both sides of the brain, with alternating intense periods of study and rest.
Taking a run, a vigorous swim or hike, or going to the gym is completely in line with engaging your whole brain.
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Today’s financial advisors understand that they must continue to acquire new client relationships as well as maintain existing relationships in order to survive and thrive in today’s competitive landscape. In fact, when we partner with top advisors to establish critical coaching objectives, top of the list is the need to focus on “client acquisition.” However, there are a number of disconnects we observe on a regular basis. Most significantly however, is the disconnect between the attitude and desire to want to grow (which is always very high) and the actions and commitments that actually make it happen (this…not so much).
Here’s what I’m talking about.
Our firm recently surveyed 1000 highly-successful financial advisors and uncovered the following surprising statistics:
- 62 percent do not track their client acquisition efforts and results.
- 70 percent do not have a clearly-defined “ideal client” profile.
- 72 percent do not have a well-defined value proposition.
- 76 percent do not have client acquisition goals for the coming 12 months.
- 86 percent of financial advisors do not have a distinct and consistent client acquisition strategy.
So…even though most financial advisors know that client acquisition is “Job #1”, the vast majority isn’t doing much about it in an organized, consistent manner.
How can this be? (Actually, this is not that surprising when one considers how difficult it can be to change problematic and corrosive habits.)
Not so long ago, a medical study revealed the stubborn nature of change…even under the most pressing and dire circumstances. In this study, cardiologists informed their seriously at-risk heart patients that they would likely die if they did not make changes to their personal lives, such as stopping smoking, getting more exercise, eating a healthier diet, etc. Notwithstanding this dire sense of urgency, only one in seven of these patients were able to actually make these changes in their personal behavior.
By our observation, financial advisors who wish to dial up their client acquisition efforts should focus on two areas for improvement:
- Closing the gap between desire and commitment, and,
- Building a Client Acquisition Process using proven financial advisor tools.
“Closing the gap” is where coaching can come into play. Financial advisors who are consistently blocked from following through on their commitments should definitely check with their coach Or if they don’t have a coach, they should consider hiring one.
Building a client acquisition process involves paying attention to the three important components: strategy, tactics, and execution…and using the necessary financial advisor tools that address the important aspects of this process, e.g. clearly defining client acquisition goals, identifying ideal client types, lead generation, pipeline management, etc. (Of course, coaching can help financial advisors to build a process and plan too.)
The good news is that financial advisors who close the gap between desire and commitment, and create their own unique client acquisition process using effective financial advisor tool create sustainable financial advisory practices that serve their clients for many, many years.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Are you a
financial advisor marketing to the affluent? Are you also looking for a way to truly help them?
Consider this statistic. 58 percent of investors with $5 million+ to invest are using multiple investors. In fact, 30 percent of this group is using, on average, 4 or more advisors!
By the way, this is not a trend limited to the affluent. Over the past three years, investors in all wealth brackets are establishing more relationships with more advisors. This is all revealed in a fascinating study by Cerulli & Associates,
“Are Clients Two-Timing Advisors?"Why is this happening? It’s not too hard to figure out. In the post-Madoff era, investors are afraid to place too much faith in any one advisor. Some investors also like to play one financial advisor against the other. Likewise, there are investors who choose different advisors for their perceived expertise with different asset classes. Finally, you have the investor who believes that multiple advisors is a way of achieving de facto asset allocation.
So, where’s the “big opportunity” for financial advisors who want to dial up their marketing?
Having multiple financial advisors:
- Complicates financial decisions,
- Increases risk, and
- Decreases portfolio return.
Talk about a triple-whammy!
In all likelihood, this trend towards multiple advisors will die down, once the market’s volatility decreases, and investor faith is restored. Ironically, until that point is reached, many investors have placed the financial being of themselves, their family, and their heirs…at even greater risk!
So, here are some coaching questions to those of you readers who are financial advisors, who are also in a marketing mindset:
- When you meet an investor who is using multiple advisors, what are you doing to inspire trust?
- Are you able to communicate to wealthy investors why having multiple advisors places them at risk?
- What services and tools are you offering that allow investors to analyze and consolidate their multiple investment portfolios?
I trust this helps!
ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
As a coaching firm that focuses on the industry’s best financial advisors, ClientWise has much to be thankful for. Six years ago, we founded ClientWise with the intention of serving top financial advisors by providing top financial advisor coaching.
