In your initial meetings with clients, an answer to one question will give you insight into their values, lives and dreams and create a healthy anxiety that will motivate them to enlist your services. As nonchalantly as possible, ask, When you die...

An old Greek proverb warns that you shouldn't speak of rope in the house of a man who has just been hanged, but if rope is your stock in trade, what can you do? While your clients may not be as happy to discuss their 401(k)s now as they were back...

During a recent radio address, President Bush said he supported the Retirement Security Advice Act, H.R. 2269, which recently passed the House. The act would allow financial institutions to provide personalized investment advice to plan...

Every broker has heard a story like this one. Recently, Tom Mingone, a financial planner in New City, N.Y., got a call from a new prospect. The man, a successful entrepreneur in his late 40s, had sold his sanitation business for $1 million and...

Merrill to Reps: Go Get 401(k) Business

Here's a simple question that will endear you to your clients. Ask parents or grandparents of a teenager if the kid has a job. There is a good chance they will say the Bureau of Labor Statistics says over 40 percent of high school students are...

Setting up retirement plans for your business clients can be risky. Nevertheless, there's a recipe for protecting yourself from unpleasant surprises. In the past two decades, registered reps have helped business clients establish thousands of 401...

After four decades in the business, Gayla Borgognoni has seen investing trends come and go. In the meantime, she built a $200 million book.

Advisors have a new weapon in their fee-boosting arsenal: Individual 401(k) plans. Thanks to a little-known provision of tax legislation passed in June, self-employed individuals can not only create 401(k) accounts for the first time, but they can...