The Trusted Financial Advisor

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	Bill Bachrach: Principles to Help You Run Your Business

	Every successful company is built on principles. We run ours on 5 that you may find helpful in running yours. #1. Serve clients. We think being of service is a good thing. I don't mean subservient. I mean being of service, being helpful, and providing value. I've heard the business school maxim that every business is in business to make money and I recognize the importance of that, but there is no money to be made without first being of service. Your clients pay you for the value you provide so make it good. We recommend a full-service, comprehensive value proposition. For more about this subject, check out the complimentary webinar at http://www.baivbfp.com/video/webinar_right_value/index.php. #2. Generate revenue. On the one hand you would think this could go without saying. On the other hand, when looking at the calendars of many financial advisors and seeing fairly sparse revenue generation activity one might wonder if more than a few financial advisors could use some training in running a business like a business with a clear objective to generate revenue. And it is a business. It's a wonderful business where you help people and make a difference. However, let's not confuse a business with a charity. You must run your business like a money-making business in order to be able to help people and make that difference in their lives. #3. Be profitable. I don't need to tell you, a financial advisor, about the difference between revenue and profit. And, yet, there are many financial advisors who boast big production, but not much profit. So, a friendly reminder to be profitable can't hurt. Especially in an industry where one good measure of integrity is having enough profit to pay for a great lifestyle today, being completely insured, and having enough to fully fund your own goals and financial independence. People who give others financial advice for a living really should have their own financial house in order, right? #4. Systemize and document everything. This is a very smart idea for several reasons. (a) It will make your life much easier. (b) It will help you serve your clients better, generate more revenue, and be more profitable. (c) It will make you much more effective at hiring, training, leading, and supervising your staff. (d) Your company will be far less dependent on individuals which improves your business valuation. For good information about building systems to run your business check out http://TrustedAdvisorToolkit.com/. #5. Kaizen. This is the Japanese term for "continuous improvement." As too many learned the hard way during the global financial crisis there is no status quo. You are either getting better or you are getting worse. And it's unlikely you are improving by accident. If you are not consciously and purposely improving you are declining. Make a commitment, as the leader of your company, to continuously improve your business, your health, your important relationships, and your mental and spiritual well-being. Expect the same for your team. It's like the old Nike slogan, "there is no finish line." Perhaps these principles and their explanation will help you run a better, more successful business. *Keep moving forward,* Bill Bachrach, CSP, CPAE (Speaker Hall of Fame) Chairman & CEO; Bachrach & Associates, Inc. Author: Values-Based Financial Planning & High Trust Leadership ________________________________________ Contact Anne Bachrach at the Financial Services Speakers Network at anne@fsspeakers.net to schedule Bill Bachrach to speak at your next meeting or conference. Don't miss Bill's presentations at the 2009 FPA Convention October 10th-13th in Anaheim, California. click here to register. Sunday, October 11, 8:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. High-Trust Leadership: Thinking and Acting Like the CEO of a Financial Planning Firm click here Monday, October 12, 10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. Roadmap to Success: Speaking the Language of Trust !RMS at FPA! Be sure to visit us at Exhibit Booth # 527/626. Bill will also be presenting at the Financial Advisor Symposium November 11th in Orlando, Florida. click here to register. Monday, November 9, 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. How to Build and Maintain Client Trust Through All Economic Cycles click here

