Posts Tagged ‘Contributor’
Increased Value with Technical Overlays on Internal Research
Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
by Brian Livingston, SIA Charts
In mid October, Bob Simpson, President of Synchronicity Performance Consultants and a regular contributor to Advisor Analyst, published an article entitled “Learn to Ride The Winners and Avoid The Losers”.
This article is a follow-up to Bob’s article to give you additional information about how advisors across North America are using SIACharts to improve their investment process and help clients to achieve their goals through enhanced investment performance.
Regardless of what company you work for, in all likelihood you receive internal research from your firm. Some advisors use this internal research exclusively while others may question the relationship their company has with the recommendations they are internally getting. Some advisors don’t trust their internal research at all, choosing instead to go with an unbiased third party tool for their investment decision making. Normally this research is based on fundamental criteria: P/E ratios, earnings estimates, etc. What is usually lacking from this analysis is the technical side of things. Although some advisors look at technical analysis as some form of voodoo, when taking fundamental analysis and then combining it with technical analysis, you can really get the best of both worlds.
I want to highlight two ways advisors are using technical analysis to overlay with their fundamental research. First, you can combine technical analysis with fundamentals by doing a relative strength analysis on the fundamental choices to help narrow down your investment selection to see which holdings are strong in both worlds. Second, you can compare any two individual holdings against each other to see who the clear winner is.
SIACharts works with professional advisors right across North America, and they specialize in technical analysis on a relative strength basis.
Using their system, we can take your firm’sin-house fundamental rankings and then get SIACharts to do their technical overlay for us. The end result gives us a second list that we can now use as a comparison ranking tool against the fundamentals.
What advisors can then do is cross reference against the two lists to find what is appearing at the top of both. This process focuses our buying opportunities and gives a straight-forward process to use for the timing of the buy/sell of these holdings, which is where technical analysis excels. This helps to minimize the number of choices for your consideration and has helped to minimize risk and increase performance.
Consider the top chart to be the fundamental ranking of a list of recommended stocks by your firm. The second list is the relative strength ranking done by SIACharts. You can see that there are 5 positions in the top 10 of both lists, which helps to guide you to getting into positions that are both ranked fundamentally and technically strong.
Also, you can compare two fundamentally strong holdings you are looking between whether they be two stocks, ETFs, Indexes, or Mutual Funds for a more macro-oriented overview (like IVV vs. AGG) or for more micro-oriented comparisons (like AAPL vs. DELL). For either the individual comparison or for your group of holdings you have ranked, you can alterthe percentage of the individual charting comparisons, thereby effectively altering the timeframe that you may be looking at.By lowering the percentage, we can be more aggressive in your trading/investing style and by increasing the percentage we minimize transactions and are in positions for a longer period of time.
This chart above is showing that U.S. Equities are currently outperforming U.S. Bonds on a 2% comparison chart.
SIACharts has been advising investment advisors across North America for the last six years helping to minimize overall risk and narrow down your investment selections to find outperformance. Using their proprietary relative strength ranking system, SIACharts has been very successful in giving investment professionals a unique and powerful tool to simplify your investment practice. They have worked successfully with the major banks and investment companies across Canada providing these technical overlays for users subscribed to them for their individual firm research reports.
By being able to keep advisors in the strongest choices SIACharts has been able to minimize the risk associated with investment selection, getting advisors out of stocks like Research in Motion and Yellow Media before they crashed, and just as importantly keeping clients out stocks like Manulife and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Some advisors swear by using just fundamental research and other advisors swear by using technical research, but there is growing number of advisors who are actively learning to marry the best of both of these worlds with great results for both themselves and their clients.
Introduction Webinar to SIACharts.com
SIACharts is Canada’s largest and most successful technical analysis advisory website. We actively help advisors across North America better manage their client’s portfolios through risk management, investment selection, portfolio management, and asset class rotation strategies.
This webinar will be an overview of the investment tools and strategies that SIACharts provides for their clients including asset allocation, SIA’s relative strength system in our reports, and portfolio customization. After the overview, we will allow time for questions and answers on any part of the website. We expect this call to be 30 to 40 minutes but have allowed time of up to 1 hour.
