Investment Advisor September 2011
Cover Story
Take Charge: The 2011 Broker-Dealers of the Year
Announcing the 21st annual Investment Advisor Broker-Dealers of the Year, with insights from the leaders of 2011's winning BDs.
Features
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Endangered Supply
Recovery continues for financial advisory firms.
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Unchecked Growth
Everyone understands, at least in theory, the value of written procedures and processes in an office.
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Getting the Right Clients
As I was sipping my coffee at Starbucks recently, I overheard the following conversation between a financial advisor and his friend:
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North Stars
Conventional market wisdom has always dictated that investors who stick their necks out at a time of great crisis reap great rewards further down the line.
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Options for Growth
Diversification isn’t just for client portfolios.
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The Exemption to the Rule
The long-awaited Tax Relief Act of 2010 is providing an unprecedented opportunity through the end of 2012 for everyone—not just the ultra-wealthy—to benefit from short-term tax breaks impacting gifting and estate planning.
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Create Like Leonardo, Innovate Like Edison
Have you ever wished you could think as creatively as Leonardo da Vinci, who designed a flying machine, invented musical instruments and painted the Mona Lisa?
Beginnings
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The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
One of the highlights of our roundtable discussion with this year’s Broker-Dealer of the Year winners came not from on-the-record comments, but from a casual aside.
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Protecting Retirement Income Post-Downgrade--What Do You Do?
What’s to be done? It’s a loaded question everyone is asking in the wake of the S&P downgrade and resulting market volatility.
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Why REIT ETFs?
Income-starved investors hunting for additional revenue streams pounced on real-estate-investment-trust-related exchange-traded funds this year.
Columns
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The Power of Collaboration
Business leaders worthy of admiration tend to accept constructive input from multiple perspectives, enabling them to collaborate effectively with partners and strengthen the firm’s end results.
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Despite Fiduciary Critics, Schapiro and Borzi Charge Ahead
Two of the nation’s top regulators—Mary Schapiro and Phyllis Borzi—continue to face a barrage of criticism over their decision to do what they believe is best for investors: expanding the definition of who’s a fiduciary.
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PR Primer
I don’t belong to AARP, although I more than qualify and they’ve been sending me membership forms for years.
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Six Ways to Identify Unhappy Employees
In my work with advisory practices, I’ve found that the best way to deal with unhappy employees is to build a firm that creates happy—and great—employees.
Conclusions
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Are You In a Technology Rut?
There is little we do to run a business today that doesn’t involve some form of technology.
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Dodd-Frank’s New Rules for Mid-Sized Advisors
When the Dodd-Frank Act was passed on July 21, 2010, the intent was to create a foundation for financial regulatory reform.
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Prospect Nurturing
Not long ago, an advisor who had seen me speak years ago called for some marketing advice.
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7 Principles for Gaining Control of Your Day
Advisors often ask us, “What’s the single most important thing I can do to be productive and profitable?”
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Investing In Emerging Markets: The Opportunity in Asia
In an abrupt historical shift, emerging markets appear stable relative to developed markets, which are suffering from political and economic issues that used to be the hallmark of emerging markets.
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It’s Coming Back Around Again
As long-time readers realize, it isn’t the first go-around for many of the 2011 Broker-Dealer of the Year winners.
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Liable to Regret?
Your clients, or even your own firm, may be considering self-insuring to cover costs normally covered by health or workers’ compensation insurance, but a recent poll shows that there’s a certain amount of ignorance about the responsibilities and liabilities of a self-insured group’s member firms—and that ignorance is growing.
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Establishing Effective Disability Policies
Readers of “Rx for Disability” (Investment Advisor, July 2011) may come away with the mistaken impression that it is difficult for today’s medical and dental professionals to obtain individual disability income insurance coverage that meets the article’s so-called “gold standard.”
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While Nero Fiddled…
Regardless of your political persuasion, you’re probably a little unhappy at the moment (the moment being Aug. 9).
Sidebar Stories
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What Reps Want From Their Independent BDs
In Investment Advisor's 21st annual readers' poll, the products and services that reps wish their BDs would provide.
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Where Would Reps Go if They Were to Leave Their Current BD?
If reps could affiliate with another broker-dealer, the 453 voters who answered the ballot question said they would go to:
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2011 Broker-Dealers of the Year: The Runners Up
More than 5,000 valid votes were cast in this year's Broker-Dealer of the Year balloting. Here are the second- and third-place BDs in our annual readers' poll.
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Using Edison’s Principles to Define Goals
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Mind Mapping: One Way to Think Like a Visionary
Once you learn how to do mind maps, it can be very useful to share them with colleagues or employees.
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