http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com EncoreAdvisor.com en-us Webmaster@EncoreAdvisor.com http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/386.cfm A couple years ago, one of my members suggested that sending a friendly reminder about Daylight Saving Time would be a nice "client touch". I agreed. So I wrote a short letter quoting Benjamin Franklin who is given credit for coming up with the idea. I recently updated the letter for 2010. If you're looking for a simple way to remind your clients that they're always in your thoughts, mail or email this letter to your clients this week. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/385.cfm Last week, I received a call from a member who was looking for a way to strengthen his relationships with CPAs during the tax season. In addition to making outgoing referrals, this financial advisor wanted to encourage the CPAs with whom he networked to remember him if they ran into tax clients who needed some investment or financial planning help. This coaching session contains a "sweet" idea. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/384.cfm Helping your clients organize their tax information presents you with a chance to provide a value-added service while potentially uncovering new business opportunities. This coaching session gives you a template for a personal client letter and a tax planning "tip sheet". This session is part of our ongoing "Delivering the Ultimate Client Experience" series. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/383.cfm If you're working on a 2010 kickoff letter for your clients, you'll find the template in this coaching session to be most helpful. In this easy to customize letter, you'll be able to give your clients a big picture overview of the year ahead and begin setting the stage for your review meetings. This letter can be sent with either version of our "2010 Preferred Client Questionnaire" or as a standalone letter. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/382.cfm The start of a new year is a perfect time to update your client profiles. You have an opportunity to uncover new objectives, discover new sales opportunities, solicit referrals and, of course, continue delivering the Ultimate Client Experience. This coaching session contains the 2010 version of our brief client letter and a simplified client questionnaire. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/381.cfm These days, retirement is on every boomer's mind. And many folks who are nearing their retirements are questioning whether they will ever retire. This follow-up coaching session offers some more tips on how to help your clients and prospects assess their retirement income needs. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/380.cfm Our letters are one of the most popular features of our website. They are easy to download, customize and merge with your client (or prospect) mailing list. Because they are written by authors who have years of compliance experience, they usually fly through any compliance approval procedures. Based on a recent request from one of our members, I wrote two year-end letters to offer your clients (and prospects) holiday greetings. I hope you'll put these greetings to work as standalone letters or as the personalized messages you add to your cards, notes and emails. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/379.cfm These days, retirement is on every boomer's mind. And with good reason. With the economic meltdown of the past year wreaking havoc on retirement savings, unemployment hovering near the 10% mark and Social Security and other government programs under pressure, your clients may be experiencing a trifecta of bad news. Many folks who are nearing their retirements are questioning whether they will ever retire. This coaching session offers some tips on how to help your clients and prospects assess their retirement income needs; it includes a downloadable letter to help get this discussion started. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/194.cfm As we approach the Thanksgiving season, take the opportunity to thank those who are important to both your professional and personal lives. This coaching session contains some helpful tips. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/378.cfm Sometimes financial advisors allow their referral strategies to become cumbersome and clunky. For some unknown reason, you overcomplicate them. You forget the value of the work you do for your clients, so you apologetically stumble through your referral conversation. Or you don't have one at all. If your approach to referrals needs some fine-tuning, this blog post offers four important questions that should help you get your referral conversations back on track. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/129.cfm Expertise based lead generation is a powerful tool for building a prospect pipeline full of qualified future clients. What's more, these prospective clients are looking for professionals with your know-how. If your prospect database isn't where you think it should be, take some time to build a simple campaign. When you do this with consistency, you will find it much easier to keep your calendar full of appointments and your business will grow. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/106.cfm This article is part of our "Quick Campaigns" series. Each piece in this sequence is written in response to requests from our members and focuses on providing actionable strategies for improving client communication or prospecting effectiveness. In this reply we offer help to a member who is having difficulty keeping up with his prospect database. We offer a step-by-step solution along with a sample telephone script and letter. This campaign is simple; share it with your team and get started right away - the results will speak for themselves. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/374.cfm For financial advisors, ongoing client communication leads to greater loyalty and more business opportunities. Regular communication means more sales, assets and referrals. The "trick" is coming up with a system that makes your commitment to communication simpler and more consistent. This coaching session contains a video web class that walks you through a 5 step process for building "The Ultimate Client Communication System." http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/373.cfm Client communication should not be an accident. It needs to be delivered consistently and in many different formats. When it's done well, it pays big dividends. This coaching session contains an update of our popular client communication planning tool, with letters, campaigns and tools for each month of the year http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/371.cfm Fun letters can be a big part of Delivering the Ultimate Client Experience. They're a great way to let your clients know that you're thinking about them - spreading appreciation for their business. This coaching session contains a simple "Halloween Letter" that you can download, edit to your liking and merge with your client mailing (or emailing) list. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/370.cfm An advocate is a person or group of people who have an almost inexplicable desire to see you and your practice succeed; they are promoters, campaigners, and supporters of your business. Most of us would benefit from building greater advocacy in our businesses. When you know the steps, it's a simple, quick and efficient strategy for taking your practice to a new level of success. You could completely eliminate all of the other marketing and prospecting you're doing (and save a bunch of time and money). This coaching session contains a 30-minute video that walks you through our advocacy process. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/369.cfm 2009 Version: Going the extra mile to help your clients with tax planning is an important part of "Delivering the Ultimate Client Experience". This activity can also help you "Treat Your Top Prospects Like Clients". This week's coaching session is an update to a successful client AND prospect campaign we have delivered to our website members each of the last four years. Put it to work to develop greater loyalty and uncover new business opportunities. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/368.cfm Evaluate is the final stage of the ENCORE Approach; it's where you assess yourself, your team and your practice. As we head into the final months of 2009, many advisors are wondering where their practices stand in relation to their peers. We recently conducted a simple survey to help gain some perspective; this coaching session contains some of our initial results. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/366.cfm At EncoreAdvisor.com, we take pride in offering our members our most up-to-date resources for growing and improving your practices. As your "virtual coach", we want to be your partners in success. So we recently redesigned the layout of our website to make it even easier to navigate. We want to be sure that all of our members are aware of the many tools, tips, campaigns and ideas we make available through our weekly coaching sessions. Take some time to read this article and view the accompanying Web Class; we're certain you'll get even more out of your membership. http://www.EncoreAdvisor.com/members/365.cfm At Encore Partners, we strive to help financial advisors create world-class businesses. The system that we've created to guide our clients through this process is called the ENCORE Approach. By applying the ENCORE Approach to your practice, you are well on your way to achieving world-class status. You are generating "encores." Our approach is flexible and easy to understand. To get started, you need to ask yourself, "What is my ENCORE score?" This coaching session contains an article as well as a 10-minute Web Class which detail the ENCORE Approach; it also includes our ENCORE Scorecard so you can accurately measure your own ENCORE score.