Register for a session now by clicking a date below:
Thu, Nov 1, 2012 4:00 PM — 5:00 PM EDT
Tue, Nov 6, 2012 2:00 PM — 3:00 PM EST
Fri, Nov 9, 2012 12:00 PM — 1:00 PM EST
Once registered you will receive an email confirming your registration
with information you need to join the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet
You can also sign up for a free 14-day trial by clicking on the link below:
www.siacharts.com
Copyright © SIA Charts

Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Best Of Both Worlds, Bob Simpson, Brian Livingston, Contributor, Earnings Estimates, Fundamental Analysis, Fundamental Choices, Fundamental Criteria, Fundamental Research, Investment Decision, Investment Performance, Investment Selection, Likelihood, Losers, Party Tool, Performance Consultants, Professional Advisors, Ratios, Relative Strength Analysis, Voodoo
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How One Advisor’s Online Presence Yields Three Clients a Month
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
I’ve had several emails in response to last Thursday’s article on how investors are using LinkedIn to help select advisors. A common theme is the extent to which advisors are frustrated by head office restrictions on their ability to use vehicles like LinkedIn; something which I suspect will change over time.
Today, the focus shifts to how one advisor is capitalizing on his online presence to attract an average of three new clients per month. This has taken place in three steps:
- Building online awareness and driving traffic to his site
- Inviting visitors to his site to sit in on a monthly webinar, typically on a weeknight or Saturday morning
- Following up with investors who sign on for the webinar
Building online awareness:
The first step for this advisor was to become comfortable with the online world. Beginning about eight years ago, he spent several hours a week online visiting different sites. He commented and expressed opinions on things that he read, addressed misconceptions, provided clarification where there was confusion and answered questions.
In 2007, this advisor was approached by the author of one of Canada’s top financial blogs, who had read some of his comments. The advisor was invited to become a regular contributor to this blog.
A couple of things happened. First, with repeated exposure, his visibility on the blog increased. And second, he started to get readers of his comments on the blog visiting the advisor’s site to learn more.
Translating traffic to engagement:
It’s nice to get traffic to your site, but that traffic is of little value if there’s no way to engage visitors.
One solution is to encourage visitors to your site to sign up to receive your online commentaries and other communication.
Or you can do what this advisor did: On his site, he invites visitors to sign up for a free monthly webinar, lasting for one hour and held on a weeknight or Saturday morning. This webinar is purely educational in nature, providing advice on high level financial planning issues and getting into specifics on common behavioural mistakes by investors.
He’ll normally have 10 to 15 prospects sign on for a webinar. There are two big advantages to webinars; from the advisor’s perspective, it allows him to take on clients across Canada, provided that he’s registered in their province. More important, from the investor’s point of view, signing on for a webinar from home is much more convenient and much less threatening than meeting with an advisor in person or attending a seminar.
Converting prospects to clients:
While the webinar is taking place, prospects get an email with a two part form. The first part asks for feedback on the webinar; the second invites prospects to request a telephone call to explore the possibility of working together.
About 70% of people who attend the webinar request that call so anywhere from seven to ten prospects take that next step. During that call, one of the members of this advisor’s team tries to get a sense of whether there is a possible fit. For example, this advisor requires all new clients to go through development of a financial plan with him and one of the two planners he has on staff.
He also limits his practice to clients who commit to investing all of their long term investments with him; given that the online space features many do-it-yourself investors, that’s a deal breaker for some investors (although investors who are truly self-directed will generally screen themselves out before they get to the phone call.) Ultimately, about half of the prospects who request a phone call become clients, yielding three to five new clients monthly.
Being an advisor gives you scope to experiment with different approaches to communicating with both existing and prospective clients. This advisor’s approach won’t be a fit for most advisors, but consider whether you can apply some lessons from his success in engaging prospects who visit his site to your business.

Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Blog, Blogs, Canada, Clarification, Confusion, Contributor, Extent, Focus, Investors, Last Thursday, Misconceptions, Online Commentaries, Presence, Saturday Morning, Three Steps, Time Today, Traffic, Visibility, Webinar, Weeknight
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Three Steps to Effective To-do Lists
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
For the past few years I’ve been a regular contributor to Horsesmouth, the leading online practice management resource for US financial advisors. Recently, the site featured an article by U.S. consultant Robert Middleton outlining three simple steps to making to-do lists more effective.
The article is reprinted below.
To see more of Robert Middleton’s work and get a free copy of his report on attracting high net worth clients, click here:
http://actionplan.com/home
And click here for a free 45 day trail to Horsesmouth:
http://www.horsesmouth.com/public/freetrial/ftjoin.aspx
By Robert Middleton
Stressed out by the daily contemplation of all you have to do? Get out from under in three smart steps and you’ll soon see order forming from the chaos.
It’s vital to learn about and understand the principles of marketing and the strategies and processes used to implement them effectively.
But I call that “The Easy Part.”
The hard part is implementing what you already know. And there seem to be 1,000 things conspiring to prevent us from putting our knowledge into action.
