What happened to the Partnership with the Advisor?  What happened to helping the one man shop out with prospecting or branding?  In the early stages of the FMO, they were true brokers with little or no marketing, maybe a “Sales Idea” video and bag of popcorn.  Over time, the FMO started to develop marketing programs [...]

 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 [...]

The uses of webinars are endless—how creative can you get? Here are a few categories to consider: Building relationships with your audience. Raising your image as Thought Leader or Expert. Finding Prospects – whether you want to connect with a reader, a customer or a client, you want a continuous flow of interested people – [...]

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 [...]

August 18, 2011 1:58 pm ET A slew of negative news sent shares tumbling earlier today, with the Dow Jones down 525 points in early morning trading. Brokerages have scaled back their forecasts for economic growth and seemingly any negative news about inflation and unemployment now has the potential to send markets into a tail-spin. [...]

Three Types of Follow Ups There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow up message and offer will be different for each [...]

1. Ask a good question. You probably want a yes or no answer: “Are you gonna buy my product, yes or no?” But yes or no is short-term and opportunity limiting, because anything but a definite yes will be a showstopper. So ask instead a question like: What are the challenges you are facing? This [...]

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 [...]

New surveys show that women continue to trail men when planning for retirement.   That makes it all the more important for most married couples to make retirement-planning decisions with the goal of leaving the spouse with greater longevity — typically, the wife — in good shape financially after the other dies.   After the [...]