The profitability of business ethics

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

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Tags: Business Ethics, Profitability
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The ultimate motivator to take action

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

This arti­cle is by Robert Mid­dle­ton of Action Plan Mar­ket­ing. Orig­i­nally pub­lished in Hors­es­mouth, it is repro­duced with his permission.

Inten­tions are not actions. If you are for­ever mak­ing plans to upgrade your mar­ket­ing but never doing it, you need to up the stakes. Play­ing it safe will only get you what you’ve been getting.

If you’ve pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, here’s how to get out of your rut.

When it comes to pro­mot­ing their busi­ness, a large num­ber of advi­sors are look­ing for what I call “silver-bullet marketing”.

A sil­ver bul­let is that mag­i­cal, all-in-one solu­tion that will cure all your mar­ket­ing or business-development ills in one shot. It’s what we all want and hope we’ll find one lucky day.

Well, sorry to dis­ap­point you, but there ain’t no sil­ver bullet.

Stop play­ing it safe

How­ever, there is a mar­ket­ing approach that is more pow­er­ful, more cer­tain and more reli­able than any sliver bul­let. It’s some­thing that we all have the power to imple­ment imme­di­ately and it almost always pro­duces favourable results.

I call it “bet-your-car marketing.”

Most human activites are based on try­ing. That is, we try to pro­duce results. We make an effort. We strug­gle. We give it our best shot. You know the drill:

“I tried to get that arti­cle writ­ten, but I’m just not a very good writer.” Or “I tried to do speak­ing engage­ments but nobody returned my call” or ” I tried to get my newslet­ter started but the tech­ni­cal part is just too complicated.”

(Note from Dan Richards - To this list could be added ”I meant to get around to call­ing that dif­fi­cult client I’m over­due to get in touch with or to fol­low up with that prospect I met at the lunch I attended, but I got dis­tracted by other things that came up.”)

Try­ing includes a degree of effort accom­pa­nied by an excuse.

Imag­ine this sce­nario instead: You are talk­ing to friend or per­haps your busi­ness coach. (Feel free to sub­sti­tute any project you are pro­cras­ti­nat­ing about.)

“I’m going to try to get that arti­cle writ­ten this week.”

“Will you bet your car?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been futz­ing over that arti­cle arti­cle for weeks. Will you bet your car that you’ll com­plete it?”

“Well, like I said, I’ll try my very best. It isn’t easy, you know, and besides, I have of other pri­or­i­ties I’m juggling.”

“Fine, but either you do it or you don’t do it. If you’re going to com­mit to writ­ing it, I sug­gest you make it real and bet your car.”

“What exactly does that mean?!”

“It means that you com­mit to com­plet­ing the arti­cle and if you don’t com­plete it, you for­feit your car. You can give it to a local charity.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m not crazy. At a cer­tain point it takes putting some­thing at stake to get some­thing done. You could ago­nize over that arti­cle for another sev­eral weeks or you could just write it. And if you don’t, you lose your car. Let me tell you, if you put your car at stake, don’t you think the arti­cle would get done?”

“I guess it would. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“No, because you’re rea­son­able. And when you’re rea­son­able, you always have an excuse that under­mines your goals. Every­one buys into those excuses. But can you hon­estly say that the excuses are as ful­fill­ing as actu­ally com­plet­ing the article?”

“No, I guess not. But what if I make the bet and I don’t suc­ceed? What if I lose the car?”

“Well, that’s the game you’ve been play­ing for years. You always hedge your bets; you never com­mit. You play it safe. And look at your results. It’s time to change the game. Will you bet your car or keep mak­ing excuses?”

“OK, I’ll do it.”

Mak­ing this work for you

I’ve actu­ally had sim­i­lar con­ver­sa­tions with clients. A cou­ple of weeks ago, I put pres­sure on a group I’m work­ing with. In that case, they didn’t bet their cars, but they agreed to write checks to cer­tain unsa­vory polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions if they didn’t com­plete the projects they were pro­cras­ti­nat­ing about.

