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

Mind mapping has rescued me many times. “A mind map can be a complexity buster, translator, connector and simplifier,” as mentioned in the online blurb for the article discussed below.

“Mission: Map a Better Client Value Relationship” describes how one advisor uses mind maps to help clients understand why they should pay for work other than money management. Essentially, creating a mind map helps clients to visualize the value of other services provided by their advisors. This article by Gary Klaben of Proninus appeared in the Jan./Feb. issue of the Financial Planning Association’s Practice Management Solutions magazine. I suggest you read the article.

For more on mind mapping, check out the following blog posts or learn to use mind maps as a writing tool in “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A 5-Lesson Writing Class for Financial Advisors.”

• Guest post: “Why use a mind map with clients?”
• Mind mapping technology for financial advisors
• Mind mapping for brainstorming as a group

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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.

Google Analytics revealed my most popular blog posts of 2011. Wordle.net created the image of the most popular words in this top 10 post. Enjoy!

1. Writing resources for equity research analysts–There are some specialized resources for analysts.
2. My fill-in-the-blanks approach for structuring articles–Bloggers can use this powerful technique to quickly produce a post.
3. Career strategies for wealth managers without a book of business–My CFA charterholder colleagues contributed valuable advice to this article.
4. White paper marketing: Walk a fine line–There are three key characteristics of white papers.
5. Quick check for writers, with an economic commentary example–An easy-to-use technique for checking whether your writing is easy to read.
   

   Image created using Wordle.com

6. The 10-postcard approach to financial advisor marketing
   
7. Mark Tibergien’s one thing for financial advisors’ business improvement
8. Best practices for institutional asset manager websites
9. Financial advisor prescription by Statman evokes strong response
10. Mind mapping technology for financial advisors

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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.

Morningstar is a company that values good writing as well as robust content. So I’m delighted to have Ryun Patterson, managing editor of Morningstar Advisor, as a guest blogger with some great tips to help advisors improve their writing.

A Magazine Editor’s Top Tips for Improving Advisors’ Writing

By Ryun Patterson

As our team assembles Morningstar Advisor magazine every other month, I read and edit lots of investment-related writing. This experience (as with most reading) has given me some strong opinions on what constitutes good finance writing and what is, shall we say, suboptimal. One of Morningstar’s core values is “Investors Come First,” so I’d love to share some tips that advisors can keep in mind when they’re writing for their clients or the general public.

Do: Simplify

Advisors read a lot of technical writing, from white papers to prospectuses. This familiarity can lead to imitation, but unless you’re writing a white paper or prospectus, you should avoid the temptations of jargon and alphabet soup. Yes, it sounds extremely classy (fancy and sophisticated, even) to say that something is “accumulating size,” but it’s really just growing. And the allure of ROAs, ROEs, and ROICs is great, but your writing will be better understood, especially in shorter pieces, if you just spell these abbreviations out. You readers may not thank you for it, but they’ll definitely read the whole article instead of quitting in frustration halfway through.

Don’t: Assume

The ranks of advisors and investors has grown so much in the past couple of decades that investing writers have got to stop making assumptions about their audience. The use of figures of speech that are normally reserved for sports broadcasters is a prime culprit here. Football fans might easily understand “keep your head on a swivel,” but the audience for investment writing has grown to the point that this kind of language can now be a barrier to comprehension rather than a connection formed through a shared interest. This extends to commentary that extends to political and religious references as well; being “politically correct” doesn’t have to be a priority, but readers will lose sight of genuine wisdom if it’s cloaked in a contentious point of view.

Do: Explain

There’s a class of investment words that pose as regular words but pull double-duty in the investment world to describe complex ideas. One example pulled from Morningstar’s writing guide is the word “duration.” Because this word has the temerity to be both noun that regular folks use in everyday conversation AND a noun that represents a measure of interest-rate sensitivity, Morningstar writers and editors always write “duration, a measure of interest-rate sensitivity” on first reference, just to make it clear that this duration is not your standard one. A little bit of thought in this arena goes a long way, as do hyperlinks or referrals to sites like Investopedia or Morningstar.com’s investing classroom.

Don’t: Dumb Down

Advisors writing for their clients or other investors should embrace the chance to be educators. Topics like basic asset allocation are no-brainers for investing professionals, but the key to explaining these isn’t using phrases like “everybody knows that…” or, more extremely, “Only an idiot would…” Instead, use concrete facts and figures to show, rather than tell, your readers why investing basics exist. This kind of communication is the best way to form a resonant, lasting relationship with your readers. Nobody likes to be patronized, and investors that feel like alienated idiots are less likely to ask important questions when it’s time to make important decisions.

