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

Technology can boost your effectiveness when you use mind mapping with your clients.

Using a digital pen in client meetings will spare you the inefficiencies of an old-fashioned pen or pencil as well as the awkwardness of struggling with complex mapping software in front of your client. After the meeting, using software to make your map more attractive and to manipulate the data will make you more effective with your clients. I recently learned how Jaime Bordelon, executive assistant for an investment advisor, uses a digital pen, in addition to MindJet and SmartDraw software, to capture and share information collected in client meetings.

Five-step process for your client meeting

Here’s the five-step process Jaime suggests for your client meeting.

1. Take your digital pen to your client meeting, along with an appropriate template. Jaime’s firm has templates for topics such as new client, prospect, center of influence (financial advisorspeak for referral source), re-discovery meeting, asset allocation, next phase, and retirement distribution.
2. Begin a general conversation and map it using your digital pen. Expand into more details.

3. After the meeting, you and the client sign the map to show that both of you agree on the information.
4. Dock your pen to save the data on your computer.
5. Give the client the original copy of the map. It’s satisfying for the client to get something to take away.

By the way, Bordelon uses an Okidata MC560 Plus Digital Two-Pen Solution purchased from Futureware in Omaha. It appears have been discontinued.  But there are other digital pens out there and you may find the Okidata model left in stock somewhere.

Mapping’s prospecting potential

“What’s really interesting is what happens after the client takes the map home,” says Bordelon. Mind maps are conversation starters in a way that plain text documents are not.

Sometimes clients leave their maps out in plain sight. Then, a friend sees and asks about it. Before you know it, you’ve got a referral. In many cases, these are referrals of persons whom your clients wouldn’t have suggested on their own initiative.

Another benefit: your clients often think of more information to add when they review the map later. This is especially true when they show it to the spouse, significant other, children, or friends.

Using MindJet or SmartDraw after the meeting

After your meeting, you or your assistant can clean up your map and make it more attractive by inputting the information into MindJet or SmartDraw. You can also color-code sections to make the information easier to understand at a glance.

The resulting map isn’t just pretty and digital. Using the software, “You can expand and collapse the ‘octopus’ it creates,” says Bordelon. “This way you can control the conversation and avoid overwhelming your clients with details” in subsequent client meetings. It’s also easy to update the map in future meetings.

What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

P.S. The beauty of LinkedIn

I owe LinkedIn as well as Jaime Bordelon for this blog post. I didn’t know her when she responded enthusiastically to a mind mapping question I posted on LinkedIn. LinkedIn can be an amazing resource for meeting new people.

Edited October 2, 2011

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I know many investment professionals who feel skittish about dipping their toes into social media. To them, I parrot Nike’s line:

Photo by Ivars Krutainis

“Just do it.”

LinkedIn is a great place to start.

Try this experiment. Post a LinkedIn status update once a week for a month. See if you get any responses.

Start by writing status updates within your comfort zone. You can say something as innocuous as “Have a great weekend!” or “I’m reading today’s Wall Street Journal.” You can steer clear of compliance-sensitive content, but still show some personality by commenting on your hobby or other leisure activities.

If you monitor your LinkedIn account regularly, try posing a question.  People love to talk about themselves. Again, you can keep the topic innocuous. For example, “Beach or mountains – which vacation spot do you prefer?” or “What’s your favorite hobby?”

If you’re willing to venture into financial topics, you might link to an article you enjoy. Check with your compliance professionals to see what they’ll allow.

Half the battle in social media is just showing up. Try it, and see what happens!

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LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful.

The 2010 analytics on my blog made me appreciate the power of social media more than ever.

The influence of LinkedIn revealed itself in my most popular blog posts of 2010. These posts ranked high because they attracted attention in LinkedIn groups. “LinkedIn Groups Help Blog Posts Soar,” my guest post on the American Society of Business Publication Editors blog, discusses this phenomenon. I’d like to thank all of the LinkedIn members–and other visitors–who took the time to visit, forward, and comment on my blog posts.

As for Facebook, it has become a top five source of referrals to my blog. This is true even though I only launched the Investment Writing Facebook page partway through the year. Twitter didn’t rank as high as I expected on this count.

I also saw some themes in my most popular content. Top posts addressed marketing, social media, writing, and opinions of leading financial experts.

My blog’s nine most popular posts during 2010

1. Notable quotes from the CFA Institute’s emerging markets conference
2. My five favorite reference books for writers
3. ISI’s Straszheim: China’s interest rate hike is “tapping the brakes”
4. FINRA/SEC compliance guidance for bloggers
5. “CFA credential implies a standard of care not always upheld,” says Forbes magazine opinion piece
6. LinkedIn’s fatal flaw for financial advisor compliance
7. Great blog posts don’t matter…
8. “Has housing bottomed out?”–Karl Case and others on the U.S. housing market
9. Reader challenge: What’s the writing lesson from Physicians Mutual?

