Susan B. Weiner Investment Writing - Susan B. Weiner Blog

New York Society of Security Analysts on April 28

I’m leading a workshop on “How to Write Investment Commentary People Will Read” for the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) on Thursday, April 28. The meeting runs from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m. The program is for NYSSA members only. Pre-registration required.

Professional Association of Investment Communications Resources on April 28
“How to Write What People Will Read About Investments” is the focus of my presentation for the Professional Association of Investment Communications Resources, more commonly called PAICR. It will run from 3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. It is open to non-members. Pre-registration required. Spots are filling quickly, so register now!

Also in APRIL: American Society of Journalists and Authors 2011 Conference

I will moderate–and speak on–panels about corporate writing and white papers at “The Write Road to Success,” the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

My panel on “Writing White Papers” takes place on April 30, during the part of the conference with registration open to the public. This event is also in New York City.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Would you like the option of receiving a weekly writing tip in your email in-box? Please answer the poll in the right-hand column of this blog. I won’t start this new e-communication unless there’s demand.

There are other writing tips newsletters, but I’m not aware of any tailored to investment and wealth management topics.

You may read the writing articles in my monthly e-newsletter. But it’s not easy to change a bad habit with just one reading of a practical tip. You can benefit from regular reminders.

It will be easy to subscribe, if I offer this writing tips newsletter. Please note: I will only add you to the distribution with your permission. No one will be spammed.

I look forward to learning your opinions! Please answer the poll in the right-hand column of this blog.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

PR expert Beth Chapman has years of experience helping financial advisors. Plus, she’s a longtime friend and one of my first guest bloggers. It’s a pleasure to welcome her back to my blog in response to a comment by one of my Facebook followers.

Articles You Publish in Financial Trade Publications Will Impress Prospects:

You can post them on web sites and include them in prospecting kits

By Lisbeth Wiley Chapman

Contacting trade publications with good story ideas can be a straight path to great clips that enhance your reputation and increase good referrals.

Yes, trade publications speak to your competitors.  Understood.  Stay open to the idea that the result of contributing an article to a trade publication gives you a better opportunity to impress clients, prospects and your centers of influence than a one-paragraph quote in a national publication, as ego-boosting as that can be.

Many advisors are disappointed when rebuffed by their local newspapers.  The usual explanation for not taking original material is that they would have to do it for all your competitors.  This has some truth to it, as the local newspapers need the advertising of you and your competitors.  Also, local papers use syndicated columnists regularly.  It is far better use of your time to contact syndicated columnists, whose work appears in your local newspapers, and convince them to use you as a source on a story idea you are providing.

Contribute an Article and Bask in the Glow

There are numbers of trade publications that want your input

You will find many articles in your financial trade publications, both print and online, that have been written by a peer or colleague.  The publications themselves are always looking for the thoughts of those people in the field who are dealing with the issues of financial planning every day.

Editors are particularly interested if you are doing something differently and it is working. Some topics that have appeared recently in the trade pubs that were authored by advisors, have included the following:

·  How to manage ethics training for the entire firm.

·  The financial issues faced by senior couples who choose to marry

·  The hidden fees in group annuity/401(k) plans.

In each case, the advisor, after receiving proper reprint permission, was able to use this information by posting it on their web site, sending it via an e-mail campaign, printing it and including it in prospecting kits, and using it as a handout at a seminar.

The challenge, of course, is to find a topic that the publications have identified as important to their readers.  Your persuasive cover e-mail to the editor will specifically state why this issue is of interest to their readers and why you are an expert on this issue.

In addition to the financial advisory trades, don’t forget that all of your best clients have earned their wealth in an industry or profession.  If you have a wealthy contractor, search for publications that speak to other contractors.  If you have a large percentage of doctors, look for publications that are read by the doctors in multiple-physician practices who need help with employee benefits, 401(k) plans, and insurance.

Articles in Prospecting Packages Create Trust

Articles that you have written get attention from prospects

Think about handing a prospect a marketing package that has numerous articles that you have written.  Prospects are not likely to notice that the article has appeared in a financial trade such as Investment Advisor.  What they notice is that not only were you smart enough to write it, but you also were perceived as expert by the publication, or they would not have published it.

You are aware that most clients will now stealthily cruise through your web site before talking with you.  A web site that has your authored articles posted or linked back to the publication adds an extra amount of shine to your reputation.  You are using the third-party credibility that comes when a publication deems you to be an expert.

Your clients want to trust you.  They want to be able to turn to you for advice, but first they have to be convinced.  There is no better way than offering your prospects articles you have written.  They go a long way in convincing a prospect to trust you.

Use Your Articles as Requests for Referral

Send your clients, your prospects and those professionals who are positioned to send you referrals copies of the articles you have had published.

A cover letter can go something like the following:

Dear Client:  Recently, I was quoted in (name of publication), a publication that goes to XXX,XXX financial professionals, on the topic of (give the title of the article and explain its premise.  If it is an online publication, give them the topic title and the entire URL.  Consider sending this by e-mail so accessing the article is just one click.)