Recommended Reading

If you’ve got a day for reading and want to improve your writing, there’s no better book I can recommend than Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. It’s less than 100 pages long, but it’s as essential for writers as Graham and Dodd’s Security Analysis is for investing professionals. It has never steered me wrong, and it can do a lot for any aspiring writer.

Ryun Patterson is managing editor of Morningstar Advisor magazine, the magazine of investment insights for independent-minded advisors. Advisors can get a free subscription by going to Morningstaradvisor.com and clicking the “Subscribe” link on the upper right-hand side of the page.

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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.

If you receive 10 postcards from productivity expert Jason Womack, it means you’re on his “most wanted” list of prospective clients. This seems like a strategy that financial advisors could adopt.

For 10 consecutive weeks after meeting a hot prospect, Womack sends a postcard to the prospect, as I learned in a video clip from his April 2011 presentation to the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He told me more when we traded tweets.

Each postcard contains a practical tip, with a link to a web page with additional information on the topic.

After 10 weeks, the prospects surely recognize his name. If Womack has hit their hot buttons, they will want to learn more.

This strategy poses two challenges for financial advisors, which I address below.

1. Where to obtain the content?

If you’re a financial blogger, you have content. The best content for a long-term campaign is “evergreen,” meaning it never gets outdated. You can print a teaser line on the front of a postcard, and then provide a short URL to input for more details.

I can imagine some of advisor Roger Wohlner’s blog posts working as postcards.

“Six Investing Mistakes to Avoid” could go on the postcard’s front. On the back? Some teaser copy along with a link to the complete list of mistakes on his website.

If you’re not a blogger, you can license other people’s content and link to it on your website. Forefield‘s articles seem popular among advisors for this purpose.

2. How to create the postcard?

If you’re a low-volume postcard sender, you can start by designing and printing them in your office. I’ve used Vistaprint.com for my promotional postcards. I picked a template and input text. I’m not techno-geek, so you can rest assured that it’s pretty easy to do.

If you’ve successfully used postcards to market your services–or if you have ideas about how to tweak this approach to make it work better–I’d like to hear from you. Please comment below.

For another postcard-related tip, visit “How to connect with your workshop attendees.”

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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.

A mind map can be a great tool for communicating with your financial planning or wealth management clients. Some people absorb information better in visual than written form. Even word geeks like me find mind maps useful. So I’m happy to have Alex Murguia, managing principal of McLean Asset Management, explain how you can benefit from using a mind map to create a visual display of the most important information about each client.

Not sure what a client mind map looks like? Alex has provided a generic example. You can click on it to view it in greater detail.

Why use a mind map with clients?

By Alex Murguia

Creating and sharing a client mind map shows client that you have the extensive knowledge about them that’s necessary to steer them through their financial lifecycle. This helps you overcome a common barrier to referrals as well as deepening your relationships with clients. Only 15% of clients feel their advisors are very knowledgeable about their entire situation, according to Breaking Through: Building a World Class Wealth Management Business by John J. Bowen, Jr., Patricia J. Abram, and Jonathan Powell. Over the course of a year, advisors with a perceived high level of client knowledge generated about eight referrals from clients compared to three and two referrals respectively for advisors with medium and low levels of client knowledge.

However, you won’t reap the benefits if you fail to communicate to clients your encyclopedic knowledge of their personal lives. A mind map expresses this knowledge effectively and elegantly to your clients.

At McLean Asset Management, we begin the mind mapping process in our first prospect meeting. We inform our prospect that we will ask a series of questions to determine if we are a good fit to provide value to their current situation and goals. With a pad and pencil in hand, we begin our semi-structured interview that covers various aspects of a financial life. We specifically want to have a discussion concerning a client’s values, objectives, important relationships, assets, other advisors that they work with, processes that they like, and personal interests. Each discussion topic is a node on the map that expands into subsequent branches dependent on the topic and answers.

Click on this mind map sample to view it more clearly

A mind map has important advantages over traditional note taking during the discovery process and subsequent progress meetings because:

1. It helps us drill down to a client’s key issues faster and more accurately.

2. It captures information quickly, yet in a highly organized format.

3. It makes it easy to link and cross-reference very different, yet connected, pieces of our client’s financial picture.

4. It involves clients more deeply in the discovery process.

5. It provides a basis for moving forward, with clear goals and next steps.

6. It provides you with a document that is fast and easy to review.

Unexpectedly, in about one-quarter of our discovery meetings, a client makes a point to convey a positive comment about the map.  During our second prospect meeting, we hand the potential client mind map printout for review. This is also an implicit reminder that we listen to our clients.

