For me, the month of June brings great memories. One of my fondest is listening to Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.” Remember the lyrics?   Read more...

What’s not to like about social networking sites? They give you free access to millions of consumers. They give you a mechanism for building relationships with these consumers. And they facilitate easy publishing of your insights, making them the drip marketing system of your dreams. Read more...

It’s hard to distinguish social networking hype from reality. Should you prospect on Facebook? Reach out to referral sources on LinkedIn? “Tweet” on Twitter?   Read more...

Once they’ve closed a deal with a client, too many advisors will “kick the can” when it comes to providing service. They not only fail to stay in touch, but also ignore key privacy and data security guidelines.  Read more...

Have you been “kicking the can” when it comes to suitability?  Read more...

All marketplaces have slimy competitors. They acquire prospects in dubious ways, spread lies about competitors, misrepresent products, and bully prospects to buy. In the short term, they may have an advantage. But over the long term, their scummy tactics almost always backfire.  Read more...

Full Disclosure: Since 2008, National Ethics Association (formally National Ethics Bureau) has been sponsoring affordable E&O insurance for low-risk advisors. And this experience has alerted us to the following time bomb that may be lurking in your business and could be fatal to your finances. Read more...

"Mistakes." Now that’s a word that not only describes the Madoff mess (sayonara, Bernie!), but also the recent history of our economy and industry. But the question now is, have all the guilty parties—from the Wall St. titans to the corner mortgage brokers to the Washington politicians to the overly ambitious homebuyers—learned enough from the past to not repeat their mistakes in the future? Read more...