Guess what? Every­one got their projects done.

Want to pro­duce break­through results in your mar­ket­ing? Want to accom­plish things you thought were impos­si­ble? Want to step out­side your com­fort zone and make some­thing happen?

Don’t wait for a sil­ver bul­let. Bet your car instead.

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Tags: Action Plan Marketing, Acton, Business Coach, Business Development, Excuse, Favourable Results, Horsesmouth, Human Activites, Ills, Imagine, Lucky Day, Lunch, Marketing Business, Marketing Development, Met, Motivator, Newsletter, Plan Marketing, Robert Middleton, Silver Bullet, Speaking Engagements
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FaceOff: IIROC vs. MFDA

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

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Gain Clients’ Trust: It’s What You Do, Not What You Say

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

This arti­cle is a guest con­tri­bu­tion by Bill Bachrach, of Bachrach & Asso­ciates, author of the Values-Based Sell­ing programs.

Seven tips for con­vey­ing your competence.

Being com­pe­tent is an impor­tant fac­tor in build­ing trust. Peo­ple sel­dom believe you’re com­pe­tent based on what you say about your cre­den­tials, expe­ri­ence, invest­ment phi­los­o­phy, or back­ground. They believe you’re com­pe­tent based on your behav­ior. As essay­ist, Ralph Waldo Emer­son wrote, “What you do shouts so loudly in my ears I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

This arti­cle addresses how you con­vey your com­pe­tence in the first meet­ing. Assum­ing you actu­ally are com­pe­tent, trust­wor­thy, and knowl­edge­able about finan­cial plan­ning, invest­ments, and insurance.

1. Com­pe­tent advi­sors ask good ques­tions.
John Scul­ley, for­mer CEO of Apple says, “The solu­tions are often obvi­ous once you get the ques­tions right.” Suc­cess­ful peo­ple mea­sure your com­pe­tence by the qual­ity of your ques­tions.
My favorite ques­tions to ask in the client inter­view (with prospects and clients) have been pub­lished in indus­try arti­cles over the years and it begins with, “What’s impor­tant about money to you?”

Your prospects can tell you are com­pe­tent because they do all the talk­ing about what’s impor­tant to them (their val­ues), goals, and where their money is now.

Any B.S. artist can tell a good story, but only com­pe­tent peo­ple know the right questions.

2. Com­pe­tent advi­sors dis­cover all the money in the first interview.

Pre­scrip­tion before diag­no­sis is mal­prac­tice. Incom­pe­tent advi­sors give advice with­out know­ing where all the money is.

Your prospects and clients can tell you are com­pe­tent because you expect them to tell you where all their money is.

3. Com­pe­tent finan­cial advi­sors have a sys­tem for help­ing their clients.

We rec­om­mend and teach the Finan­cial Road Map sys­tem. This sys­tem cre­ates a visu­ally com­pelling pic­ture to help clients make intel­li­gent finan­cial choices. You don’t have to use my Finan­cial Road Map sys­tem, but I encour­age you to have a sys­tem and use it.

The client inter­view is a repet­i­tive motion exer­cise like a golf swing or a ten­nis stroke. Lee Trevino once remarked, “The best swing is one that repeats. I used to hit a one iron 260 yards through a door­way. Now I can hit it through a keyhole.”

Com­pe­tent advi­sors have a sys­tem that repeats itself with every prospect and client.

–Adver­tise­ment–

4. Com­pe­tent advi­sors make it sim­ple.
The most com­pe­tent finan­cial advi­sors sim­plify their client’s lives. Wealthy, busy peo­ple prob­a­bly do not want to have 7 accounts at dif­fer­ent firms. More likely, they sim­ply have yet to find a com­pe­tent advi­sor they trust who has sim­pli­fied their life.

