Leading Authors...Great Books

These books are written by leading edge authors, whether it be financial advisor web sites, how to devise a financial advisor business plan or the newest research into financial advisor education it is all here in the book store.

Virtual Office

For some advisors growth has brought about various management headaches. Advisors who used to sit in front of clients now spend too much of their time managing employees and the files they've accumulated to support their growing practice.

There is a need to streamline systems in accordance with modern technology and recapture their profitability in the process.

According to authors David J. Drucker and Joel P. Bruckenstein of an excellent book entitled "Virtual -Office Tools for a High-Margin Practice" (Bloomberg Press ), advisors have not experimented enough with technology. Technology is a trial and error process like other systems we adapt to our practices.

Advisors need to spend more time reading more pure technology sources, like PC World and similar magazines. When you see a product review for a new form of backup technology or scanning device, You need to ask yourself "how could this be used to streamline my own systems?" the advisor who already feels too swamped with work to read one more magazine might be want hire a virtual IT consultant.

Strategies to Growing Your Business Using Technology and the Web

It’s no secret that in today’s information-based economy, technology is essential in competing for and winning business. But based on comments made on this site and from the results of Investment Executive Report Cards, many advisors are either technologically challenged or aren’t taking full advantage of technology.

Kip Gregory is the principal of the Gregory Group in Washington D.C., whose mission is to help financial services professionals leverage technology to get more business in less time. He is also the author of Winning Clients in a Wired World (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2004).

Gregory believes computers can be frustrating, especially for advisors. Technology promises to improve life, but still frequently comes up short. When your business success hinges on the ability to turn information into an advantage, however, your survival depends on smarter use of technology and the Web. Once you accept this, your risk of falling behind disappears.

Don’t expect to become a technological guru by reading this book — that’s not what Gregory is trying to accomplish — but it will help you take the tools you already have on your desktop and harness the power they offer.

Winning Clients in a Wired World should be required reading; it’s the first book I’ve seen aimed solely at technology and Web solutions for financial advisors, sales assistants, wholesalers, branch managers or senior executives.

Based on the e-mails I receive, many advisors feel it is hard keeping up with technological change. Gregory agrees, but notes the problem is the “culture” of technology. Developers focus on, for example, what a program can do because users ask for more and more functions, when in most cases all the bells and whistles end up either undiscovered or unused.

Kip Gregory says the first thing to do is get a handle on what you have right now on your desktop. Start with the programs you use most often — probably Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, to name a few. Take a few minutes each day to open up a program and poke around. Keep a list of useful features you discover.

You may believe that you must have the latest technology to succeed. Forget the idea that speed is critical — vendors like to make you believe their solutions can do everything and faster. As Gregory points out, this is a big part of why people are generally cynical about technology.

The truth is most people probably already own most of what they need; they simply need to learn to use it more effectively. Gregory’s book covers both the must-have and the nice-to-have equipment, as well as which resources to tap into to keep up to date and where to go for help to solve technical troubles.

A nice feature is how Gregory explains his tips, either by way of a a sidebar or by mapping out the key sequences needed to perform a task.

One of the biggest challenges for advisors is keeping in contact with clients. Surveys show clients like to hear regularly (at least monthly; ideally, more often) from their advisors. Gregory outlines how you can use technology to create regular, meaningful conversations with clients, prospects and others.

In Winning Clients in a Wired World, Gregory has found a way to make technology easy to understand for advisors and easier for them to be efficient and profitable.

Visit Kip Gregory's web site

Going Online

Many clients and prospects are already using the Internet to pay bills, check their investment accounts and do research, which means advisors who don't have a Web strategy are missing opportunities, says Douglas Durrie, the Omaha, Neb.-based author of The Financial Planner's Guide to Moving Your Practice Online: Creating Your Internet Presence and Growing Your Business.(Bloomberg Press)

The Internet provides a unique and interactive communication channel that advisors should tap if they want to stay successful, Durrie says. Click here for on Moving Your Practice Online

Practice Management Tools and Templates

It is never easy to be an advisor, there are many rewards to working with clients, it is the day to day issues you must deal with that can be trying. According to one the top U.S. financial planners Deena Katz, advisors around the world have the same challenges: meeting the global competitive challenges, providing value-added services, managing client expectations and learning to run their practices as businesses.

Katz is also the author of Tools and Templates for your Practice (Bloomberg Press) and in her travels around she has recognized the advances in the delivery of advice and services to the investor has become global. Today advisors are not in competition with the guy down the street, now you are in competition with the guy on the next continent.

Is Your Practice Ready for The Next Level?

You will find that the top advisors seem to do the right things all the time. They recognize opportunities and unlike their competitors they take advantage.The exceptional advisors are good business people.

Building a High-End Financial Services Practice (Bloomberg Press) is for the advisor just starting out or the seasoned veteran ready to take the next step. Authors Cliff Oberlin and Jill Powers have a unique vantage point from which to view the industry.

They are both successful practitioners and also senior executives running an independent broker/dealer,(Oberlin Financial) work with some of the most successful practitioners - and also seen people who have not succeeded in the business.

They share real life experiences as well as the research from CEG Worldwide that backs up what our anecdotal experience had been on what makes successful people successful.

This is an excellent book, in fact it should be required reading for those advisors who are really serious about their profitability.

In Search of the Perfect Model

The successful financial advisors are continuously raising the bar. Their level of success seem to have no limits. But how do these advisors maintain such high standards and still manage to grow a business? And what role does technology play?

It was these questions that led noted author Mary Rowland to research how the top advisors got to where they are and what makes them profitable business owners. In the book, "In search of the perfect model"- The distinctive business strategies of leading financial planners (Bloomberg Press), Mary Rowland interviewed 75 planners most say that they came across their business models mostly by trial and error.

For example, Charles Haines in Birmingham, Ala., identified the leading edge of financial planning and decided to develop a certain model, in his case the multi-family office. Similarly, the partners at BBR had a very specific model in mind when they left Goldman Sachs to set up their own business.

22 Keys to Sales Success

In the past few years the financial industry has undergone dynamic structural changes that have deeply affected the sales process. Bruised by market volatility, today's consumer is skeptical and demands more for less. You need fresh approaches to sell in in today's tough marketplace.

According to Paul Karasik and James M. Benson, many of the high-pressure, product-oriented sales and marketing strategies and techniques that worked in the past are no longer applicable in today's market.

In the past, selling was product centered. People today typically already have access to unlimited product information, creating confusion for the consumer and a need for new approaches for the financial professional.

Benson and Karasik are the authors of a great book 22 Keys To Sales Success "How to Make It Big in Financial Services" (Bloomberg Press). The 22 Keys represent a combination of their own personal experiences in sales and marketing in the financial industry.

James M. Benson is a senior executive vice president of John Hancock Financial Services and president of John Hancock Sales and Marketing.

Paul Karasik is the president of The Business Institute, a sales and management training and consulting company. He has worked with financial advisors to achieve their goals for close to two decades.

The book will appeal to anyone who dispenses financial advice, whether you are selling primarily one type of product or service or an independent professional who sells many products and services. Whether you earn commissions or charge fees. To read more on this book go here