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Book Briefs

Succession Planning Tips for Financial Advisors

By Book Briefs

Living in the moment might be a great way to avoid stress, but it doesn’t apply to all things in life. Financial advisors understand this. Our job is to look into the future, predict probable market trends, and plan for the comfortable retirement of our clients. Have you taken that same approach with your own future? Many advisory firms fail to create a succession plan until circumstances dictate that one needs to get done. That could be a few years before retirement or perhaps when planning a transition to another profession. In this article, we present several scenarios where having…

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How to Grow Your Financial Advisor Business

By Book Briefs

  John F. Kennedy once said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth.” To achieve real growth as a financial advisor, your brand and value proposition must be unique. It’s the only way to separate your firm from an ever-growing list of competitors. Keeping this concept of individuality in mind, there are stages of growth that are universal to all wealth management firms striving to expand their business. In this article, we’ll outline some of the common struggles with growth and how to overcome them. Here’s how to grow your financial advisor business.

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Key Habits of Successful Financial Advisors

By Book Briefs

It’s not just about the money. Financial services is a hospitality business. Success is directly related to the happiness and well-being of our clients, so it’s no surprise that top financial advisors focus on client experience and great service. In this article, we’ll outline the key habits of successful financial advisors and wealth management firms. None of these are related to portfolio performance, yet the financial advisors practicing these principles enjoy substantial growth and good retention numbers.

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7 Questions Financial Advisors Should Ask Prospects

By Book Briefs

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. For a financial advisor, the conversations during the first meeting set the table for the rest of the relationship. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most essential questions should ask prospects to help set the right tone for the relationship. Need assistance growing your practice? Consider working with an experienced financial advisor coach from Northstar Leadership Solutions. Request a free consultation. Starting the Conversation Let’s start with the proper approach. New clients typically begin the conversation with questions of their own. Answering those in a conversational manner…

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8 Effective Financial Advisor Prospecting Ideas

By Book Briefs

Financial advisor prospecting has evolved. Technology is vastly improved. Social media has widened the prospect pool. Cold calling is obsolete. Your client acquisition strategies need an upgrade if you’re going to compete. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of effective financial advisor prospecting ideas that every advisor could benefit from. Need help growing your business? Consider working with an experienced financial advisor coach from Northstar Leadership Solutions. Request a free consultation. #1 – Find Your Unique Identifier & Brand It There was once a time when simply being the “local” financial advisor would bring business through the door. The…

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What is Executive Coaching?

By Book Briefs

President Harry S. Truman once said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” At this point, we’re assuming you’ve completed your academic education. Years on the job have made you an industry expert. There’s no one in your company who’s better than you at what you do. How do you improve on that? One way is to hire and work with an executive coach. Even the best professional athletes need coaches. Ask Tiger Woods what he does when his swing mechanics are off. Query Tom Brady about his work with Josh McDaniels. These individuals have won…

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Dare to Serve

By Book Briefs

In the fall of 2007, guest visits were declining, sales and profit trends were negative, and the stock price had dropped from $34 in 2002 to $13. The brand was stagnant, and relations between the company and its franchise owners were strained. Cheryl Bachelder was serving as a member of the board of directors for Popeyes’s food chain, when her fellow board members turned to her and said, “We need you to be our CEO.” She grabbed the reigns and went to work. Today the share price is $52, nearly 17% compounded annually over the past 9 years, and the business is…

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Need a Halftime Career Detox?

By Book Briefs, Personal Development

According to best-selling author Bob Buford, “halftime” is something all successful people will go through. But it’s not just a break in the action to rest and re-group for the second half of the same game. It’s more like a type of career detox, or midlife renewal for the second half. We’re not talking about a football game here. We’re talking about the game of life. Specifically, developing a new game plan for the rest of your life. In his book simply titled Halftime, Buford says, “After a successful first half, I needed a break to make some changes in how…

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How to Get Unstuck

By Book Briefs, Personal Development No Comments

What can you learn from a music major who’s first job out of college was that of a secretary for a retail brokerage firm in New York City; who went from there to being an investment banker, and on to become a top ranked equity analyst, to writing a children’s book, and then a blogger on work-life issues, to a hedge fund manager? You can learn how to disrupt yourself! You might say Whitney Johnson has taken an unconventional career path, or perhaps it might just be the normal path for knowledge workers in the twenty-first century. Johnson adapted the…

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How to Tell if You’re For Real

By Book Briefs, Organizational Development

What do Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, BMW, Zippo, Harley Davidson, and LL Bean have in common? They are all “authentic brands” says Michael Beverland, professor of marketing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, a brand marketing researcher and author of the book Building Brand Authenticity – 7 Habits of Iconic Brands.  So just what makes a brand authentic? Beverland says authenticity is synonymous with truth.  One way tell if a brand is truthful or not is to look at the marketing efforts of a company.  Traditional marketers want to control the consumer with a top down approach.  Beverland says they try to manage consumers’…

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