	Anne Bachrach: The 'Key' to What Really Motivates You to Achieve Your Dreams

	What motivates you? What gets you fired up? What gets your 'juices' flowing? What vision of the future excites you? Being inspired momentarily is easy for many people, but staying motivated long-term can be challenging for some of us. You go through a process of being really motivated in the beginning to being completely unmotivated, which makes it easy for anyone to quit. What happens when you go from being so excited you can't wait to get up in the morning, to being so tired you can't wait to go to bed at night. Somewhere between the starting point and the quitting point, the very thing that was driving you was lost. Many of us set goals, but only some of us stay motivated long enough to keep going until we reach them. Where does the difference lie? The difference lies in the motivation. The motivation is driven by the ability to stay focused on your dreams and how you will feel when you have successfully achieved the vision you have of your future. How do some people hold onto their motivation, while others find it easier to let it go? Those that hang onto their motivation have found something that drives them and they stay connected to it. What is it? It's the feeling of their goal. When you can put yourself in the moment of your goal achievement and feel what it feels like to be there - you have just experienced one of THE most powerful motivation tools. When you can connect to the feeling, and it's something you really want - then you can hang on to what you have to do in order to achieve it. The motivation to achieve our goals is driven by our deepest emotions. It is an important commonality among all goal achievers. You have dreams and goals, but when was the last time you felt them? Have you ever felt them? You might have the motivation to make more money, but there is an underlying reason below the surface. What is it? Get below the surface and connect with the feeling of what you want and why you want it. The underlying reason will help give you the motivation you need to keep going until you have achieved them. If you have had someone at Bachrach & Associates, Inc. (BAI) take you through the Success Road Map® experience, go back and review it. Review it frequently to help you stay motivated to achieve your dreams. If you haven't yet had the Success Road Map® experience, you will benefit from the time invested, as it is a complimentary resource from BAI. At the end of your Success Road Map®, the Accountability Coach will send you your personal Success Road Map® that you can use to help you stay motivated to achieve your goals and ultimately fulfill what is truly important to you in life. Schedule your complimentary Success Road Map® today by calling (858) 558-3200 or click here. Other complimentary tools to help you stay motivated and focused can be found at www.AccountabilityCoach.com. Complete the Wheel of Life exercise and Quality of Life Enhancer™ exercise that are located under the Free Resources Section of this website. Whether you want to achieve your goals for you or someone else, you are full of potential and have the power to achieve anything. You can live your dreams and goals, if you just grab hold of them. The motivation will come from connecting with the feeling of why you wanted them in the first place. Stay focused on how achieving your goals will make you feel and you will stay motivated. Anne M. Bachrach is the author of the book, Excuses Don't Count; Results Rule!. She has 23 years of experience training and coaching. Anne helps financial professionals keep and get more clients while maintaining balance in their life. Through her proven systems, she inspires Advisors to stay focused and take action on the highest payoff activities that lead to their ultimate professional and personal success. Take advantage of the many complimentary resources on her website (www.AccountabilityCoach.com) and subscribe to her blog (!Anne's Blog!). ________________________________________________________________________ If you're looking for a cost-effective way to help you stay focused and gain a competitive advantage to achieving your goals in the current economy, click here to learn more about joining Anne Bachrach's 90-Day Goal Achievement Group Coaching Program.

	Mark Little: "Securities Commission Pushes to Abolish Commissions"