David Bach with Dean Wit­ter is a Trusted Advi­sor Coach par­tic­i­pant who related this story on Harry Pap­pas’ “Secrets of Suc­cess” audio cas­sette pro­gram. It illus­trates the points about dis­cov­er­ing all the money, hav­ing a sys­tem, and sim­pli­fy­ing lives.

“Bill Bachrach helped me change my per­spec­tive on the best thing to do for my clients. I now insist they tell me where all their money is and use the Finan­cial Road Map. I was afraid this might turn some peo­ple off. Actu­ally, the oppo­site is true. A sem­i­nar attendee came to my office with $10,000 to invest. When I told him I couldn’t take his $10,000 until I under­stood him bet­ter and knew where all his assets are he was ini­tially reluc­tant. No other bro­ker had ever refused his money. He must have been impressed with my rea­son­ing because he opened his brief­case and removed state­ments from a dozen dif­fer­ent firms totally almost a mil­lion dol­lars. His invest­ments and his life were com­pli­cated. We con­sol­i­dated his assets into one account and cre­ated a strat­egy for his invest­ments to work in har­mony toward his goals and val­ues. Instead of $10,000, I opened almost a mil­lion dol­lar account and helped my client have a sim­pler life.”

The more wealthy, suc­cess­ful, or “sophis­ti­cated” your client, the more they appre­ci­ate simplicity.

5. Com­pe­tent advi­sors are thor­ough.

In addi­tion to hav­ing a chap­ter in the Values-Based Sell­ing book, and in the June 1997 Ticker mag­a­zine, I wrote about the power of audio tap­ing your inter­views. Audio tap­ing con­veys com­pe­tence. An incom­pe­tent finan­cial pro­fes­sional would never cre­ate a per­ma­nent record of their incom­pe­tence on audio tape. Con­versely, a thor­ough, com­pe­tent advi­sor would nat­u­rally record the con­ver­sa­tion so they could refer to it to do the best job pos­si­ble for the client.

Com­pe­tent advi­sors are obses­sively thorough.

6. Com­pe­tent advi­sors are famil­iar and com­fort­able with finan­cial doc­u­ments like tax returns, insur­ance poli­cies, bank state­ments, bro­ker­age state­ments, real estate, wills, trusts, etc.

Your clients will be impressed by how well you han­dle their doc­u­ments. In the Trusted Advi­sor Coach pro­gram we prac­tice, on video tape, han­dling all the doc­u­ments an ideal client should bring to the first interview.

I dis­cov­ered that many suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sors would not know what to do with many doc­u­ments if their prospects brought them in. Rather than look fool­ish in front of the client, they don’t ask for them. Being able to han­dle the doc­u­ments effec­tively increases your con­fi­dence to ask your prospects to bring them in.

Com­pe­tent advi­sors know how to han­dle the documents.

7. Com­pe­tent advi­sors are totally present.

One of my coaches, Max Dixon, asks, “Can you show up ready to be no place else?”

This means ask­ing a ques­tion dur­ing the ini­tial inter­view and being com­pletely present for the answer, not think­ing about the next ques­tion or the next comment.

Can you show up ready to be no place else? The com­pe­tent advi­sor does.

In sum­mary, you have to be com­pe­tent. Then your clients must be able to see, hear, and expe­ri­ence your com­pe­tence from the very first moment they inter­act with you. Before they dis­cover your true com­pe­tence by work­ing with you they must believe you are com­pe­tent in order to give you their money in the first place.

Don’t be a sales­per­son. Be a Trusted Advisor.

Bill Bachrach is the author of four industry-specific books, includ­ing the newest book, It’s All About Them; How Trusted Advi­sors Lis­ten for Suc­cess. His third book, Values-Based Finan­cial Plan­ning: The Art of Cre­at­ing an Inspir­ing Finan­cial Strat­egy, is writ­ten for the clients of finan­cial professionals.

