Vanguard is using LinkedIn

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John Ameriks of The Vanguard Group has posted a question on LinkedIn that’s running under a Vanguard banner.

Plenty of financial professionals post questions on LinkedIn, but this is the first time I’ve seen one running under an advertisement. Click on the banner, and you go to the Vanguard home page.

Will we see more mutual fund company advertising like this?

Have you seen other examples of fund companies trying to leverage social networking?

How effective are efforts like this?

"Jeremy Siegel on why Equities are ‘Dirt Cheap’ ”

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“I may be the lone optimist in this market,” said Prof. Jeremy Siegel in a Q&A published in Advisor Perspectives. 

He was responding to a question about his Oct. 31 Yahoo finance column, in which he said, “I would be very surprised that if an investor who bought a diversified portfolio today did not make at least 20% or more on his investment in the next twelve months.”

Are there any other optimists out there?

I like this financial crisis question

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“Can you think of ways that something good in your life can result from the financial meltdown?” 

I like this question, which concludes “Rising from the Financial Ruins” on the HBR Editors’ Blog. It’s probably easiest to answer if you’ve got a financial cushion, or at least a steady job.

Your clients’ stock options are down 76% overall

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“For those executives whose company holdings were largely in stock options, rather than stock, the decline in wealth has been huge…. Over all, the options have lost 76 percent of their value.”

That’s according to New York Times columnist Floyd Norris, who wrote in “Be Glad You’re Not Warren Buffett” about a report by Stephen Hall & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm. By the way, Buffett’s paper losses amount to more than $15 billion–or nearly one-third of the $52.3 billion in losses through Oct. 27.

I looked on the Stephen Hall & Partners website to see if their report is available to the public. I couldn’t find any mention of it.

Are your clients talking to you about their stock options? If not, maybe it’s time to bring up this topic.

"LinkedIn’s Little Secret: It’s a Great Lead-Gen Tool"

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You can use LinkedIn to help build your investment or wealth management business. Adapt the techniques suggested in “LinkedIn’s Little Secret: It’s a Great Lead-Gen Tool” on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog.

But, first, pay attention to this warning from HubSpot: 

“Trying to directly message or reach out to your LinkedIn network or contacts could be considered spam. Please be sure that: 1) people you try to contact want to hear from you and 2) your message is relevant.”

Suggestion #1: “Create a LinkedIn Group” on a theme related to your industry. As I see it, as long as you offer something of value to group members, you can use a LinkedIn Group to position yourself as an expert in a niche and/or to expand your network. A LinkedIn Group can  keep you in front of clients, prospects, and people who can send you referrals.

Suggestion #2: “Use LinkedIn’s DirectAds” for targeted advertising. I’m not an ad expert, but it seems to me that you’d probably pursue other advertising options first. This might be a nice add-on.

Suggestion #3: “Answer Questions on LinkedIn.” This displays your expertise, plus you get an emotional boost from helping others. So far, I’ve gotten more benefit from asking questions on LinkedIn, another HubSpot suggestion. My questions have yielded valuable information and quotes for blog posts. 

Suggestion #4: “Integrate LinkedIn into Your Marketing.” For example, suggests HubSpot, whenever you speak, invite your audience to join your group. It’s an easy way to build on the connection that you form during your time with your audience. 

Have you tried any of these techniques? I’d like to learn about your experiences. 

Meanwhile, reading HubSpot’s blog post got me wondering if I should create a LinkedIn Group for readers of my Investment Writing e-newsletter or for participants in the writing workshops I teach.  If you’re a newsletter reader or graduate of one of my writing workshops, what would you want from a LinkedIn group?

Related posts: 
“How to publicize your white paper using LinkedIn” 
“How financial advisors use LinkedIn to boost their visibility” 

Encourage good communication or lose your multi-generational clients

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You are failing your financial family clients–and sabotaging your multi-generational client retention–if you’re not encouraging good communication. That’s one of the big picture lessons I learned from “Five Solutions for Mixing Finance, Families and Fiduciaries,” presented to the Boston Estate Planning Council on Nov. 6 by Bonnie Brown Hartley, president of Transition Dynamics Inc., Richard Narva, partner, The Roseview Group, and Mike Hartley, chairman and CEO, DKE Inc.

A case of poor communication easily resolved
Advisors to financial families often avoid bringing up sensitive issues. This is a big mistake. 

Take the case of the family with an unsigned buy-sell agreement for their main asset, a large corporation. Their beloved daughter-in-law was the only holdout. But nobody knew why. Not the family patriarch. Not the family attorney. Not even the husband. They were too scared to ask, as Bonnie Hartley found out through gentle probing.

Imagine the family members’ surprise–and relief–when Bonnie learned the daughter-in-law’s objection could be easily removed. With permission from the patriarch and the husband, Bonnie asked the daughter-in-law why she wouldn’t sign. The answer: “I won’t sign an agreement that doesn’t make me a trustee if my husband dies before my children reach their majority.” As a mother, she didn’t want to leave her children’s future in the hands of strangers. This objection was easily addressed, so the agreement was signed.

The family wasn’t the only beneficiary of this good communication. A stronger relationship resulted between the family and the advisors who brought in Bonnie as a consultant. 

More hints for good communication 

Try running “fire drills” to test “what if” scenarios” such as the death of a key family member of the sale of the family business.  

Deepen your relationship with the younger generations.

  1. Train them in how to be good trustees and beneficiaries. 
  2. Communicate with them using the methods they prefer. That could mean foregoing meetings in favor of e-mail, texting, or communication through a family-advisor intranet. Family-advisor intranets, available through DKE Digital, are particularly well-suited to multi-generational families whose members and advisors are geographically dispersed.
  3. Assign members of your firm to mentor younger family members–and go outside your firm to find mentors if necessary.
  4. Include younger members of your firm in meetings with multi-generational clients.
  5. Use genograms to get a better understanding of your client families’ dynamics.

For more insights from the Hartleys 

If you’re interested in more insights from Bonnie Hartley, you can sign up for a quarterly e-newsletter at the bottom of The Hartley Group’s website.

On a personal note, it was a great pleasure to attend this presentation because Bonnie and Mike have been valued clients.

Alternative investments: Farmland investing, emerging markets infrastructure, and catastrophe bonds

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Mercer, the investment consulting firm, tackles three unusual asset classes in “Introducing emerging alternative opportunities.“

According to the article, institutional investors are considering investing in these three asset classes to diversify their portfolios or achieve more stable returns:

Independent investment research will suffer in the near term

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The recent decline in commissions generated by buy-side equity trading will cut funding available for independent and sell-side investment research, according to “Integrity’s Outlook for Independent Research.” Michael Mayhew of Integrity Research Associates says that commissions are expected to fall by 40% next year.

However, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. Integrity says, “However, once the dust settles (in late 2009 or early 2010) we anticipate that the market for investment research, and particularly non-traditional independent research, is likely to improve markedly.” Why? Because buy-side research staffs will have shrunk and the supply of good research will be tighter.

Interested in more news like this? Visit Integrity ResearchWatch or  subscribe by email or RSS feed.

Prof. Andre Perold on "Stable Risk Portfolios: A Timely Alternative to Static Asset Allocations?"

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Risk matters. October’s wild stock market swings have reminded investors that volatility can be painful. They simply can’t stomach as much risk as they thought they could.

In this environment, it’s no surprise that Professor André F. Perold’s October 21 talk on “Risk Stabilization and Asset Allocation” attracted a bigger than usual crowd to the monthly meeting of the Boston chapter of the Quantitative Work Alliance for Applied Finance, Education, and Wisdom, affectionately known as QWAFAFEW.

Perold’s premise: A stable-risk portfolio that keeps risk constant is a viable alternative to investors’ classic static policy portfolio, such as 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and it may offer superior risk-adjusted returns.

Continue reading about stable risk portfolios in my Advisor Perspectives article.

Four tips for managing the stock market’s emotional strains

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Your clients may benefit from life coach Cheryl Richardson’s advice on how to minimize the emotional toll of the stock market’s gyrations.

Richardson suggests:

  1. Put limits on sensational, bad news. 
  2. Put limits on your interactions with pesky pessimists.
  3. Fill your head and heart with empowering information and inspiration. 
  4. Become a source of hope and strength for others.  

Read more in Richardson’s Oct. 13 Life Makeover newsletter.