	"The securities regulators have recommended that securities commissions fees for 'assets under management' and the vast majority of other methods currently used to compensate financial advisors be abolished in an admission that investor protection laws are inadequate." Am I serious about this headline above... deadly! I assure you, I ripped these quotes from the headlines of daily newspapers over the past 30 days. The question is are you worried, or is it "no big deal" because your clients recognize the value you add to their lives and would be happy to pay you substantial annual fees rather than pay commissions or investment managment fees of any type connected to investment products or programs? This story is real for financial advisors in Australia. You may "google" many related articles such as this one from The Brisbane Times: http://tinyurl.com/TheBrisbaneTimes. I love the idea personally. Imagine if financial advisors were prohibited from earning product commissions or charging fees based upon a percentage of a client's assets "under management" (which my firm does, by the way). Several things would immediately become a reality. First, financial advisors offering "thin client deliverables" after a product sale would quickly have to step-up or be decimated by those few advisors offering fully comprehensive financial services to their clients. A second reality would be that financial advisory practices with foresight will fill-up and quickly close their doors to new clients. Financial advisors who have already moved to a comprehensive financial services model, which makes them indispensable to their clients, are typically only willing (and able) to fully serve somewhere between 75 - 150 clients. Therefore, open spots for Ideal Clients will quickly fill within these practices (which represent a small minority of financial advisors). So how invaluable are your services to your clients? Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the Australian newspapers about this very real issue. Question: How would your practice react to these headlines? "The Securities Commission has proposed that up-front and trail commissions, volume-based bonuses, soft-dollar and fees based on a percentage of funds under management all be banned." "Current financial advisor conflicts of interest, and their impact, are not transparent to the consumer." - From the Australian Securities and Investment Commission's submission to the federal parliamentary inquiry into financial services and products. "This is the Berlin Wall. People thought it would never come down. The ramification for consumers will be wonderful." - Policy advocate quoted in a "front-page" piece in an Australian daily. "A ban on commissions would have the most significant impact on protecting retail investors, by replacing the existing "sales culture" with a professional advice industry." - Spokesman for the Australian Securities Commission Your Reaction: A. No biggie or... B. "OUCH!!!" For the record, I'm not opposed to commissions per se, and have never felt the method of compensating an advisor for exceptional advice mattered much. When it comes to commissions, my position has always been the proverbial "Guns don't kill people... people kill people" stance. In other words, it's not the commissions which are evil, but advisors who are swayed by higher commissions to give advice to clients which is not the best advice. And I believe these "evil" advisors to be quite rare. That said, it's easy to understand a regulator's feeling that it seems simpler to remove the temptation created by commissions in an admission that investor protection laws are inadequate and oversight of advisors is beyond their capacity. My intention in this entry was not to get into the commissions versus fee-for-advice-only debate, but simply to ask this question: "If securities regulators were to remove all ways for you to be compensated through investment products or programs, would your Ideal Clients be clamoring to meet with you to assure you they'll be happy to pay any reasonable fee to keep their comprehensive financial services relationship with you in place?" Are your clients completely clear about the value you add to their lives? What struck me was that this story was sent to me by financial advisors who we work with in Austrailia AND that most are unworried. You see, the financial advisors we work with recognize that those of us who offer the most comprehensive services are the most valuable to their clients and are not fearful of the method in which we are compensated. So, for those of you committed to offering even more fully comprehensive financial services to your clients.... you are the future of our industry and are the types of advisory practices the regulators envision when they describe their desire to replace "the existing 'sales culture' with a professional advice industry." ___________________________________________________________ __________ To learn more about how to delegate the coordination of your client deliverables to your Deliverables Team, you can sign up for "The Kate Wilson Case-Study" at no charge at http://trustedadvisortoolkit.com/. Mark McKenna Little is a speaker, author and Trusted Advisor who began implementing Values-Based Financial Planning® in 1999.