Mind maps are also great to show a client’s other advisors (i.e., potential referral sources for us) during brainstorming sessions about possible client solutions. Update meetings always begin with a review of the mind map. This serves as a reminder that we are best positioned to make financial decisions that impact a client’s life because we are a trusted advisor that knows all about what is important to him or her.

Alex Murguia is Managing Principal of McLean Asset Management, a wealth management firm in Northern Virginia, and CEO of Instream Solutions. He tweets as @alexmurguia1.

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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.

Want to hear from two of the women who are pioneering social media use in financial services? Watch this webcast featuring Cathy Curtis of Curtis Financial, an independent advisor, and Lauren Boyman, director of social media for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. The webcast was organized by LinkedIn.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear Curtis identify the form of social media that has helped her the most in connecting with prospective clients. She also mentions an interesting measurement of her social media success: The large number of prospects who find her small independent firm through a Google search.

Curtis keeps her content 80% business and 20% personal. The personal content focuses on food and wine. There’s nothing like one of her @CurtisFinancial foodie tweets to make me hungry.

Boyman discusses her firm’s strategy of providing pre-approved content to start conversations. Once that content starts the conversation, there will be more leeway for personalization. This is because a Twitter conversation, for example, moves away from being “static content” that requires pre-approval. It will be interesting to see how much flexibility the firm’s advisors actually receive.

Boyman’s firm will provide a calendar and worksheets to advisors. This sounds like an idea independent financial advisors could benefit from adapting.

To read about some of the webcast’s high points, plus some analysis of the webcast, go to Pat Allen’s “Personal Or Turnkey? This Must-Watch Video Presents 2 Very Different Approaches To Social Media.”

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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.

Mind mapping is a powerful tool for brainstorming, analysis, and presentations. I know a handful of advisors and investment professionals who feel passionately about the value of mind mapping. I do, too.

You can create mind maps with paper and pencil or on the computer. I prefer the old-fashioned way, so I asked some of my social media friends what they use and why.

MindJet

“I chose Mindjet because it has the most extensive array of templated maps as compared to other systems. For example Mindjet has ready made templeted maps for business plans, story outlines, SWOT analysis, etc. I have found Mindjet to be very useful in this regard and as I have used them for our company strategy sessions and general brainstorming,” says Alex Murguia of McLean Asset Management.

Mindmeister

Jude Boudreaux of Upperline Financial likes Mindmeister.

I’ve used it, too, because the basic version is free and pretty easy to pick up.

Mindomo

Russ Thornton of Wealthcare Capital Management is one of my favorite resources for new technology. Here’s what Russ says:

Xmind

Dave Grant of  Vantage Financial Partners says, “I use xmind as a project management tool. We have monthly meetings and each meeting is its own “spoke” from the main subject, then each discussion in that meeting is its own “sub-spoke.” You can see see a year’s worth of project in a quick glance – great tool.”

Paper and pencil

Like Nathan Gehring of MyFirstFinancialPlanner.com, I like paper and pencil.

I imagine that when children learn mapping in school, as I discussed in “What your kids can teach you about writing,” they use paper and pencil.

If you’re not familiar with mind mapping…

There’s a decent introduction to mind mapping on Wikipedia.

Please answer my poll on mind mapping solutions, which you’ll find in the right-hand column of this blog. If you don’t see your software listed there, you can add it. I also included paper and pencil as an option.

Here are links to the software options listed above:

• MindJet
• Mindmeister
• Mindomo
• Xmind

If none of these options work for you, you’ll find more listed in my 2008 post on “More options for mind mapping.” To learn more about using mind mapping in your blogging, check out my class on “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read.”

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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.

Here’s some of what you missed at the annual conference of the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts (#FPAMA), as reflected in my tweets and blog posts. I grouped my tweets by speaker. My comments on the tweets are preceded by an arrow (<–).

Blog posts from #FPAMA

• “The pebble in the shoe: The power of metaphor
• Mark Tibergien’s one thing for financial advisors’ business improvement
• Love, hate, and the CFP ad campaign

Bill Bachrach of Bachrach & Associates

• Advisors, do you find your clients love being videotaped by you? Bill Bachrach says they do. #FPAMA <– Personally, this would make me feel self-conscious. However, I would like the idea that my advisor hangs on my every word.
• “Financial planners’ income need not decline with the market or the economy.”  — Bill Bachrach #FPAMA
• “People who are competent know the right questions and when to ask them.” — Bill Bachrach, #FPAMA
• “You build trust by listening to their story, not telling yours.” — Bill Bachrach #FPAMA  <– This last point is one that more financial advisors should consider when writing their websites, newsletters, and other communications.