One of the biggest hurdles is simply managing projects and time. There is a simple but powerful system that really works to keep on top of and move forward with the zillion things you have on your plate.
I hate to lead with the negative, but…here we go. A few things you’re probably doing wrong:
You have a huge list of things to do and you look at it daily. Or perhaps it’s gotten so overwhelming you don’t look at it at all.
You don’t have a weekly plan for things you are committed to doing this week no matter what.
Your daily to-do list, if you have one, is way too long and is not integrated into your daily schedule.
I’ll give you solutions to all of these problems, but the first thing to remember is that you don’t have to work insanely hard to get a lot done. I’m someone who gets a lot done, but I don’t go crazy getting it all done, and I rarely feel overwhelmed.
The big key is priorities. That is, you want to be working on big things that move your business forward. Not a lot of things, but the few things that really matter.
So that brings us to…
Solution #1: Taming your big list
A big list is a list of all the things you have to, want to, and need to do. The problem with a big list is that it’s usually only one list. Big mistake. That big list makes you feel overwhelmed. Every time you look at your big list, you freak out because of all the stuff it contains. You have so much to do!
The thing is you don’t. You can only do what you can do today, and not everything on that big list is for today. So looking at it every day is a formula for losing the game of getting important things done.
Instead, restructure your big list into a whole bunch of project lists. Marketing projects, client projects, admin projects, any kind of project. You can file those project pages in some kind of online system, or do what I do; put them in a good, old-fashioned binder.
When do you look at your project lists? Once a week and only once a week. Never, ever, every single day.
Solution #2: Choosing your weekly list
Very few people form a weekly list, but you must if you want to get control of things once and for all.
Once a week, on Friday afternoon, over the weekend, or first thing Monday morning, you leisurely page through your various project lists. Slow down. Yes, deliberately take the pace down a notchto prevent overwhelm. (This may seem counterintuitive, but when you slow down, you will feel that you have more time to get things done.)
Now, as you notice an item that needs to be done this week or that you really want to get done this week, you write that item in your weekly list.
There’s one restriction; you may choose only 10 items per week. These are not things you’d like to get done. These are things you are committed to getting done. You’re going to plan for them and finish them. That’s your productivity game for the week.
As you go through this process week by week, you may discover you need to put a few less or a few more items on that weekly list to fill your time. You will develop a keener sense of what you can realistically accomplish in one week. Remember, the game is to list only items you really intend to get done. No more, no less.
Solution #3: Cherry-picking for your daily list
Your daily list or as I like to call it, my Daily Control Panel. You can structure it any way you like, but here’s what I do: I use a two-column, full-page daily planner with my appointments for the day on the left and my daily to-dos on the right.
Each morning I open my planner, look at my appointments, and then take a look at my weekly list and ask myself what I can reasonably fit in for today. If I have lots of appointments, I can do less; if fewer appointments, I can do more.
Then my productivity game is to accomplish everything on that list that day. Do I always succeed? No, but I get it done most of the time. With only 10 priority items listed for the week, I have only two to four items to complete every day.
This is calming! It means that I’m not scanning a list of 100 things every day, getting overwhelmed, and just doing things frantically to get them off list (or worse, freezing up under the pressure). That just stresses you out, and you never really feel productive because you’re “just doing things.” You don’t come away with a sense of focused accomplishment.
Instead, I’m moving things forward slowly and surely, step by step. That way, all the big things I want to accomplish get done. And the little things (like answering email) fit in between the cracks, instead of consuming the whole day.
Bottom line: Don’t underestimate the forces conspiring to distract you from important projects and tasks. Make it a priority to get organized and create a workable system for planning and time management. It might be the most powerful marketing activity you do this year.
To see more of Robert Middleton’s work and get a free copy of his report on attracting high net worth clients, click here:
http://actionplan.com/home
And click here for a free 45 day trail to Horsesmouth:
http://www.horsesmouth.com/public/freetrial/ftjoin.aspx

Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Aspx, Contemplation, Contributor, Daily To Do List, Financial Advisors, High Net Worth Clients, Huge List, Hurdles, Knowledge Into Action, Making To Do Lists, Management Resource, Managing Projects, Powerful System, Practice Management, Principles Of Marketing, Robert Middleton, Simple Steps, Smart Steps, Three Steps, Zillion
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From One Generation to the Next
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
The following is based on one of Norm Trainor’s clients, Norm Carroll.
