Playing out of position is something that rarely works out long term it's true in sports and it's true for financial advisory teams. Pressing a baseball catcher into one-time duty at first base, or turning a quarterback into a receiver for a play...
There's an old saw in business that says the success of a company depends not on size but on filling a void in the marketplace. A small 24-hour convenience store can't compete with Safeway or K-Mart, but then Safeway and K-mart can't compete with...
Wealthy people and good poker players have at least one thing in common: The habit of holding cards close to their vests. At least that's what a wirehouse veteran named Jack told me while explaining his difficulty getting referrals from...
If selling to the affluent were a sport, every day would be game day. For better or worse, in investment sales, there is no practice field, and only serious players should suit up. At the risk of overextending the metaphor, I would further submit...
Psychologists the world over say vacation is important because, The brain needs a break, but it's surprising how few advisors give their minds a true rest during their time off. It's my experience that those who have built strong financial...
Branding is not easy just ask Ford Motor Company, the American automaker that famously introduced its Pinto in Brazil, oblivious to the fact that the name would translate locally as tiny male genitals. When applied to a product as esoteric as...
Creating a high-performing wealth management team requires a significant amount of good old subjective judgment, but that doesn't mean objective measures are of no use. In fact, through our ongoing research into what makes for successful advisory...
Those yearning to learn the secret of successful wealth management teams can take heart in the words of the famous industrialist and financier, Cornelieus Vanderbilt. There is no secret about it, he said in response to a question about what was...
Coming off a sustained period in which new customers were painfully hard to come by, it would stand to reason that financial advisors would have learned a thing or two about expanding relationships with existing customers. But, according to my...
It's pure coincidence that an anagram of is but the connection still can be twisted into an important lesson regarding high-net-worth advising. Namely, those who get confused about the importance of teams are dead meat, professionally speaking...