You have already made the decision that working with a financial advisor is important to you by becoming a client of this firm.  Please pass the attached copy of the article to your friends who may be struggling with the difficult decision about whom to trust with their financial affairs.    If you need additional copies, please call our the office (phone number.) We would be happy to speak with your friends and colleagues about any financial issues, whether a single pressing question, or a need for comprehensive financial planning.

Thank you for your business and enjoy the article.

Requesting referrals and at the same time offering important information that educates your clients as well as their friends who may become clients, is an important strategy for your firm.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

“Diversification shouldn’t be viewed as protecting you from losses in wealth but rather from being concentrated in the worst-performing asset classes.”

In other words, diversification puts a floor under how badly you can do when all asset classes fall.

This struck me as a valuable insight from “Harvard Business School Professor Andre Perold Looks At The Forces Reshaping the Business of Asset Management,” on the blog for the CFA Institute’s Second Annual Middle East Investment Conference.

Other points I took from the CFa Institute’s summary of Perold’s talk include the following:

• The value of classic endowment-style management has run its course because “the low-hanging fruit has been picked.”
• New instruments that separate alpha and beta are useful; Now asset managers don’t have to “leave significant money on the table.”
• Stable-weight portfolios should be replaced by portfolios with stable risk budgets. (I’ve written about Perold’s views in “Stable Risk Portfolios: A Timely Alternative to Static Asset Allocations?“)

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Change one word in the following line to make it a more effective sentence.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index rose and the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index fell.

Post your rewrite in the comments.

I’ve got a writing lesson in mind as I pose this puzzler. I’ll circle back later to explain it, although I wouldn’t be surprised if one of my savvy readers beats me to it.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Financial advisors, investment managers, and wealth managers worry about allowing comments on their corporate blogs. The wrong comment could land the blogging firm in trouble with the SEC or FINRA. Russell Investments offers a good example of how to handle this issue.

I imagine that Russell’s solution has three components, although only two are visible on its Helping Advisors blog.

If you allow comments on your financial or investment blog, are you using the three tactics I describe below?

1. Moderate comments.

When you enable comment moderation on your blog, no comments are visible to the general public until someone at your company approves them. This lets you vet problematic comments.

2. Provide “comment guidelines” for readers.

Transparency pays. You set more realistic expectations when you tell people that you won’t publish all comments and you share your guidelines. Russell does this nicely in “Comment Guidelines.” Their main points include the following:

• Russell may not respond.
• Stay on topic.
• Avoid investment advice.
• Be respectful.
• We respect your privacy.

I also like that Russell gives readers the phone number to call with client service issues.

3. Establish internal guidelines and procedures.

I’m guessing that Russell Investments has set up internal guidelines for deciding the kind of comment to squash. The firm can’t anticipate every situation, so it needs to have a process for referring questions to the appropriate decisionmaker.

The firm also needs procedures to ensure that comments are moderated in a timely and consistent manner. This may be a drag on resources. I noticed on the blog’s “Don’t let the scarcity mentality hold you back,” that a reader commented on Feb. 23, but the firm did not reply until March 1, six days later. I can’t tell if the reader’s comment was also held for six days.

What else should advisors consider if they allow blog readers to leave comments?

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

European cyclical stocks and banks in the continent’s peripheral countries offer the best investment opportunities, according to Ian Harnett, managing director for European strategy at Absolute Strategy Research (ASR), a London-based macroeconomic research firm. He made his comments during “Europe: ‘This could be Heaven or this could be Hell,’ ” a March 17 presentation to the Boston Security Analysts Society.

Reasons to favor cyclical stocks from Europe’s core countries

Why cyclicals?

“Globally, excess liquidity will continue to make ‘risk assets’ more attractive,” said Harnett. Cyclical stocks in core Europe will benefit most from loose monetary policy and weak exchange rates.

More reasons to favor cyclicals include the following:

• The VIX measure of volatility will fall closer to 10 by year-end 2011, in Harnett’s opinion
• European Union stocks remain cheap, using 10-year trailing earnings per share–They are still below lows hit in 2003 and earlier
• European cyclicals tend to do better when the yield curve flattens
• Dynamic earnings growth will support these stocks

ASR’s perspective on Europe’s crisis

The main points I took from ASR’s description of Europe’s situation were

1. The important of cyclicality
2. A shift in relative cost of capital between core and peripheral Europe
3. The survival of the euro

Europe’s woes have both structural and cyclical elements, said Harnett. However, he said, fiscal deficits such as we’ve seen recently are nearly always cyclical rather than structural. Harnett made his point with a graph showing the correlation between “Budget Balance as a % of GDP” and “Industrials Hiring Intentions.” “This has been a jolly good indication of deficits until now,” he added. “Europe’s woes are more ‘cyclical’ than ‘structural,’ ” he concluded.

Investors are moving into “safe havens,” such as Germany, at the expense of Europe’s peripheral countries, Harnett said. As a result, the core countries of Europe are paying an inappropriately low cost of capital. German consumer confidence is at record highs, so they are spending.