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Tags: Bill Bachrach, Building Trust, Ceo Of Apple, Client Interview, Competence, Credentials, Diagnosis, Ears, Essayist, Financial Advisors, Financial Choices, Financial Planning, First Meeting, Industry Articles, Investment Philosophy, John Sculley, Malpractice, Prospects, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Road Map
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When clients face tough decisions

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Ear­lier in May, I talked about how advi­sors can be a resource to clients on some of their dif­fi­cult per­sonal deci­sions, not just those related to finances.

As a case in point, I received a ter­rific response to a series of inter­views on strate­gies for wealthy fam­i­lies to raise happy and suc­cess­ful chil­dren, fea­tur­ing a psy­chol­o­gist who worked for many years for the Bev­er­ley Hills School District.

Of course, it’s not just kids that cause clients stress  - few things are more dif­fi­cult than tough con­ver­sa­tions with par­ents about mov­ing into a nurs­ing home or hav­ing to deal with a dis­ease such as Alzheimer’s.

Today I fea­ture two resources that advi­sors can share with clients fac­ing those conversations.

The first is an excel­lent arti­cle from the New York Times on things to look for in a nurs­ing home, includ­ing a detailed four page checklist.

New York Times — Pick­ing a nurs­ing home http://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​1​0​/​0​3​/​2​0​/​h​e​a​l​t​h​/​2​0​p​a​t​i​e​n​t​.​h​t​m​l​?​s​r​c​=​m​e​&​a​m​p​;​r​e​f​=​h​o​m​e​p​age

Nurs­ing home check­list: http://​www​.medicare​.gov/​n​u​r​s​i​n​g​/​c​h​e​c​k​l​i​s​t​.​pdf

And here’s a link to a spe­cial report on Alzheimer’s that appeared in Wall Street Jour­nal Smart Money : http://​www​.smart​money​.com/​p​e​r​s​o​n​a​l​-​f​i​n​a​n​c​e​/​e​l​d​e​r​-​c​a​re/

Finally, today’s email fea­tures a series of short inter­views with an elder­care expert on talk­ing to par­ents about their hous­ing, finan­cial and health situations.

To view those inter­views, go to www​.cli​entin​sights​.ca.

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Tags: Beverley Hills, Case In Point, Cause Clients, Conversations, Elder Care, Health Situations, Home Checklist, Medicare, New York Times, Nursing Home, Page Checklist, Personal Decisions, Personal Finance, Psychologist, Smart Money, Smartmoney, Talking To Parents, Terrific Response, Wall Street Journal, Wealthy Families
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Succession planning: Securing your future

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

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Step-by-step selling

Monday, May 24th, 2010

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Getting Prospecting into First Gear

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

In Jan­u­ary, I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a vet­eran advi­sor about prospecting.

“A year ago, all kinds of new clients were com­ing on board — I was fir­ing on all cylin­ders” he said. “Today, I’m hav­ing trou­ble get­ting prospect­ing into first gear. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and I’m not sure how to get out.”

In response, we spent a few min­utes sketch­ing out a plan for two low cost prospect­ing lunches, with six sim­ple steps tak­ing ten to twelve hours per lunch.

The advi­sor got a good response to the ini­tial lunches — since then, he’s held six sim­i­lar sessions.

The core idea is to run infor­mal lunches at your office for clients — to which you invite selected prospects.  These lunches achieve the dual pur­pose of giv­ing clients the chance to have their ques­tions answered and get­ting in front of prospects. The think­ing behind this approach was cov­ered in an arti­cle as well as video and audio inter­views (http://​www​.strate​gicim​per​a​tives​.ca/​b​l​o​g​/​?​p​=​150).

If you share this advisor’s strug­gles in get­ting prospect­ing into first gear, here’s an overview of how the lunch pro­gram works.  At the bot­tom of this arti­cle, you’ll find a link to a step-by-step guide with scripts, tem­plates and more details on mak­ing these lunches hap­pen.Step One:  Get­ting started

The first step is to book your board­room for two lunches — the first in three to four weeks, the other in about six weeks. Note that your board­room will ide­ally have ten chairs — one for you, six for clients and three for prospects.

