Sound impossible? Not really.

Considering the markets ending up 20% in 2009, one might expect gross production to reflect the same. Not so, according to Carri DegEnhardt-Burke of Degenhardt Consulting in Jersey City who found that just one in 10 brokers enjoyed significant growth in 2009.

So, of those top-line growth oriented advisors, what’s the common theme to “getting it right?”

You might be surprised, but the dynamic branch manager is key! With the downsizing of manager positions, so emerges the “complex manager” and his survival depends on how well he can act as a great coach, mentor, leader, motivator, trainer and advocate.  Read more...

Financial advisory professionals now can use social networking to expand their businesses while still being in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.

The new site, http://www.linkedfa.com/ provides free membership to advisors and their clients. The privately owned Coral Springs, FL based allows financial advisors to retrieve records of communications between an advisor and a client, blog posts, comments and instant messages, along with shared documents and other public or private correspondence.

The site offers privacy settings that allow advisors to have one-on-one conversations with clients, which are logged as well. In addition, compliance officers who join the network can monitor client-advisor correspondence by setting keyword alerts.  Read more...

Here’s what I see this week, and it’s not over yet:

UBS is “dumping” offshore business for US clients, a previous lucrative business. Perhaps some pressure from the Feds/IRS?

Bank stress test results due out in early May are causing more stress, as seen in Monday’s market decline; are their first quarter earning reports “bogus?” (Or merely a result of the stimulus funds “doing their job?”) Whatever, they have been the “spark” plug for the April market rally.

Sun trust Investment Services of Sun Trust Banks to add at least 30 more advisors this year. Bankers continue to “woo” financial advisors.  Read more...

Willis Consulting has experienced the power of networking, but even after nine years of growth and expansion, we still need to remind ourselves each day to get up and leave the computer.

Sure, the real-time searches, the web site postings and blogs, the e-mails, the hundreds of phone calls all serve their purpose in the 21^st century, and you’re dead without them these days, but the proven and real successes come when you are out there the old fashioned way - interacting and meeting face to face…the morning meetings, the double lunch days (company president Bill Willis does these), the afternoon meetings…  Read more...