Poll: Would you hire a ghost blogger for your company?

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Investment and wealth managers have great skills. But writing isn’t necessarily one of them. So what’s a financial professional to do now that blogging is an important part of marketing?

Some companies hire ghostwriters to write their blog posts for them. Ghostblogging can encompass everything from coming up with the ideas, doing the research, writing, formatting posts, and even responding to comments in the voice of the company. Or it can involve a much bigger contribution from the client whose name goes on the post.

Critics say that hiring a ghostblogger is bad. In “The Ghost Speaks,” writer Michael Janofsky quotes communications consultant Shel Holtz, “I’m a huge fan of transparency. My advice to executives is: If you don’t take the time to write yourself, find another channel of communication.”

What do YOU think? Please answer the poll that will run in the  right-hand column of this blog until I replace it with next month’s poll. I’ll report on the results in my May e-newsletter.
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Sign up for the next session of “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A Five-Week Teleclass for Financial Advisors” starting April 22 or join the mailing list for my free monthly newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

The compliance-constrained financial advisor’s guide to using LinkedIn: Part I

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“I’ll connect on LinkedIn if my clients ask me, but I don’t see the value of LinkedIn because my compliance officer won’t let me do anything.”

If this is how you feel about LinkedIn, this article is for you.

Even if you can’t post more than your name and company affiliation, you can benefit from LinkedIn in two big ways. First, your listing makes you more easily located in an Internet search. That’s the focus of this article. In Part II of this article, I will address more active, yet compliance-friendly, strategies you can apply.


It’s easier for clients, prospects, and referral sources to find you
 
You want clients, prospects, and referral sources to find good information when they Google your name.  LinkedIn profiles tend to rank high in such searches. 
Just make sure you’ve made your profile public by clicking on “Edit Public Profile Settings” and checking “Full View” instead of “None.”

You can increase the ease with which you’re found by creating a custom URL for your LinkedIn profile, so the URL reads http://www.linkedin.com/in/YOURNAME. Simply edit the Public Profile URL at the bottom of the “Edit My Profile” page.

Your LinkedIn profile also offers the advantage of presenting yourself as you’d like to be seen, within the confines of what’s permitted by your compliance department.

Another factor to consider: Many LinkedIn users will look for you using the site’s search box. If you’re not on LinkedIn, it’s almost as if you don’t exist.

So, hurry and put your profile up on LinkedIn. If you’re already on LinkedIn, stay tuned for my article on compliance-friendly ways to use LinkedIn. 

Related posts
* My most popular blog posts of 2009
* Guest Post: “How to Use LinkedIn When Your Compliance Department Says No”
* Twitter to the rescue of my colleague with an RFP dilemma
* How to publicize your white paper using LinkedIn
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The next session of “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read: A Five-Week Teleclass for Financial Advisors” will start in April. For more information, sign up to receive “Information on upcoming classes, workshops, and other events” as well as my free monthly newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

How should you thank clients for referrals?

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Everybody knows you should thank clients when they refer business to you. But financial advisors can’t agree on the right way to express their thanks.

Is a verbal thank you at your next client meeting enough? How about adding a card, gift or discount on your professional services? Often your response depends on the nature of your relationship with the client and the value of their referral.

If you decide on a card, must it be handwritten? Or could you use an automated service such as SendOutCards? I know advisors on both sides of this debate.

Some advisors reward referrals with a discount on their fees. Others shrink from this approach. They feel discounts make clients question the validity of their pricing. The non-discounters may prefer to buy dinner or send a gift to the referral source.

What do YOU think? Express your opinion in the poll you’ll find in the right-hand column of this blog. I’ll share the results of the poll in my April e-newsletter. (Note: The poll is no longer active, but you can read the results on page 3 of my archived newsletter.)

Related posts
* Guest post: “The Lost Art of the Thank You Card”
* “You” can help your job hunting “thank you”

Update on June 23, 2013: The combination of urLetters and urFont might substitute for SendOutCards with something that appears handwritten. Learn more about the two apps in “App puts a techie twist on writing letters,” which appeared in The Boston Globe. I haven’t tried either app because I prefer to write longhand.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

"What the HELL is Social Media?" with a hat tip to Sree Sreenivasan

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If you’re still wondering why you should learn about social media, check out this video, which I discovered thanks to Sree Sreenivasan.