While you’ve got your cal­en­dar out, book off the time required to make the lunches happen:

This week:  Sched­ule two ninety minute time slots in the next two or three days — these are to extend invitations.

Next week: Book another two hour slot in the mid­dle of next week to fol­low up with peo­ple who are attend­ing and begin prepar­ing your remarks .

The week before the lunch: Block off two hours to prac­tice your talk and an hour to attend to final details.

The week of the lunch:  Book off two hours for the lunch itself and an hour on the day after the lunch to fol­low up with peo­ple who attended.

That’s eleven hours in total — add in one more as a con­tin­gency and you can make the first lunch hap­pen with a time com­mit­ment of twelve hours. Note that future lunches will take less time.

Step Two: Com­pil­ing the guest list

Start by going through your top clients. Think about whether your office is con­ve­nient to them and if this is the kind of thing they might be inter­ested in.  Be sure to avoid any­one who is par­tic­u­larly anx­ious or neg­a­tive whose mood might infect the group.

Given how busy peo­ple are, you need to invite at least thirty clients to be con­fi­dent you’ll fill your two lunches. It’s not uncom­mon for a client who accepts your invi­ta­tion to have to can­cel — to be rea­son­ably con­fi­dent of six clients in the room, you need to have seven agree to attend.

Next turn to prospects you might invite to sit in. Reflect on peo­ple you know who’ve asked you ques­tions about the mar­ket — per­haps from your golf club or a com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion you belong to or maybe some­one you talked to in the past who didn’t want to meet at the time. Ide­ally, you should have fif­teen names on the prospect invi­tee list.

Don’t over­think the invite list — give your­self a max­i­mum of thirty min­utes to put the names together.

Step Three: Extend­ing invitations

Start by call­ing the clients on the list.  Note that you don’t have time to invite peo­ple sequen­tially — wait­ing to hear back from the first seven peo­ple before con­tact­ing the oth­ers.  Con­tact every­one on your list — worst case you’ll fill the two lunches and have to book another one to han­dle the over­flow demand.

The invi­ta­tion is very straight­for­ward — you’re host­ing an infor­mal lunch at your office to talk about the mar­ket out­look for the period ahead and thought they might be interested.

Once you’ve worked through your list of clients, it’s time to shift your focus to prospects:

”I’m host­ing an infor­mal sand­wich lunch at my office for clients inter­ested in hear­ing about where the mar­ket is today and our best think­ing for the future. While this lunch is pri­mar­ily for clients, I do have a spot avail­able and was won­der­ing if you’d like to sit in.”

If a prospect accepts the invi­ta­tion, ask them about any spe­cific ques­tions they’d like to see cov­ered — and also find out what kind of sand­wich they’d like.

See the detailed imple­men­ta­tion guide at the bot­tom of the arti­cle for draft scripts for these calls.

Step Four: Recon­tact­ing peo­ple who are attending

At the end of week one, you should have all seven client slots filled for the first lunch and a com­mit­ment from one or two prospects — you should also be well on your way to fill­ing the client spots for the sec­ond lunch.

Use the 90 minute time slot you’ve booked in week two to fol­low up with the clients who com­mit­ted to attend, with a view to see­ing if some­one they know might be inter­ested in join­ing them.

In that fol­low up call to clients attend­ing the lunch, ask them what spe­cific ques­tions they’d like you to cover and what kind of sand­wich they’d like. Then go on to say that while the lunch is designed for clients, you do have one spot avail­able — and won­der if some­one they know might be inter­ested in join­ing them.

This works espe­cially well if you’re able to point to a spe­cific can­di­date they might invite — their part­ner, a col­league at work or fam­ily mem­ber. You could also ask whether it would be okay if you gave their accoun­tant or lawyer a call, say­ing that this client is attend­ing a lunch at your offices and thought their accoun­tant or lawyer might be inter­ested in com­ing as well.

