Your professional and business personas | Advisor Tech Tips Share Your social networking personal and business personas The growing imperative for financial advisors to use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn presents an interesting quandary beyond the obvious compliance restraints: how do you balance your personal and professional personas online? Some items to consider: What is your personal brand? Here are three scenarios for dealing with the public/private balance. Social Scenario 1: One Persona In this situation, you would have one presence for both your professional and personal personas on all major social networks. Pros: Easy to maintainShows a complete picture of youSimultaneous updates using a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite Cons: Risk of “oversharing”May cause you to be more reticent than you normally would Social Scenario 2: Separate Personas on Facebook and Twitter Helps define work/life boundariesKeeps work-related messages separate from personal messages Social Scenario 3: One Network
Recruiting & Hiring: How Advisors Can Attract Millennials The financial planning profession is finally feeling the pressure of years without an established career path. The field has lost potential new entrants to others that pay higher -- at least initially -- and many students don't even follow through on their studies to bother taking the CFP examination. There is heavy competition for the relatively few unattached experienced advisors, mainly due to the fact that firms can assign client responsibilities to these hires immediately, without extra training, and expect them to start generating revenue immediately -- especially if they have an existing book of business. Yet with big demand and small supply, prices are high (and continue to escalate) for this type of advisor. Meanwhile, for the few firms that do seek out younger talent, there is a battle raging for the top-of-the-class newly minted graduates of CFP Board-registered programs. There are many reasons for this. First, you need to understand them.
Destra Capital Investments :: Destra Focused Equity Fund (NASDAQ: DFOAX) Tickers: A Shares DFOAX · I Shares DFOIX · C Shares DFOCX CUSIPS: A Shares 250 64T 502 · I Shares 250 64T 809 · I Shares 250 64T 601 Investment Objective The Fund's objective is to seek long term capital appreciation. Investment Strategy and Philosophy The Fund’s portfolio managers believe that sector and industry performance is correlated with particular stages of the business cycle. fund performance as of 05/31/12 Month End as of 05/31/12 Quarter End as of 3/31/12 Destra Focused Equity Fund Inception Date: April 12, 2011 A Shares Max Sales Charge: 5.75% Expense Ratio A: Gross 29.24% / Net 1.61% Expense Ratio I*: Gross 26.04% / Net 1.33% At NAV Annual With Load S&P 500 Index A 2% redemption fee will be imposed on certain redemptions or exchanges out of the Class I shares of the Fund within 90 days of purchase. Included in the Fund’s Class A shares expenses is a distribution and service (12b-1) fee of 0.25%. Investment Process Click chart to zoom Investment Process, Parallel Tracks Portfolio Structure
Study: How "social" are the Mass Affluent? | Advisor Tech Tips HNW, mass affluent Share Study: How “social” are the Mass Affluent? Can financial advisors reach affluent individuals via social media? NextGen Is Coming. Are You Ready? - Platinum Strategies Born in 1981, I belong to Generation Y. I’m also an investment advisor representative and a consultant to 960 financial professionals. Because of where I personally fit in, the conversation about what the next generation wants from financial advisor relationships intrigues me. In most respects, I believe my generation wants the same things other generations want: sound advice for a reasonable price, accessibility, communication, transparency. In other respects though, I must acknowledge that Generations X and Y each display distinct traits that advisors should understand and adapt to if they plan to be in business 20 years from now. Here are a few reasons why:Generation X and Millennial investors will inherit more than $41 trillion by 2052.Surveys show that 86% of inheritors do not plan to use their parents’ financial advisors.29% of wealthy investors are under age 50 and control 37% of investable assets. Transparency matters. Think of what recent generations have grown up with.
Guggenheim Funds LIMRA Conference Highlights: How Financial Advisors Can Use LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to Connect and Grow « SEI's Practically Speaking SEI's Practically Speaking The following is a guest blog post by Amy Sitnick, Senior Marketing Manager for the SEI Advisor Network and self-described social media addict. Connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter. It’s good to get away from the office once in a while and immerse yourself in your discipline. I recently attended the LIMRA / LOMA Social Media for Financial Services conference and came away energized about the opportunity for social media marketing, in our industry, RIGHT NOW. In case you missed it, the conference has also been widely written about online. • Top Social Media Tweets from the Financial Services Industry • Social Media Insights from Nine Experts For me, it was good to live and breathe social media for three days. LinkedIn – The New Yellow Pages Nowadays, everyone does their research online before buying any product or service. What you can do: • Fully complete your LinkedIn profile: Don’t skimp here. Facebook – The Home for Life Events Twitter – Real-time Conversations Amy Sitnick
Has Financial Industry Press Over-Hyped Social Media? - Platinum Strategies The financial industry has a tendency to blame mainstream media for hyping financial news, and yet, is guilty of the same crime where social media is concerned. You’ve seen the headlines – Advisor Lands $90 Million Account on LinkedIn… Financial Advisors Rave About Social Media Results… Win More Referrals With Social Media – these days, it seems like every industry journal is leading with them. An entire new crop of “social media experts” has arisen, specifically to sell it as the next magic sales and prospecting arrow in your marketing quiver. But does social media really live up to the hype? While there are some excellent reasons for social media to play a part in the modern advisor’s practice, it is vital to keep things in perspective. Social media is a tool for communication, nothing more. When you analyze the research, some interesting biases come to light. Last fall, Accenture surveyed 400 U.S. I’m sure you get the point here.
Four Ways to Attract Affluent Clients Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives. Last week, I wrote about a California advisor who transitioned her book to focus on affluent clients. Central to her success was the understanding that marketing to affluent investors requires a different approach. Attracting HNW clients is all about credibility – as a result, it’s typically lower key, takes longer and requires an upfront investment of time and effort to position yourself to interact with HNW prospects. Here are four strategies that I have seen help many HNW advisors attract clients. Follow Dan on You Tube – a new video every week Sign up for Dan’s new YouTube channel, with 300 short video tips for your business To sign up: Click here Strategy One: Become the safe choice Successful HNW advisors typically have fewer than 100 clients and a high minimum-asset threshold, allowing them to deliver a personalized and high-quality experience.
Boomer women more money-savvy than Gen X and Gen Y - Encore By Anne Tergesen Surveys show that women trail men when it comes to their confidence and competence in managing the household finances—a situation that can make it tough for widows and divorcees in retirement. Now, a new survey by Fidelity Investments indicates that while boomer women are starting to close that gap, their counterparts in Gen X and Gen Y aren’t coming along for the ride. (There’s a shorter summary of the survey here.) Shutterstock.com Younger women are less good at this. According to Fidelity’s biannual “Couples Retirement Study,” 24% of women report that they are calling the shots when it comes to day-to-day financial decisions. But a closer look reveals a troubling generational divide: While 24% of boomer women—those born between 1946 and 1964—say they’re the household CFO, only 17% of women in Gen X and 12% of those in Gen Y say the same. But the behavior of their Gen X and Gen Y counterparts is potentially of concern, Murphy says. Why worry?