January was an interesting month with firms wasting no time introducing new products and advertising campaigns. There was a new contest from Fidelity, new products from American Express and AXA Equitable, a new statement design from Vanguard and upcoming statement changes announced from Barclays and Discover.

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FINRA this week published guidelines around social media in Regulatory Notice 10-06. While I’m no lawyer, there appears to be a few things that were clarified with this notice:

• Records of social media communications will need to be retained as required by Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 under the 34 Act. This alone might scare firms away from using social media tools – especially smaller firms. But, rest assured technology providers will find a solution that will make it easy for firms to do this. Continue Reading »

InvestmentNews posted an interesting piece yesterday covering 8 ways that wholesalers get blacklisted by advisors. There are some good things here, but they are probably best summed up by one comment: “Be a good business partner.”
 
Really, this is professional services selling 101 and the examples posted here should be obvious to anyone who has been in sales. The fact that InvestmentNews posted this shows people are still violating the fundamentals. Some might argue that this is a reason to rely on e-wholesaling. My take is that while there are many reasons to pursue an e-wholesaling strategy, it should not be the only distribution method of your wholesaling team. People are still important, but if your people cannot add value to the relationship they have with advisers, they are wasting your clients’ time and your money.

What do you think? What is the right balance between e-wholesaling and live reps?

Report: Practice Management Tools for Advisors

This report examines the sales topics and practice management materials available behind login on advisor sites. While firms frequently release sales ideas and find ways for advisors to sell their products, back-office issues frequently go ignored. Since practice management skills are essential for building a business, firms should take the time to provide advisors with tips for gaining and retaining clients, in addition to standard product-selling information.

To read more information, please visit our website.

As 2010 begins, we take a look back at the changes made across the financial services industry in the last month of 2009.

Of particular note, some credit card firms started to get into the holiday spirit with charity-focused giving initiatives and new tools were introduced across several industries.

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With 2010 almost upon us, firms rushed to make their end-of-year changes and introduce new programs.

Chase Introduces New Charitable Initiative through Facebook

Chase’s new Community Giving Program allows customers to vote, through Facebook, for their favorite charities, with top vote-getters receiving donations from Chase. In some ways, Chase’s Community Giving Program is a hybrid of two innovative programs previously introduced by other credit card issuers: Citibank’s Make a Difference program, introduced earlier this year, also utilizes Facebook as a platform through which users can help solicit donations to their favorite charities, while American Express’s Members Project, which ran in 2007 and 2008, allowed card holders to vote for new projects that would be funded by AmEx. Continue Reading »

A recent Schwab survey (discussed in this Financial Planning article) has two interesting data points:

• Less than half of surveyed brokers (46%) feel their employer’s brand helped them attract clients
• More than 80% feel their clients are loyal to them (that is, the advisor) and not the firm

Granted, this was a small survey (200 respondents), but it does highlight one of the central challenges that marketers at wirehouses have: how to achieve the right balance between supporting the advisor and creating loyalty to the firm directly with the investor.

Indeed, during many of our mystery shops over the years, brokers often lead with the value that he or she brings to the relationship over that of the firm. We’ve even had a few brokers tell us, “When it comes down to it, all the firms provide the same thing.” (!)

So the questions firms need to focus on are: Are we providing our advisors with all the tools and resources they need to build and grow their businesses? How can we stand out in the advisors’ minds as the one place to be to become the most successful? What can we do for their clients to make us the firm of choice?

If you would like more information on our services please click here.

As readers of our Credit Card Monitor Update know, Barclay’s recently announced their Gconomy Visa Card, which rewards customers for environmentally friendly actions like recycling. Bank of America also offers an eco-conscious card – the Brighter Planet EarthSmart Points Visa – which works to build renewable energy projects across the US.

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As we mentioned in this week’s Mutual Fund Monitor – Advisor update, Franklin Templeton’s Mark Mobius has entered the social media waters by launching a blog and Twitter profile. Over the past several months, I have had many conversations with mutual fund executives about how best to tackle social media. Indeed, at the recent MFEA Star Awards conference, social media was one of the most-discussed topics. In light of this, it is refreshing to see Franklin Templeton launch this blog and there are some useful takeaways for fund executives to learn from:

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