“The German locomotive can carry a very heavy load,” said Harnett. German excess demand is being funneled to Europe’s peripheral countries. Germans are vacationing abroad and buying peripheral countries’ exports. Trade imbalances within the euro zone are shrinking. Eventually, banks will benefit, especially in the peripheral countries, assuming they survive the current turmoil. ASR is currently very long on European peripheral banks and neutral on the banks of core Europe. Harnett added that he expects ASR’s next move will be to overweight core banks.

The euro is a political creation, so politicians will ensure its survival, according to Harnett. So your investment strategy shouldn’t bet against the euro, if you agree with ASR’s opinions.

For more on ASR’s views, go to “Japanese crisis good for European economies” and “U.S. companies may move supply chain home.”

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

U.S. companies may move more of their production back home, said David Bowers, managing director of global strategy for Absolute Strategy Research (ASR), a London-based macroeconomic research firm. He spoke during the Q&A session following “Europe: ‘This could be Heaven or this could be Hell,’ ” a March 17 presentation to the Boston Security Analysts Society.

The lessons of the past few years suggest that companies should bring their supply chain home to avoid “the risks of exchange rates or tectonic plates,” suggested Bowers. The disruptions caused by the Japanese tsunami have been in the news.

Ian Harnett, ASR’s managing director for European strategy, agreed, elaborating on Bowers’ exchange rate comment. Offshoring is based on low foreign exchange volatility, he said. But foreign exchange volatility is rising. Food price inflation will encourage foreign countries to allow their currencies appreciate. As a result,  labor costs could rise by as much as 10 times, depressing the wage advantage overseas. This argues for in-sourcing, Harnett concluded.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Will the Japanese crisis help or hurt European economies?

The answer hinges on how it affects nominal growth in European countries’ gross domestic product, said David Bowers, managing director of global strategy for Absolute Strategy Research (ASR), a London-based macroeconomic research firm. He spoke during the Q&A session following “Europe: ‘This could be Heaven or this could be Hell,’ ” a March 17 presentation to the Boston Security Analysts Society.

Higher capital expenditures

In Europe, as in the U.S., companies have been hoarding cash. It’s likely these firms will open their capital expenditure spigots wider, according to Bowers. Why? Because the crisis presents an opportunity to gain market share at Japanese companies’ expense, Bowers said.

Ian Harnett, ASR’s managing director for European strategy, said this opening should appeal to Germany, which competes directly with Japan in areas such as heavy machinery.

Another plus for European economies is that Japan’s plight makes central banks less likely to raise interest rates for fear of sparking a return to recession.

_______________________________________________________________
Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

You CAN edit your own writing.

First-sentence check

Here’s a tip that will help you check how well your piece is structured. Read the first sentence of every paragraph. In combination, do they give the reader a good idea of your main points? If so, you’ve written something that’s likely to survive a busy reader’s scrutiny.

This first-sentence check works because strong business writing typically starts each paragraph with a topic sentence that summarizes the paragraph’s main point or topic.

You can also incorporate the first paragraph into your quick check of your writing. When I write something longer than a blog post, I like to set up my main points in the first paragraph.  This lets me convey my argument to readers who don’t have the patience to read any more.

Example: “Today’s employment report” by Cumberland Advisors

Let’s use “Today’s employment report,” a piece of economic commentary by Cumberland Advisors in Sarasota, Florida, to test the first-sentence approach to checking your writing.

Below you’ll see the first sentences of the first six paragraphs of the commentary. By the way, I’m not copying all of the first sentences because I don’t want to infringe on the firm’s copyright.

1. Today’s employment report is a disappointment.
2. Markets got ahead of reality; this is weak economic recovery.
3. The United States faces the worst employment conditions seen during the entire Post World War II period.
4. The human tragedy is large.
5. If you look at the U-6 unemployment rate, you realize that 1 out of 6 in the labor force has either no income or pay that is less than it was three years ago.
6. To understand the dynamic at work in the US one has to drill into the headline number.

After reading these sentences, do you have a sense of the author’s opinion on the employment report? I think so. To check the relationship between this six-sentence summary and the original commentary, go to “Today’s employment report.”

I like the commentary on the Cumberland Advisors website. It states opinions in an appealing style. I almost feel as if I’m in a conversation with the firm’s investment professionals. You can read more by visiting Cumberland’s commentary archive.

What if your writing flunks?

If your writing flunks the first-sentence test, you may simply need to tweak your content.

For example, if all but one of your first sentences work, you can zero in on the problem sentence’s paragraph of origin. Your problem may be that the topic sentence doesn’t sum up or introduce the paragraph’s main point. You can fix this by rewriting the first sentence.

Alternatively, the offending first sentence may be a sign that the entire paragraph doesn’t belong. Perhaps you’ve gone off on an unnecessary tangent. If so, you can axe the entire paragraph.

Another possibility: Your sentence and paragraph are fine, but belong higher or lower in the commentary. Move the paragraph and you may be set to go.

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Need to write better? Register for my next class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Week Writing Class for Financial Advisors” starting May 16. You won’t get another chance to take this class until 2013.

Receive a free 32-page e-book with client communications tips when you sign up for my free monthly newsletter.