Why top nine?

You may wonder why I’ve listed my top nine posts instead of the top 10.

It’s not because I’m ornery. I figured I might pique your attention with an odd-numbered list. Did I succeed?

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Social media compliance is a big worry for financial advisors, so I was delighted when Bill Winterberg offered to write a guest post on three easy steps to be compliant using LinkedIn messages. I’ve quoted Bill in numerous blog posts and tweets on technology, social media, and tweets because he’s a great resource.

Be Compliant When Using LinkedIn Messages

By Bill Winterberg, CFP^®

An earlier post on InvestmentWriting.com highlighted a “whopping flaw” in LinkedIn’s messaging system that poses compliance issues for financial advisors. The concern is that no viable solution exists to archive and retain messages using settings on LinkedIn.

I believe that advisors can use LinkedIn messages without violating regulatory requirements, provided they follow the three steps below. The key in all three steps is to leverage an existing e-mail archiving service to capture and retain messages sent via LinkedIn.

Here are three steps advisors can follow to demonstrate proactive compliance when using LinkedIn messages.

1.      Use an e-mail archiving service and use the e-mail address being archived with all LinkedIn messages. If you’re not archiving e-mails today, you’re going to have a challenging time responding to audit requests by examiners. They almost always ask for e-mail communication in one form or another.

2.      Configure your LinkedIn E-mail Notification settings to control how you receive e-mails and notifications. All of your General options should be set to deliver Individual E-mail, as shown below. This will feed all LinkedIn messages sent to you into your e-mail system, so they will subsequently get archived by the service you established in Step 1.

3.      Here is the only part that requires you to do something manually. When you compose new LinkedIn messages−or reply to messages received−you must click the “Send me a copy” check box under your message window. Again, the copy of the message will be sent to your e-mail address that is subject to archiving through your archiving provider.

These three steps will leverage an e-mail archiving service to capture and retain message sent through the LinkedIn messaging system. Upon examination by a regulator, advisors will be able to quickly produce all messages sent using LinkedIn.

Bill Winterberg, CFP^®, is a technology consultant to financial advisors in Dallas, Texas. His comments on technology and financial planning can be viewed on his blog at www.fppad.com.

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LinkedIn has a whopping flaw for advisors who’d like to keep their compliance officers 100% happy, and there’s no solution in sight. At least, not to my knowledge.

The problem is records retention, which is at the heart of conservative management of compliance risks from advisor communications. Much of what you post to LinkedIn can be automatically saved and archived using solutions provided by third-party vendors. But there’s no way to do this for messages sent via LinkedIn.

How to cope with LinkedIn’s weakness

If you’re a solo financial advisor who’s not subject to rigorous compliance controls, you may use one of the following approaches:

1. Taking the risk of neither automatically nor manually archiving messages
2. Manually copying your LinkedIn messages to your corporate email account, which I assume is automatically archived, by clicking on “Include others on this message” and then checking the “Send me a copy” box below the message.
3. Avoiding the use of LinkedIn messages, although the LinkedIn message function cannot be disabled–at least not to my knowledge

If you work for a large, conservative organization, your compliance department may ban you from using LinkedIn. I know this happens.

What’s the problem?

The barrier to solving this LinkedIn message problem may lie with LinkedIn, according to a communication from the @Backupify Twitter account. But I’m not sure if this is a challenge specific to Backupify or to all vendors.Meanwhile, I must thank @BillWinterberg of FPPad for connecting me with Backupify.

To back up what you can on LinkedIn

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a partial solution, Arkovi backs up most of LinkedIn. I believe that some of the firms listed in my blog post on “FINRA/SEC compliance for bloggers,” such as Smarsh and Socialware, also tackle this problem.

Please tell me if I’ve overlooked a solution. I’d like to share it with my readers. Meanwhile, check with your compliance professional about how to keep them satisfied as you use LinkedIn. You CAN do it.

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Chief investment officers, strategists, and portfolio managers sink a lot of energy and brain power into their quarterly market commentary. If you’re among them, your return on investment should include greater visibility in the media.

Here are six tips to help you achieve your publicity goal.

1. Publish your investment commentary – or at least some brief observations – prior to quarter-end.

Most newspapers publish their quarterly stock and bond market report the day after quarter-end. So they must conduct their interviews before asset management firms receive final benchmark returns and other analytical inputs. Journalists can’t wait for you to polish your commentary. Consider writing a first draft of your quarterly commentary two to three weeks prior to quarter-end, so you can send it to reporters on the timetable that works best for them, not you.

In calm markets, you may only need to drop in benchmark returns after quarter-end. This was often the case when I wrote economic as well as stock and bond market commentary with Columbia Management’s chief investment strategist. Even in volatile times, you’re unlikely to find yourself discarding all of your pre-quarter-end writing.