Reader question: How can I share my investment commentary on LinkedIn?

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You can use LinkedIn, yet stay within your compliance officer’s guidelines, by sharing approved materials through your LinkedIn “status line.” I often suggest this to investment managers and financial advisors.

So I wasn’t surprised to receive an email saying, “Help! Please remind me how to share a link to my investment commentary on LinkedIn.”

Here’s my answer.

Step 1 Shorten the URL that takes readers to your commentary. The URL for your commentary is probably too long for the limits of LinkedIn’s status updates, especially because you need text to lure readers to your commentary. This is when link shorteners come in handy. You can use a free service, such as TinyURL.com. To shorten your link, simply follow the directions at the link shortening website of your choice.


Step 2 Enter your text into LinkedIn. When you go to your LinkedIn home page, you’ll see below your Inbox the Network Updates section.  Type your text into the box. If your commentary is provocative, you might say something like “You won’t believe what I’m saying about the stock market  http://tinyurl.com/…..” LinkedIn automatically converts URLs beginning with http:// into live links.

Hit the Share button and your investment commentary becomes available to folks on LinkedIn.

Related posts
* The LinkedIn status line is your friend, whether you’re looking for clients or a job
* My top tips for LinkedIn newbies who want to attract financial clients, referrals, and jobs

Financial writers clinic: Lessons from Floyd Norris of The New York Times

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I’m a big fan of New York Times columnist Floyd Norris. His Feb. 27 column illustrates techniques you can use for your financial articles and blog posts. 

Lesson 1: Make your title provocative–and consider giving away your conclusion. “Think Banks Are Out of the Woods? Maybe Not,” says Norris’ title. 

The title achieves two positive results. First, it challenges a growing number of pundits who believe banks are in much better shape than one year ago. That’s provocative. Folks will want to know the reasons behind his statement.

Second, the title gives away the article’s main point. Making your conclusion clear up front will attract more people than a title that doesn’t express an opinion, such as “Percentage of bad bank loans” or even “Bad bank loans soar.” Busy people want to get a sense upfront of whether an article will justify their spending the time to read it. 

Lesson 2: A startling fact will hook your readers in your opening sentence. Norris opens with “More than $1 in every $10 that American banks have outstanding in loans is lent to a troubled borrower, a ratio far higher than previously seen in the quarter-century that such numbers have been compiled.” I had to continue reading after that opening. 

Lesson 3: Lead with your message, not your source, as I’ve written on this blog. Norris didn’t mention the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation report that’s the source of his data until his third paragraph. Naming your source boosts the credibility of your article or blog post. But it’s usually not a particularly interesting piece of information. 

Lesson 4: Use graphs or some sort of graphic. A non-text element attracts the eyes of people who might otherwise skip an article. However, Norris’ graphs could have been stronger if they were integrated into the layout of the article and carried more descriptive text. 

Lesson 5: Your ideas count. Norris always has something interesting to say. I might read his articles even if they weren’t well organized.

Image courtesy of pakora at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Related posts
*  Vary your paragraph length like NYT writer Floyd Norris
*  Financial writers clinic: Getting rid of “mitigate”
*  Financial writers clinic: Rhythm can help you 
*  Financial writers clinic: Great title, lousy intro

My best posts for financial advisors who blog

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If you’re a financial blogger who cares about well-written blog posts, you’ll find something useful in these posts.

By the way, if you’re struggling to crank out a steady stream of blog posts, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read,” my 5-week teleclass for financial advisors, starts tomorrow, Feb. 25.

Guest post: "The Lost Art of the Thank You Card"

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I’m a big fan of saying “Thank you.” So I’m delighted to feature this guest post by Suzanne Muusers of Prosperity Coaching. Suzanne is a consultant to financial advisors. I met her through Twitter.


The Lost Art of the Thank You Card
By Suzanne Muusers

What would happen to your referrals if you wrote five thank you cards per week? Would your client relationships deepen? Would you spread goodwill and kindness?