	Tom Voccola: A Game Worth Playing

	Part 8 of a continuing series on CEOing and the Values Based Financial Advisor. Last month we were talking about the universal belief in the workplace that says: All bosses are idiots All employees are helpless and hopeless So what kind of feelings do you think this kind of belief is going to generate? It triggers anger, resentment, fear and survival, and, according Naomi Eisenberfer, a leading social neuroscience researcher at UCLA, "when a leader creates a stressful workplace, employees unconsciously slip into a state of fear and survival. This sets up a threat response (in the individual employee) which is both mentally taxing and deadly to the productivity of a person. Because this response uses up oxygen and glucose from the blood, they are diverted from other parts of the brain, including working memory function, which processes new information and ideas. This impairs analytical thinking, creative insight and problem solving: in other words, just when people most need their sophisticated mental capabilities, the brain's internal resources are taken away from them." There is a case to be made for positive leadership. And that happens when you are feeling clear and confident about the future yourself. Which brings us to the third CEOing Principle. To be Powerful in the World, You Must Learn to Co-create and Master a Game Worth Playing. To engage people, you are going to have to provide a picture of the future they can feel good about. I call it A Game Worth Playing. You need to inspire them, challenge them and call them forth to be the best they can be. You don't do that by judging them. You do that by understanding that, as Deming said, "Nobody gives a hoot about profits." What they care about is doing a good job! So your company must be consciously designed to foster the emotional engagement one feels when they are part of something meaningful, feel challenged with respect and appreciated for their contribution. When people feel that kind of engagement they have no problem taking personal responsibility for the outcome, and doing a good job. You must do this for the employees as people! Not for the company or the bosses, not for the customer or for the shareholders, but for the employees so they feel connected with and in alignment with your dream, so they feel they are making a difference and a contribution. Again, Naomi Eisenberfer from the UCLA neuroscience study, "... when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people's efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response (in the brain). People become more effective, more open to ideas, and more creative." This is what W. Edwards Deming meant when he said "innovation comes from people who take joy in their work." It's your job to create the circumstances within which joy can occur. Now there is a very practical and selfish reason why you want to do this. In short, as a business owner you will face two possibilities: You can work for the business, or Your business can work for you If you truly intend to be a successful entrepreneur, you will learn to work on the business not in the business as soon as you can. And that means being able to empower and trust people. (By this time you must have read the E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber. If you have not, order it now.) The idea is to turn your employees into "colleagues" and your business into a cash machine that works whether you are there or not. If your business works without you, you have choice and you have freedom. You can keep it. You can sell it. You can grow it. You can do something else. Next month: The five keys to building a growing and sustainable company. Entrepreneur, speaker, author and CEO Guide, Tom Voccola is the CEO of CEO2, a Chief Executive Consulting Firm specializing in the rapid transformation of corporate and organizational cultures. Tom is the co-founder and past Chairman of the Los Angeles area CEO Round Table for the American Electronics Association, and the author of The Accidental CEO – A Leader’s Journey from Ego to Purpose. His life's work is to inspire a new generation of leaders who transcend ego and its fear based agenda. His work gives executives immediate and authentic access to new levels of power, influence and freedom within their organizations.

	Rick Barrera: When You Absolutely Positively Have to DIEFFERENTIATE Yourself from Your Competitors!