Bruce Brumberg of MyStockOptions.com

The restricted stock session at #FPAMA was way more interesting than I expected. Things sure have changed since I listened to stock option talks as the employee of a wealth manager.

• “Performance shares come in many flavors” — Bruce Brumberg #FPAMA
• To identify prospects with stock compensation, see proxy statement, Form 10K, and Section 16 Forms. — Bruce Brumberg #FPAMA <– This might work well for advisors targeting public companies that are big in their local area.
• “Rise of restricted stock, RSUs, SARs, & performance shares makes financial planning more complex.” — Bruce Brumberg, MyStockOptions.com #FPAMA

Mark Tibergien of Pershing Advisor Solutions

• “Advisors, do you feel your business has become more complex?” — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA <–I felt the entire room nodding in agreement
• “My job is to disturb you.” — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA
• Top performers spend more on client experience. Top 25% = $4,306/client, rest = $3,735. — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA
• “Advisors, what does ‘wealth manager’ mean and does it differentiate you?”  — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA #in
• “Bull markets camouflage a lot of sins.” — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA
• “Companies hire people, managers lose them.” — Mark Tibergien at #FPAMA

Craig Zablocki, speaker

• “The ability to be silly is a blessing.” — Craig Zablocki at #FPAMA conference
• “When we give more, we have more fun.” — Craig Zablocki at #FPAMA conference
• “We have a tendency to argue for what we know.” — Craig Zablocki at #FPAMA conference
• “Get used to ‘no.’ ‘No’ is just information. Yes lives inside ‘no.’” — Craig Zablocki at #FPAMA conference
• “Fear limits us.” — Craig Zablocki at #FPAMA conference

Miscellaneous

• Social Security expert Kurt Czarnowski is now available for consulting www.czarnowskiconsulting.com #FPAMA
• Social Security expert Kurt Czarnowski received special recognition at #FPAMA. Learn more about him at www.czarnowskiconsulting.com
• Delighted to meet the advisor who sparked this blog post with comments by @Vitavie and @JenBaty http://ht.ly/50ngU #FPAMA

Confession: I did not live-tweet

You may notice the conference took place way back in May.  I’m not much of a live-tweeter, unlike the folks who live-tweeted the Financial Planning Association of Northern California’s recent conference. Even though I tweet like crazy, I prefer to write at greater length about interesting presentations. Also, I feel I absorb information better when I focus on taking notes.

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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.

“What’s the one thing that most people in this room can do to improve their business?”

Photo by dawning.ca

This is the question I asked Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, at the annual conference of the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts on May 20.

Tibergien hit four points in his reply describing how financial planners can build a practice that differentiates them.

1.  Identify your core capabilities–both as a planner and a business person.

2.  Identify your optimal client. Target them in terms of characteristics other than wealth.

3.  Identify competitors who attract your optimal clients. Figure out what makes them special. Think about how you compare.

4.  Identify your personal definition of success.

This four-step process will help you figure out if your current business strategy is still relevant, said Tibergien. If your strategy is outdated, this assessment provides clues about how to tweak your strategy. I imagine it helps you focus your marketing, which can provide an incredible boost to your efficiency.

Have YOU tried this? I’d like to hear how it has worked for you.

_______________________________________________________________
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.

The CFP ad campaign stirs up strong feelings. You either love it or hate it, judging from the brief public discussion during lunch at the Financial Planning Association of Massachusetts’ (FPAMA) annual conference. The following ad was shown.

There was a call for feedback on the ad.

Respondent 1: I love it. I’m happy to pay more in dues.

Respondent 2: I don’t like it. It’s too frenetic.

Love and hate. That’s what I heard.

However, the conversation at my table was more nuanced.

Pro:
• Anything that builds the brand is good. This is just the first step in a long process.
• It’s good that the CFP mark is displayed prominently.
• It may be frenetic, but it’s eye-catching.

Con:
• Planners focus too much on the process. Consumers don’t care about the process.
• The ad doesn’t speak effectively about benefits to the consumer.

Blogging idea

Bloggers with the CFP credential may be able to start a conversation simply by posting the ad to their blogs. Or try addressing the questions that the ad raises for you.

_______________________________________________________________
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.