Your relationship with your clients is as important as your financial advising of them. They view you as a trusted partner in their day-to-day lives as much as they see you as a keeper of economic knowledge. Rather, I should say, they’re supposed to view you as a trusted partner. In some cases this is too immediately assumed.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Coaching,
Communication,
Client Engagement,
Learning
When I started in financial services over 28 years ago, most firms hired financial advisors—who were then referred to as “brokers” or “insurance agents”, even “special agents” at Northwestern Mutual—based upon autonomy: The ability to work alone. I often joke that twenty years ago this industry was a “game of survivor before Survivor was even a game show.” You were successful if you could hunt.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Leadership,
Business Development,
Team Development,
Learning
Financial advisors often approach our coaches inquiring about whether or not they should sit for a particular credentialing exam. We hold credentialing in very high regard. Our executive coaches are all credentialed by the International Coach Federation (ICF), at the highest levels of Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Master Certified Coach (MCC).
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Organizing Priorities,
Learning,
Goals,
Credentials
If you’re like many successful advisors who come to our offices, you probably have an innate ability to run your firm. In all likelihood you spent a considerable amount of time learning, and then naturally began the process of running your business by producing and acquiring a variety of clients. Probably without really taking the time to consider the process you were using. Perhaps you’ve even built out what you feel is an effective team, by hiring people to fill certain roles over the past couple of years.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Coaching,
Organizing Priorities,
Business Development,
Team Development,
Planning,
Learning,
Goals,
Change,
ClientWise
Post written by Mitch York - A ClientWise Professional Certified Coach (ICF)
An age-old conundrum in coaching is that some clients believe the coach will give them The Answer.
Whatever the problem is, there are some clients who hope there's an answer out there, a silver bullet, and who better than their coach to spell it out for them, tell them the direction to march and exactly what to do.
Only one problem: that's not what we do as coaches!
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Coaching,
Learning,
Change,
ClientWise
Guest blogger and economist Matthew T. Shafer helps ClientWise and the financial professionals and investors in our network understand the future of their wealth in an uncertain economic climate.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Learning,
Change,
Financial Planning
Are you an expert financial advisor?
This is not a casual question. To the extent that you are able to look a prospective client in the eye and say with supreme self-confidence and truth, “I believe that you would benefit from our relationship because I am an expert in (fill in the blank)”, is pretty powerful stuff. Indeed, it might be one of the most potent marketing statements that you could ever verbalize or articulate.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Learning
Talk about your Generation Gap! There’s a pretty big one when you look at the demographic bands of the financial advisor community.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Learning,
Millennials
“No man is an island” was originally a meditation by the English poet/priest/barrister, John Donne (1572-1631). In 1964, it was also a hit song by The Lettermen.
The essential truth that no one succeeds solely by themselves and by the dint of their own efforts, is a fact that carries forward today.
Many successful financial advisors, entrepreneurs, and professionals know this reality, and make a point of periodically reaching out to others for advice and assistance. On the receiving end, the busiest-of-the-busiest know this as well. In today’s era of hyper-networking, they get asked for help, favors, and introductions all the time. One renowned and established venture capitalist that I know gets multiple requests like this…daily.
However, reaching out to others who might be casual acquaintances or indeed complete strangers is a real skill that takes some forethought.
Here is some thinking that might help:
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Learning
“You're short on ears and long on mouth.”…John Wayne
A very Duke-like quote on listening, as spoken by John Wayne as Big Jake. Big Jake wasn’t one of the Duke’s best efforts, although it did give Wayne a chance to act with one of his sons. [The Searchers is often regarded as Wayne’s best film, although he brought home an Oscar with True Grit.]
Listening is a foundational skill for successful financial advisors. One of the interesting things about listening is that it is not a passive activity. Great listening requires intention and focus. For those of you who are interested in upgrading your listening prowess, we share the following five helpful books:
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Leadership,
Communication,
Learning
Each quarter, Russell Market Research compiles the Financial Professional Outlook, the collected opinions of financial advisors from national, regional, and independent advisory firms on topics of market sentiment, advisor/investor conversations, and investor behavior.
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Business and Operations Management,
Learning,
Investing

ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Coaching,
Learning
Read any good books lately?
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Leadership,
Learning
No doubt you’ve heard the Instagram fairy tale.
Internet start-up. Not even two years old. Two co-founders in their twenties, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. 12 employees. San Francisco-based. No revenues. A phone call from Mark Zuckerberg, and they end up being acquired by Facebook for $1 billion.
Another digital entrepreneurial cliché, right?
Maybe yes…maybe no.
What is true is that some of the important lessons learned by Wunderkinds Systrom and Krieger, also can apply to financial advisors:
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Social Media,
Perseverance,
Entrepreneurs,
Learning
How should a financial advisor's marketing strategy make them stand out from the crowd?
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ClientWise is the premier financial advisor coach focused on business development and management best practices for financial advisors.
Topics:
Client Acquisition,
Marketing Approach,
Learning