The ClientWise Blog

This past week, former NBA ballplayer Shaquille O’Neal could be seen wandering around South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas; meeting entrepreneurs, checking out the latest start-ups, buying gadgets, and sharing his opinions on pretty much everything. He also seemed to be enjoying himself. “I’m the world’s tallest geek” he said.

The word “entrepreneur” is of French derivation (entreprendre, to undertake) and is defined as: a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk of a business. With this definition, it is clear that most all financial advisors are entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are a different breed of cat. In working with entrepreneurs, successful financial advisors often consult their own ‘inner entrepreneur’, and model their behavior to be informed by what they know about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), ClientWise is paying special attention this week to the role that financial advisors play in this space…as entrepreneurs themselves, and as consultants and advisors to other entrepreneurs. We feel that the connection between entrepreneuralism and financial advisors is a close one, and embrace the opportunity to increase that bond.

Financial advisors and entrepreneurs are a natural mix. The same traits that contribute to entrepreneurial success are the qualities that top-performing financial advisors possess:

Powerful questioning – the ability to ask questions that reveal information necessary to provide maximum benefit for the client in the coaching relationship – is one of the International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional core competencies.

Ever since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law in July 2010, RIAs have been wondering what regulatory agency they would ultimately answer to. While that question still hasn’t been resolved, Sen. Max Bachus introduced legislation last week that would transfer regulation of RIAs from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to a separate agency, most likely the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Earlier this month, we highlighted seven blogs that we enjoy, and are written by financial advisors, “7 Financial Advisory Blogs that Rock”. One of these was the “Wall Street Journal Financial Advisor Blog”.

No doubt you’ve heard the Instagram fairy tale.

Lately, for many of our coaching clients we have been thinking about the subject of motivation. For financial advisors and entrepreneurs especially, this is an interesting and always timely topic.