Step Five: Mak­ing the lunch happen

The week before the lunch, send a final email con­firm­ing details, along with an arti­cle that might set the stage for your talk.

When peo­ple arrive for the lunch, you’re going to have assigned seat­ing with the sand­wich and drink they’ve requested. Don’t stint on the cost of the sand­wiches — spend an extra $30 to get them from the high­est qual­ity deli in your community.

The key to mak­ing this lunch work is that the clients and prospects in atten­dance really get a chance to ask ques­tions and have an exchange of views with you (and in some cases each other.)

Your kick­off sets the stage for this. Your remarks should run no more than twenty min­utes; the key is to make them quite infor­mal — it’s fine to have a few pow­er­point slides to sup­port your point of view but it should only be a few, this should not be one of those “death by pow­er­point” sessions.

One approach is to struc­ture your talk around the ques­tions that peo­ple attend­ing told you they’d like addressed.

For exam­ple, you could start by saying:

“In advance of today’s lunch, a num­ber of you sug­gested ques­tions you’d like to see answered. Here are the five ques­tions I’ve going to cover today.”

Then list the ques­tions — and if appro­pri­ate refer to the peo­ple who raised them.

Be sure to mon­i­tor the time — if you promised you’d get peo­ple out at 1:30, you need to deliver on that.

When you’re wrap­ping up, ask peo­ple to fill out a short eval­u­a­tion form ask­ing for their feed­back. (A sam­ple eval­u­a­tion form is included in the detailed imple­men­ta­tion guide at the bot­tom of the article.)

Close by men­tion­ing that you are doing another lunch in two weeks time  and that you still have a cou­ple of spots left — should peo­ple know some­one who might be inter­ested in attend­ing, you’d be pleased to invite their friend along.

Step Six: Fol­low­ing up afterwards

The final step is to call every­one who attended the lunch the very next day — you can do every­thing else right but with­out fol­low up are unlikely to see results.

For prospects, refer to the eval­u­a­tion form they com­pleted and any sug­ges­tions they made. Ask them if they have any ques­tions you weren’t able to get around to — and then ask if they’d be inter­ested in sit­ting down in the next two or three weeks to talk about their spe­cific sit­u­a­tion. Even if they respond not right now, you can offer to put them on the dis­tri­b­u­tion list for infor­ma­tion you send to clients and ask for per­mis­sion to fol­low up in a few months.

For clients, thank them for attend­ing, ask about any ques­tions you didn’t cover and dis­cuss any sug­ges­tions they made in the eval­u­a­tion form for future lunches. Reit­er­ate the point that should they run into any­one who might find a lunch such as the one they attended valu­able, to let you know and you’d be happy to invite them along. If you have iden­ti­fied some­one they’re con­nected to as a poten­tial can­di­date, you could ask the ques­tion specif­i­cally: “What about your brother John, do you think he might be interested?”

The good news is that each lunch you do becomes eas­ier and takes less time — your ulti­mate goal is to build these lunches into a rou­tine that get auto­mat­i­cally repeated.

For advi­sors inter­ested in more details on pulling these lunches off, here’s a detailed imple­men­ta­tion guide with scripts and tem­plates you can mod­ify for your pur­poses. (Should you be unable to open this guide, email laura@getkeepclients.com to have it emailed to you.)

Get­ting prospect­ing into first gear step by step guide.doc

In prospect­ing as in so much in life, it’s all about build­ing momen­tum. There is no magic to attract­ing new clients — it comes down to pick­ing the prospect­ing approach right for you and putting con­sis­tent effort against it.

Whether it be this strat­egy or another one, com­mit to get­ting your prospect­ing into first gear in the next thirty days; it could be a cru­cial step in assur­ing the long term health of your business.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit http://​www​.get​keep​clients​.com.