	Is Overpromising a dirty word in Financial Services? Do you Overpromise? The title of my book is Overpromise and Overdeliver. Everywhere I go people want to tell me how HORRIBLE Overpromising is. In the financial services world, the problem is even worse. One company even made me change the title of my speech and sign an agreement that I would not use the word "Overpromise" in my speech, a bit tricky since it's the premise of my talk. All of the horror stories I have been told involve someone promising something that they COULD NOT or CHOOSE NOT to deliver. That is not Overpromising, it is LYING! Why would I EVER trust you with my money if you are willing to LIE to me about anything, no matter how small? LYING is a HORRIBLE thing! A well thought out and well crafted Overpromise is different. It is designed to differentiate you or your firm from everyone else in the marketplace. It sets you apart and tells customers why they should choose you over your competitors. It tells your customers what to look for in their dealings with you. When It Absolutely, Positively Has to be There Overnight! When Fred Smith started Federal Express in 1973, why didn't he launch with "We Ship Packages!" or better yet "We Ship Packages Overnight!" The answer is simple. Because Fred Smith understood that he would have been either laughed at or worse yet, IGNORED altogether by potential customers and the media. UPS and many other competitors were well entrenched in 1973. Purolator and other competitors were already shipping overnight. Launching with "We Ship Packages Overnight!" would have been business suicide. He would today be a footnote in the annals of business. But Fred Smith was a genius. He was a graduate student in marketing. He had done his homework. He had done the research. He knew that there were three or four core markets that needed overnight shipping with guaranteed results... not an attempt to deliver it overnight, but a COMMITMENT to deliver a package overnight, no matter what, backed up by the systems and processes to ensure that they could get the result for which they had paid a premium price. There were legal filings and tax documents with absolutely unmissable deadlines, including serious fines or penalties for being late. Contracts where "time was of the essence" were another opportunity. Sales opportunities that were time sensitive were another. Projects promised to customers or a boss by a specific deadline in an era before email represented yet another market. And what was the common denominator in all of these markets? From the point of view of the sender, the package ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY HAD TO BE THERE OVERNIGHT! And from this insight was born Federal Express's Overpromise, perhaps the greatest Overpromise of all time! Of course you already know the rest of the story... Or do you? Did you know that in one single quarter of Federal Express operations (thankfully not their FIRST quarter), Federal Express had a fire in one facility, a flood in another and an extended electrical outage in yet a third? And how many packages did these disasters cause to absolutely, positively NOT be delivered? ZERO! Why? Because Fred Smith is not a liar! He invested the company's ENTIRE PROFIT FOR THE YEAR ensuring that every package arrived on time. How valuable was Fred Smith to his customers? Indispensable! What makes an Overpromise really, truly valuable to clients? What makes them clamor for your services? What makes them stand in line and take a number for a chance to become your client? The answer is an Overpromise with TEETH IN IT! That's how FedEx became the largest and most profitable overnight shipper on the planet. Your Turn! What is YOUR Overpromise? What are YOU willing to do to ensure that regardless of obstacles and circumstances, you will Overdeliver on your Overpromise to every one of your customers in every interaction you have with them? Why is Wall Street in the dog house? Why is Bernie Madoff in jail? Why are financial services customers so skeptical? Because "financial services PROFESSIONALS" have repeatedly LIED to their clients, promising things they never planned to deliver or over which they had no control. Are you still promising "better returns" to your clients? Do you have TOTAL CONTROL over those returns? Are you promising "Comprehensive Financial Planning" when you know that you are not delivering anything close to a comprehensive solution? As you craft your personal or firm's Overpromise, there are three questions you should ask. The first is (on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being the most different) "How different is my Overpromise from what my competitors are offering?" The second is (on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being the most relevant) "How relevant is my Overpromise to the clients I want to serve?" As you contemplate your responses you may want to use the Overpromise graphic below to score your potential Overpromises by multiplying your score for question one by your score for question two. Great Overpromises score 80 or higher. The third question you should ask yourself is "Do I have the commitment, the ability, the resources, systems, processes and people in place to deliver on this Overpromise?" This is the most important question... Because, if you have created a brilliant Overpromise but do not have the ability or the infrastructure in place to Overdeliver on it, it is just a cleverly disguised LIE! But, if have a business design in place that can truly Overdeliver on your brilliant Overpromise, then you, just like Fred Smith, are destined for greatness. The right Overpromise with the right mechanism for Overdelivering is a combination that is irresistible to clients and devastating to competitors. So, what do your clients absolutely, positively have to have that your competitors are not delivering? If you can Overpromise and Overdeliver on that, you'll be rapidly on your way to living your ideal life, built on your ideal practice. _______________________________________________________________________ Rick Barrera is a nationally acclaimed marketing consultant and author, known throughout the Fortune 500 for his extraordinary speaking ability and his unique approach to brand building. His consulting focuses on helping companies design unique client experiences that drive high levels of referrals. Rick's research on the strategies used by breakthrough brands like Apple, American Girl, Starbucks, Chico's, Lexus, Tivo, and Google will change your thinking about marketing forever. His impressive client list includes Abbott Labs, AutoZone, Bayer, Caterpillar, IBM, Intel, Merrill Lynch and Verizon. His newest book, Overpromise and Overdeliver: How to Design and Deliver Extraordinary Customer Experiences is both a Wall Street Journal and Business Week best seller.

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The Trusted Financial Advisor (tm)
ISSN 1543-432X
A monthly publication dedicated to helping transform the financial services industry from salespeople to Trusted Advisors. Bachrach and Associates, Inc.

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The following are registered and trademarked and intellectual property of Bachrach & Associates, Inc.: Financial Road Map®, Success Road Map®, Values-Based Selling®, Values-Based Selling® Academy, Values-Based Selling® Academy 2, Trusted Advisor Coach®, Values-Based Financial Planning™, Being Done™, Values-Based Financial Professional™, The Values Conversation™, High-Trust Leadership™ and The Quality of Life Enhancer™. All rights reserved.