2. “Think different.”

Just as Apple successfully, although ungrammatically, markets itself as different from other computers, you should stress to reporters how your views differ from other investment commentators.

This is easiest when, for example, the crowd fears inflation, but you foresee deflation. But even when you agree with the consensus, you can distinguish yourself with a striking analogy, statistic, or sound bite.

3. Make it easy for reporters to grasp your market commentary’s main points.

Just like you, journalists are busy, so they may only skim your headline or first paragraph. Don’t title your piece “Fourth Quarter 2010 Commentary” or lead with “During the fourth quarter, the S&P 500 returned X.X%…” Instead, smack the reader with your most interesting point. For example, “Trading volume indicators suggest a less volatile 2011.”

Follow your provocative headline with a brief summary of your main points. A few bullet points may make your introduction easier to scan.

4. Connect electronically with reporters.

Your commentary will get stale if you wait to send a professionally printed copy via U.S. mail. This is why I recommend email and social media.

As for email, you’ll get better results if you ask reporters’ permission before adding them to your quarterly email. Plus, a phone call gives you the opportunity to start a personal relationship with the reporters by asking about their “beats” (the topics they cover) and what kinds of sources they need.

Social media are also a great way to circulate your commentary. Linked In, Twitter, and Facebook can get broader exposure for your compliance-approved material with little additional effort or legal risk.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to post your commentary as your Linked In status update, as I explained in “How can I post my investment commentary on LinkedIn?”

5. Find reporters who are looking for you.

Your professional association may have a media relations manager who fields requests from reporters looking for sources. Wearing my reporter hat, I’ve often contacted the CFA Institute, Financial Planning Association, and National Association of Personal Financial Advisors for help finding sources. Some associations send email blasts to any members who sign up. Others hand-pick interviewees. Some handle PR locally; others work best at the national level. Contact your professional association to ask how its PR activities work.

6. Make it easy for reporters to work with you.

• Reply promptly to journalists’ inquiries. They’re almost always in a hurry.
• Give your full name, title, company name, city, state, and phone number in your emails to ensure any article gets your details right. This also makes it easy for the reporter to contact you with follow-up questions.
• Listen carefully to reporters’ questions before answering them.
• Offer to email related materials to the reporter. Sometimes a graph or table can earn you bigger play in an article.

What are you waiting for? You can start today by posting your firm’s third quarter commentary as your LinkedIn status.

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…if people don’t read them. As the saying goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Don’t count on readers for your financial advice or investment services blog posts to come to your blog. Grow your audience by making your content available the way your readers prefer.

A client recently reinforced this lesson for me. She said, “Susan, I love those links you post on LinkedIn!” I was surprised. This client had declined my offer to send her my e-newsletter, which is the main way my clients read my blog posts. However, my content developed greater appeal when delivered via LinkedIn, a way that suits her style. Linking to my blog posts in my LinkedIn status updates is a bigger success than I’d realized.

Here are some ways you can make your blog posts available to satisfy your readers’ preferences.

1. LinkedIn status updates. I explain how to post links in “Reader question: How can I share my investment commentary on LinkedIn?”

2. LinkedIn groups. Once you’ve shared your link as a status update, it’s easy to share it with your LinkedIn groups. First, go to the status update in which you shared your link and click “Share.” Second, check the box that says “Post to groups.”

Start typing the names of the relevant groups in the box to the right. The group names will auto-fill. Finally, hit the Share button in the lower left.

3. E-newsletter. An e-newsletter is a great way to package your blog posts for readers who’ll never visit a blog or use an RSS feed. My blog post, “E-newsletters: Great marketing tool for financial advisors and writers,” discusses this option in greater detail.

4. Other social media: Twitter, Facebook, and more. You can post links to your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites much as you would on LinkedIn. Of course, link-posting will reach a point of diminishing returns. Figure out which sites yield your best results, and then focus on them.

You may find that more of your prospects are on Facebook than Twitter or other social media sites. I think this is especially true of parents who get online to monitor their children. I recently started a Facebook business page because I felt I needed to make content available in more ways to my audience.

5. Guest posts. Appearing as a guest on someone else’s blog is another way to get your content seen. While many blogs want original content for their guest spots, some don’t. You can learn more in “Audiocast: How to Guest-Blog on Personal Finance or Investments.”

If you’re not using any of these methods, it’s time to re-think your approach to blogging.

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Financial advisors, don’t post it and forget it.

If the only thing you do with your blog posts is upload them to your blog, you limit your audience. Instead, recycle your content and make it available in other formats that your target market enjoys. Recycling is a powerful technique that helps financial advisors’ ROI on blogging.