Despite one of the worst global economic climates since the Great Depression, our firm has seen sizeable growth. For all of you who have helped us in our growth, we thank you. We would also like to use this holiday to pause and take a moment to reflect on ALL that we are grateful for: our family, friends, health, love, and life. From all of us at ClientWise, we thank you…our top financial advisor clients, friends, and associates…for your support and friendship.
In celebration of this most American of national holidays, we also wanted to share a special Thanksgiving tale. As a top financial advisor yourself, we trust that this season brings you much to be thankful for. As such, we believe that the following story has particular resonance today.
The fall of 1863 was a depressingly dark period in a nation riven by an appalling civil war. The Battle of Gettysburg, with more than 50,000 dead, lingered painfully in memory. The Battle of Chickamauga, fought in September, was one of the worst Union defeats of the war. Lincoln had run through a string of inept generals and had yet to promote Ulysses S. Grant to command the Union armies. Facing a troop shortage, Lincoln enacted a military draft, which sparked riots in Boston and New York.
Earlier that year, President Lincoln had received a letter from Sarah J. Hale, who was the Martha Stewart of her time and had lobbied four of Lincoln’s predecessors to celebrate a national holiday of thanksgiving, to no avail. Her perseverance finally paid off.
On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that declared the last Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving, a national holiday.
Lincoln’s characteristically lyrical and elegant prose begins:
“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of almighty God…”
(http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/source/sb2/sb2w.htm)
What is interesting is that in the midst of a horrific war where brother was fighting brother, Lincoln reaches out to all Americans to give thanks.
“I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens…"
With all best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family,
Ray Sclafani and our ClientWise Team
ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
2012 will be fast upon us. Inbound marketing is the buzz. Social media is the rage. None of this has been done before in financial services. It is indeed unique and requires today's financial advisor to create a relevant and unique message tailored for the ideal client persona. The one with whom they intend to connect, serve and partner equally to achieve life-long success. Financial advisor marketing is fast moving into the brave, new world!
The financial advisor is THE most important professional over all other trusted advisors. Unfortunately, today's American citizen doesn't fully appreciate or understand the role of a true wealth advisor. Therefore, it's up to those who wish to stand out from the crowd, to rise up and get their message heard.
Begin to use the new tools available to be found. Most financial advisor marketing messages of old were intrusive and interruptive. Take the old approach to client acquisition. Smile and dial and bet a bunch on a hunch. Take out the yellow or white pages and get going. This method was so interruptive; movies were made about it that drew loads of laughs…and poignancy (If you have never done so, check out Glengarry Glen Ross – The leads!)
The United States Government created a do-not-call list so that Americans could be protected from the swarm of callers seeking to drop a ticket. Today, the elegance and simplicity and use of social media is about inbound marketing. Creating relevant content that is tailored for a specific audience who can find you with ease. It seems everywhere I go, I keep hearing about Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc. Most financial advisors I speak with are frozen awaiting for FINRA, the SEC or their broker-dealer to make a ruling. And in the meantime, because it's something new and requires some new skill and learning, they are doing nothing. Obviously, following compliance regulations and acting in a prudent and professional way is highly recommended.
Get after new learning. Create great content. Publish that content. Start a blog. You have a message. You need to be heard. When you sit down with a new prospect, you know exactly what to say. Say that out loud for all to hear and you will be found, by those who feel that message was published for them to see. This takes time and energy.
Instead of hosting that rubber chicken seminar; instead of that board meeting that has yielded very little success or that country club membership that costs more than it's worth, strike out and try something new. Set up a LinkedIn account. Sign up for Twitter and just follow smart people, great marketers and other financial advisors. I've set up a list on our Twittter @clientwise of the financial advisors we've found on twitter.
Get in the game, dial up your financial advisor marketing, have some fun, and stay compliant.
Be unique!
ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Some of you grizzled veterans may remember this cover of BusinessWeek from August 13, 1979, that pronounced "The Death of Equities". I do. I was just entering the securities business...and openly questioning my career timing, or lack thereof. Little did I know that it was one of the best contrary indicators that I could hope for.
Therefore, I had a real sense of deja vu, when I saw this article from last week's Wall Street Journal, "Investors Lose Faith in Equities".
Jeremy Siegel, author and Wharton professor, has a good historical perspective on all of this in this recent interview. His quick take: no "new normal" of permanent low-growth, no double-dip recession, and no European Armageddon.
I wanted to share this with all of you. I trust it helps.
All the best!
ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.