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Tags: Advertisement, Audio Interviews, Blog, Boardroom, Chairs, Core Idea, Dual Purpose, Few Minutes, Firing On All Cylinders, Informal Lunches, Invitations, Lunch Program, Minute Time Slots, Prospects, Scripts, Sessions, Simple Steps, Six Weeks, Templates, Twelve Hours, Www Ca
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Advice for Children Entering University

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

It’s often the lit­tle things that build deep bonds with clients.

For most stu­dents enter­ing col­lege and uni­ver­sity, this fall is at the same time an excit­ing and scary time … and that’s equally true for their parents.

This past Sun­day, the New York Times pub­lished a series of nine short arti­cles titled: “Col­lege advice from peo­ple who’ve been there awhile”, fea­tur­ing advice from some of America’s best known and most respected edu­ca­tors. You’ll find links to those arti­cles below.

If you have clients with chil­dren head­ing off to col­lege or uni­ver­sity this fall, con­sider email­ing these tips, both for them to read and per­haps to pass on to their children

Of course, it’s not just clients with kids enter­ing uni­ver­sity who might appre­ci­ate advice. Here’s an arti­cle from yesterday’s Globe and Mail about a con­ver­sa­tion with teens going back to high school; this might be espe­cially appro­pri­ate for par­ents of 13 to 15 year olds.

http://​www​.the​globe​and​mail​.com/​l​i​f​e​/​f​a​m​i​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​n​s​h​i​p​s​/​s​k​i​p​-​t​h​e​-​m​o​t​i​v​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​t​a​l​k​-​a​s​k​-​h​o​w​-​t​h​e​y​r​e​-​d​o​i​n​g​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​1​2​7​8​0​29/

If you want, you can take this one step fur­ther. Recently, I talked to an advi­sor who makes note of cases where her clients have chil­dren going off to uni­ver­sity. For par­tic­u­larly impor­tant clients, she has her assis­tant go online to that university’s book­store and order sweat­shirts for her clients with that university’s crest on them – when they arrive, she attaches a note of con­grat­u­la­tions and sends them off.

This advi­sor has hosted top clients to din­ners, the­atre evenings and golf games, in some cases cost­ing hun­dreds of dol­lars. In her expe­ri­ence, noth­ing she’s done has given her the same return on the dol­lars invested as these sweat­shirts – she’s got­ten delighted phone calls, notes of thanks, lun­cheon invi­ta­tions and in one case an offer to intro­duce her to her client’s extended fam­ily and work colleagues.

Smart advi­sors look for every oppor­tu­nity to let clients know they’re think­ing of them and to tap into impor­tant moments in clients’ lives. Con­sider whether there are some cases where the start of uni­ver­sity this fall pro­vides that opportunity.

New York Times

Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 5, 2009

Edu­ca­tors give some help­ful advice to young adults enter­ing school this fall.

The Hunt for a Good Teacher By STANLEY FISH
Find the best teach­ers and take a writ­ing class.

An Argu­ment Worth Hav­ing By GERALD GRAFF
Cut through the jar­gon, ana­lyze and debate.

Get Lost. In Books. By HAROLD BLOOM
Read the authors that are dif­fi­cult and demand rereading.

Don’t Alien­ate Your Pro­fes­sor By CAROL BERKIN
Once in class, participate.

Play Pol­i­tics By GARRY WILLS
Have pas­sion for learn­ing and for your beliefs.

Go the Wrong Way By MARTHA NUSSBAUM
Think about life, not just a job.

Off-Campus Life By JAMES Mac­GRE­GOR BURNS
Read a good news­pa­per; it will be your path to the world at large.

My Crush on DNA By NANCY HOPKINS
Fall in love with your vision of the future.

Change Course By STEVEN WEINBERG
Col­lege is never what one expects.

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Tags: 15 Year Olds, 99s, Bonds, College Advice, Crest, Evenings, Globe And Mail, Golf Games, Luncheon Invitations, New York Times, Notes Of Thanks, Online Bookstore, Oppo, Parents, Relationships, Scary Time, Series Of Nine, Sweatshirts, University Bookstore, Work Colleagues
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