It’s easy to expand your audience with a little extra effort, including

1. Offering an email subscription to your individual blog posts–Many people still prefer receiving their reading matter via email instead of visiting your blog, Twitter, or an RSS feed. Google Feedburner is a popular choice for bloggers who want to offer this option. Feedburner delivers each post individually.
2. Offering a monthly e-newsletter made up of articles from from your blog–This allows you to emphasize the posts of greatest interest to your target audience. You can also add content that appears only in your newsletter, to give blog readers an incentive to subscribe. You can use a service such as Constant Contact or MailChimp for newsletters.
3. Packaging posts into an e-book or special report–This is how I create Investment Writing Top Tips, the e-book that my new e-newsletter subscribers receive in appreciation of their subscriptions.
4. Post links to your posts via social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. You’ll find some of the details of how to use your LinkedIn status line in “Reader question: How do I post my investment commentary to LinkedIn?“
5. Printing out appropriate posts to share with clients,prospects, and referral sources–If you’re meeting with a client whose main concern is saving for her children’s college education, you’ll make an impression if you can hand her some of your blog posts on that topic.
6. Turning blog posts into audio or video–I expanded on my original blog post content when I created my audiocast on “How to Guest-Blog on Personal Finance Or Investments.” I may pick up some audience members who prefer to listen to content.
7. Turning your content into presentations–I remember the first time I turned my former employer’s quarterly client letter into PowerPoint slides with graphs. It was the same old words, but the salespeople and relationship managers responded with such enthusiasm I felt as if I’d invented something brand new.

Do you recycle your posts in another way? Please share in the comments section.

If you’re not already reusing your financial blog posts, start today!

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Investment and wealth managers, you can get a lot more mileage out of your white papers today.

How’s that?

Don’t forget about the content once it’s up on your website. Reuse it using social media.

Recycle as blog posts
White paper content can be recycled into blog posts. In some cases, you can pluck a few paragraphs and drop them into your blog “as is.” However, most of the time, you’ll need to frame and re-write the content. I’ve been doing this recently for a white paper client.  

Another possibility: Send your white paper to a blogger whom you respect. Offer to answer questions about your topic on the other person’s blog. Check out “How to guest-blog on personal finance or investments,” if you’d like to explore this option

Tweet it–and don’t forget LinkedIn
It’s a no-brainer to tweet the availability of your white paper. Smart marketers go beyond this. They tweet intriguing excerpts, keeping them short enough to be retweetable. Pithy quotes are popular on Twitter.

Remember, tweets are also great fodder for LinkedIn updates. While you’re over at LinkedIn, you may also want to raise a question in a Group related to your white paper topic.

Go multimedia
Different members of your audience prefer to take in content in different ways. So, also consider turning your white papers into podcasts, videos, or interactive webinars.

Related posts

• How I’ve benefited from Twitter
• Reader question: How can I share my investment commentary on LinkedIn?
• The LinkedIn status update is your friend

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Did you notice that I went wild in May, posting every day as part of the Word Count Blogathon? For your convenience, I’m listing my May posts by category.

Blogging

• The two most important words are…
• Financial bloggers’ posts may violate copyright law
• Spice up your blog with free or low-cost photos
• Setting myself a challenge: A May Blogathon

Economy, investments, and wealth management

• “Have mutual fund fees gone up or down?”
• Poll: Which should investors fear most? Which #CFA2010 speakers were right?
• R Koo, “Lessons from Japan: Fighting a Balance Sheet Recession” from #CFA2010
• GMO’s Jeremy Grantham on “The Ethical Hole in Finance” at #CFA2010
• Dan Ariely says disclosure may hurt investors: Report from his #CFA201 talk
• Roger Ibbotson attacks asset allocation “folklore”
• Hear Roger Ibbotson on asset allocation
• Morgan Creek Capital’s Yusko riles up Tweeters with comments on investment fees
• Morgan Creek Capital’s Yusko on investing
• Small-cap investing opportunities according to Artio’s Dedio

Marketing

• My Boston-area networking suggestions
• Tip for how to connect with your workshop attendees 
• If you enjoy my #CFA2010 tweets
• Top four email mistakes to avoid when you’ve got a referral
• Timely, creative financial ad from Northwestern Mutual
• How to improve your financial planning client relationships
• Your customers, your inspiration

Social media

• Using CFP in your Twitter name–Read the CFP Board’s position
• The compliance-constrained advisor’s guide to LinkedIn, Part II: Status updates
• Can you help with my Facebook dilemma?
• How I’ve benefited from Twitter

Writing

• Plain English can bring your financial topic to life
• How to write subheads that command attention
• Executive’s lesson for your communications with clients and prospects
• Start with a good lead, or lose your reader
• Guest post: “Correct Grammar Errors in Your Writing Quickly and Easily”
• 10 blogs I can’t live without: Writer’s edition
• Financial advisor poll: How do you sign your business emails?
• Whoa, insurance=spam?

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