Investment Advisor August 2011
Cover Story
Marketing Reboot
"Let me tell you what happened at lunch today," Mark Smith says matter-of-factly when asked about marketing in the new era.
Beginnings
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Robbing Peter to Pay Everyone
Why Euro Pacific Capital's Peter Schiff doesn't like Ben Bernanke
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Catching up with… Scott Colyer
If you’re in the decidedly unglamorous, but wholly necessary fixed income business, setting up shop in Monument, Colo., serves as an effective (and breathtaking) counterbalance.
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Replicate Hedge Funds With ETFs
The capital markets abhor a vacuum and as exchange-traded funds grow more popular, their uses keep multiplying to fill every space that their creators and investors can identify.
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Revisiting Reg D
Our regular readers do a great job of ensuring I never am at a loss for timely column ideas.
Features
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Define & Conquer—Marketing Strategically to Achieve Growth
In 2010, research and consulting firm FA Insight released The 2010 FA Insight Study of Advisory Firms: Growth by Design, exploring two fundamental leading indicators of firm growth: operations and marketing.
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CRM: An Untapped Engine for Growth
While the vast majority of advisors have implemented some form of client relationship management (CRM) software in their practices, most of them continue to overlook what may be CRM’s biggest benefit to an RIA business: the ability to fuel and support growth.
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Uncommon Bonds
It’s only natural, says Scott Colyer, CEO and CIO of Advisors Asset Management, that U.S. investors have focused their international investing horizons on equities, since equities have dominated the investment universe and continue to hog the lion’s share of domestic investment portfolios.
Columns
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It’s Not About You
I recently overheard an advisor bemoaning the difficulty of taking his firm to the next level.
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Dodd-Frank—One Year Later
With the recent one-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act on July 21, members of Congress as well as industry officials have been reflecting on the law’s effects—for good or ill.
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Doing It Right
David Grau’s been a friend of mine since 2001, when I worked with him and his newly formed FP Transitions for a few years to brand their expertise in helping independent advisors realize the value in their practices.
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Forewarned Is Forearmed
Younger advisors, and those who look younger, should be prepared to respond smartly to instances of discrimination.
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‘Selling’ Yourself With New Clients
Anybody following the latest politico-celebrity-insider trading scandals via Twitter, WikiLeaks or Facebook might well assume that everyone in a position of authority has feet of clay.
Conclusions
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Making the Case for Equity REITs
We believe equity REITs should be part of a long-term investment strategy based on diversification, yield, inflation protection, improving fundamentals and strong corporate governance.
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Acquiring Minds
Recently there have been a number of mergers and acquisitions among technology companies that are focused on serving the needs of advisors.
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E&O Errors
As I sit on my return flight to the United States from Italy, it saddens me to report that I was not successful in becoming the securities commissioner of Positano or Venice, the Italians insisting that no such position exists.
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Three Rules of Community Networking
In the last few years, investors have undergone a sort of psychological paradigm shift.
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Use Exponential Difference Makers to Grow Your Business
As a child, we learned that any number multiplied by itself several times in a row will generate a much bigger number: for example, 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32.
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Few Buyers for Exiting Broker-Dealers
While rumors persist about possible suitors for Securities America, Morgan Keegan and other broker-dealers on the market, experts say the pool of buyers has shrunk dramatically over the past few years.
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Microsite, Macro Goals
Planners know the needs of same-sex couples are quite different from those of opposite-sex couples—in execution, although not in substance.
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The Perils of Financial Geography
As an industry, we are blessed with an abundance of creative home office types who cleverly apply mathematics to convince even sophisticated advisors that they have somehow managed to squeeze more than 100 cents out of a dollar.
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Equal Time
In the news section of this month’s issue, you’ll see the listing of AdvisorOne’s 50 Top Women in Wealth.
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Event Spotlight
Retirement Income Symposium
October 10-11, 2013
Hyatt Regency, Boston, MA
The symposium provides practical, innovative solutions to current industry challenges and provides advisors clear, actionable strategies that they can utilize to address their clients' needs.
Resource Library
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