I’ve been sending out a lot of hand-written thank you cards lately. I find really nicely designed thank you cards at Trader Joe’s and AJ’s and I just get the urge to send them. You wouldn’t believe the response I get when the recipient receives the card. I usually get a phone call from them gushing about “taking the time to send a hand-written card” and “thank you so much for thinking of me.”

We have become such a digital world we forget about the impact such a simple action can have.  We now have email, ezines, newsletters, evite.com, and the like.  While it’s nice to save paper on such niceties and be “green,” getting a card in the mail is like getting a present.  When you send someone a card through the mail, I am betting that it stays on their desk for quite some time.

As I glance over my desk, I see a hand-written card I received from a financial advisor I met last month at the Financial Planning Association meeting. He asked me for advice on where he should get coach training. I gave him a few choice pointers and several days later received a beautiful zen-like card from him thanking me for the tips. You can bet that I’ll keep that card for a long time.

So how can you use thank you cards in your business? What occasions would be suitable for a thank you card?

How about:

  • Birthday cards
  • Nice to meet you cards
  • Thank you for the referral cards (as part of a written referral program)
  • Congratulations for your achievement
  • Sympathy cards
  • Wedding cards


Maybe thank you cards should be part of your Marketing Plan and part of your week!

Suzanne Muusers is a business coach, marketing expert, and a sales and marketing speaker based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Her coaching program for financial advisors, The Prosperous Advisor™ , focuses on revenue-building activities.

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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
If you’re struggling to pump out a steady flow of good blog posts, check out my five-week teleclass for financial advisors, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read,” and sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Can you over-use "you" in your marketing materials?

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You may be surprised by my suggestion that you can overuse “you” in your written communications. I’ve said many times that investment and wealth managers speak too much about “we,” the firm, and too little about “you,” the client or prospect.

Writing reader-focused text is important. However, dropping “you” and “your” multiple times in every sentence is overkill.

Here are some usage suggestions that emerged from my conversation with designer Margaret Patterson, author of the popular pitch book posts on this blog.

  • Don’t use “you” when it isn’t clear who “you” is. Make it clear whether “you” refers to the client, financial advisor, consultant, or some other individual or group.
  • Don’t use “you” prematurely. Writing “We help you reach your financial goals” isn’t appropriate when you’re addressing a prospect who may never become a client. “We can help you reach your financial goals” would be okay. Better yet, “We help clients reach their financial goals.”
  • Simply using “you” won’t convince your clients that you care about them. You must back up your words with actions.
  • Don’t write “you” in fancy fonts that are hard to read. If used too much in any font, “you” makes a document tedious.

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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
If you’re struggling to pump out a steady flow of blog posts, check out my five-week teleclass for financial advisors, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read,” and sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved

Some ammo for job-hunting — and client-seeking — CFA charterholders

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Employers–and potential investment management clients–don’t understand why they should hire a CFA charterholder instead of a non-charterholder. That’s the lament of some job-hunting and client-seeking colleagues of mine in the Boston Security Analysts Society.

“Fund managers with CFAs take fewer risks than those with MBAs, study says,” an article by Ian McGugan in Canada’s The National Post, provides one reason for choosing a CFA charterholder. Charterholders are going to take fewer risks in portfolios compared to MBAs.

“This result is surprising and may have something to do with the ethics instruction that is part of the CFA course but not most MBA programs,” writes McGugan.

This newspaper article is based on research by Oguzhan C. Dincer of Illinois State University, Russell B. Gregory of Allen Massey University – Department of Commerce, and Hany A. Shawky of SUNY at Albany – School of Business and Center for Institutional Investment Management.

You can download “Are You Smarter than a CFA’er?”  from the SSRN website, where registration may be required. 

Thank you, Matthew Andrade, member of the Calgary CFA Society, for bringing the National Post article to my attention!
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
If you’re struggling to pump out a steady flow of good blog posts, check out my five-week teleclass for financial advisors, “How to Write Blog Posts People Will Read,” and sign up for my free monthly
Copyright 2010 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved