Building a better mouse trap is the name of game for advisors looking to reign in new clients.  Investment news has a good piece on the wealthy investors turning to social media to find advice.  Social media hasn’t only changed the way Americans communicate with one another, it’s also influenced how they make finance decisions. [...]

Recently a quick assessment was posted on Life Health Pro by Maribeth Kuzmeski.  According to Kuzmeski, answering these 8 questions will tell you a lot about your marketing strategy for this year. 1) Do you have an up to date website? And does the site have a call to action to engage your prospects? 2) [...]

The key to landing a sale or closing a deal, is first to ask questions.  Ask a lot of questions, and be sure to ask questions surrounding a need or problem for which you have a solution.  Many sales people are always searching for the magic bullet when it is most likely in front of [...]

Suddenly a lot more clients will be stressing over the tax-management rigors of the AMT. Without Congress’ annual adjustment to the AMT, this special tax on the wealthy will start applying to nearly 30 million new households, including some with incomes of just $45,000. For perspective, only 4 million households were subject to AMT in [...]

In a recent article by Jill Konrath, she discusses key questions to ask in a sales situation and why.  First start with a question about their current situation, then move onto finding out what their challenges have been recently and what hurdles they’re currently facing, and finally, what have they been doing to combat these [...]

 Those of you who are parents and have clients that are parents eventually come to the topic of paying for college. Whether in a social setting or during the discovery process, it is one the of the highest needs clients are looking to have met.  They can be younger and wanting to grow their money [...]

A survey of retirees asked “What is your greatest fear about retirement?” The most common answer given was “out living our money”. This is a major factor in why over 80% of annuities sold in 2010 had a guaranteed lifetime income rider attatched. There are more variaties of these riders today than ever before. This is [...]

As a potential career, the financial advisory business looks alluring. The broker ranks are projected to increase by 30 percent through 2018, a much faster than average rate according, to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Financial advisors earn median annual compensation of about $90,000, also well above average for college graduates, says Payscale.com.   And [...]

Many advisors and agents that I speak to INSIST that their older clients simply “aren’t online” or “don’t use Facebook” but this naive statement is just like saying “I know where all of their assets are” or “I have all of their money.”  Our clients, young and old, are using social media on a regular [...]

I remember very early on in my insurance career hearing a salesperson say: “Get the money first and straighten out the details later.” Being the type of person that believes the money is in the details, I struggled with this thought process then, and I still do today. I am one of those detail-oriented people [...]