I first met Norm Carroll in May, 2002. I was launching our Practice Development Program sponsored by Great West Life. Norm was one of 32 President’s Council qualifiers who signed up for the program. In our initial interview, Norm explained that his primary motivation was to keep his production level in the top ten of the President’s Council. Like most top advisors, Norm is very competitive. However, maintaining a top ten position was becoming more difficult. Norm was the only producer in his office. The challenge of selling, managing staff and running his business was becoming overwhelming.
As Norm would tell you, it took a while in the Covenant program to grasp the complexities of building his business. After a number of years, it all came together. Norm learned how to work more effectively with his employees. This led to increased production that allowed him to hire another producer. By freeing himself up to do what he does best, the business just took off. As he learned to better manage himself and his business, he was freed up to focus on what was really important.
A new and more powerful purpose emerged in his work and business. His son, Neil, came into the business and succession became the focus. Prior to Neil joining, Norm had restructured the practice. Initially, Norm had a specialist and two assistants. One of the assistants wanted to get into sales. Over the last few years, she has become an important contributor to the growth of the business. This gave Norm experience in managing a producer and prepared him to work with his son. Norm wanted Neil to succeed on his own merit. Neil started on commission and has contributed from day one to the profitability of the firm.
When a son or daughter enters the business, there is an overwhelming sense of pride. It validates your work and your life. Neil learned at the dining room table about the business. When Neil joined, it was a statement that he saw the value of what Norm was doing.
Norm has built a strong team that supports and challenges each other to grow. They feed off each other. The involvement of others has breathed new life into the business. The combination of diverse levels of experience has taken the business to new levels. It is allowing everyone in the business to visualize a much bigger future. It is an exciting place to work.
The firm now has a Business Plan to transition the company to the next generation. Norm has moved from success to significance in his work and to succession in his business.
Norm Trainor is the founder of The Covenant Group, a company specializing in practice development for advisors. For further information, visit his Web site at www.covenantgroup.com.
Follow The Covenant Group at:



Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Complexities, Contributor, Covenant, Dining Room Table, Dining Table, Focus, Initial Interview, Led, Managing Staff, Motivation, Norm Trainor, Overwhelming Sense, Pride, Profitability, S Council, Succession
Posted in My Practice, Norm Trainor | Comments Off
The Advisor Your Clients Crave
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Stephen Wershing’s presentation asks some very important questions for advisors to contemplate. Great questions lead to great answers, and the last position you want to find yourself in, is with a prospective client sitting in front of you, thinking to themselves, “So what?” or worse saying it out loud. The objective of your client communications should be to reinforce to your clients the “Why did I become your client?”, and to keep the “What have you done for me lately?” answers fresh.
Make a point of scanning through the presentation for the questions. If you hover your pointer over “more,” you can full-screen the viewer.
The Advisor Your Clients Crave on Prezi
Stephen Wershing, CFP® coaches financial advisors to be more effective and successful, and attract more clients and referrals, by developing more client-connected and client-driven practices. His process of collecting systematic and objective client feedback and using it to reorient an advisor’s practice effectively engages an advisor’s best clients to drive the strategic plan of the business. He consults financial practitioners on many practice management issues, including strategic differentiation, client advisory boards, and implementing technology. Read more from the author/contributor here.
Source: Stephen Wershing, The Client Driven Practice

Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Advisory Boards, Cfp, Client Communications, Client Feedback, Contributor, Differentiation, Driven Practice, Financial Advisors, Financial Practitioners, Implementing Technology, Nbsp, Objective, Pointer, Practice Management Issues, Presentation, Prospective Client, Referrals, Relationship, Scanning, Strategic Plan
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Insulating clients from media frenzy
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Despite the recent improvement in markets, client anxiety continues at very high levels. Among the things fueling that anxiety are the drop in portfolios since last fall, volatility and continued uncertainty about prospects for the economy.
Another important contributor to anxiety is media coverage that sometimes features alarmist headlines and takes tough news and exaggerates it.
In the face of that, it can be a challenge for advisors to help keep clients calm and with their perspective intact. One thing that can help is providing clients with historical parallels, such as was featured in a column in the Globe and Mail.
–Advertisement–
Advisors who sent this column to clients report a generally positive response. Using a number of examples from the recent past, the column employs the analogy of the swinging of a pendulum to describe sentiment and features the quote “the pendulum never stops in the middle” .
To read the column, go to “The art of ignoring the pendulum’s swing.”

Latest AdvisorAnalyst Practice Growth Stories
Tags: Analogy, Anxiety, Contributor, Economy, Globe And Mail, Globe Mail, Headlines, Mail Advertisement, Media Coverage, Media Frenzy, One Thing, Parallels, Pendulum, Perspective, Portfolios, Prospects, Sentiment, Swing, Target, Uncertainty, Volatility
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