You can find agents who handle books like yours by going to AgentQuery and checking the “finance” box.
That’s the easy part.
It’ll take a lot longer to convince an agent that you’ve got a marketable book. Good luck!
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
Copyright 2008 by Susan B. Weiner All rights reserved
Sometimes a little tweaking can make your email message more compelling to your readers. That’s especially true when you make your message reader-centric.
Below you’ll find a “before” example of a message I received recently and the “after” version with my edits to make it more client-focused.
Schwab and TD Ameritrade Financial Stability
We received a number of phone calls the past few days about the financial stability of Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade who we use to custody client accounts. I am pleased to report that they are both in fine shape, as they are not investment banks. Investment banks create products and sell them to institutions such as insurance companies, pension plans and banks. In addition, your accounts are separately held and each account has both SIPC and supplemental insurance far in excess of your accounts’ value. For more information about SIPC and supplemental insurance please click on the following link:
Schwab and TD Ameritrade are Financially Stable
Has the recent financial turmoil made you worry about the financial stability of the firms that provide custody for your accounts with us?
Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade are both in fine shape. They are not investment banks and they have strong balance sheets.
In addition, your accounts are separately held and each account has both Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) and supplemental insurance far in excess of the account’s value. For more information on SIPC and supplemental insurance click on the following link:
What are the key lessons from the two versions?
Still, I give the authors credit for e-mailing their clients promptly. It’s not easy to craft a perfect communication when time is short.
Image courtesy of Rinjith Krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Jargon is a barrier to your effective communication with clients. But sometimes it’s hard for you to think of a replacement for a term like “secular” that’s convenient shorthand for communication among investment professionals.
Google definitions can help
You can always do a Google search to define terms that may derail your client. For example, inputting “define: credit default swap” will yield some definitions that you can paraphrase for your client’s benefit.
But sometimes a Google search doesn’t cut the mustard.
For example, investment strategists often talk about secular trends. But “define: secular trend” yielded no definitions when I tried it recently. And “define: secular” spoke about the term only as the opposite of “religious.”
Online investment glossaries fill the gap
Sometimes an investment glossary comes to the rescue.
Here’s what Investopedia says when I input “secular.”
Sometimes it pays to go to investment glossaries.
Here are some options:
Your recommendation?
What investment glossaries do YOU recommend?
You can’t be an effective financial advisor, if you can’t communicate effectively via e-mail.
Your e-mail subject line is key. If you write a weak subject line, your client or colleague may ignore or even delete your message. Write a strong one, and you’re more likely to get the response you need.
“Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips” by Dennis Jerz does a nice job of critiquing subject lines as he explains how to “write a meaningful subject line.”
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that’s an investment in your success
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
“Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission.”
I agree with this assertion by Jakob Nielsen, a guru of website usability, in “Writing Style for Print vs. Web.”
Nielsen gives good pointers for web writing in “How Users Read on the Web.”
If you don’t please your readers, your website will suffer from a high bounce rate. In other words, readers will quickly desert your website. In “Reduce Bounce Rates: Fight for the Second Click,” Nielsen suggests solutions. They boil down to providing links to relevant information on your website.
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that’s an investment in your success
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
“Always work out what you want to achieve before beginning the speech process,” says author Thomas Murrell in “Ten Speech Tips for Writing Powerful and Persuasive Presentations.”
The same rule applies to your written communications. Figure out your goal ahead of time. Then focus on achieving it. Weed out any content that distracts.
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Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that’s an investment in your success
Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.
It can be painful to read a page full of long sentences and longer paragraphs. That’s why, when I teach “How to Write Investment Commentary that People Will Read,” I suggest that people vary the length of their sentences and paragraphs.
New York Times columnist Floyd Norris illustrates this nicely in the print version of his article“No Profit Without Risk.”
In the print version, a two-line paragraph follows an eight-line paragraph and a 10-line paragraph. The contrast between two vs. eight and ten in the print version is starker than what you’ll see in the online article. By the way, the online article goes by a different title than the print version, so please don’t tell me I got his title wrong.
The short third paragraph comes as a relief. It gives the reader a chance to breathe. Plus, its shortness emphasizes the contrast between the content of the first two paragraphs and third.
In fact, Norris’ opening three paragraphs illustrate a classic article approach that goes like this:
People thought blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
They were wrong.
So, think about mixing up your sentence and paragraph lengths the next time you write. Your readers will reward you by paying attention longer.
Sometimes you have to say something unexpected to grab your reader’s attention.
Something like, “Tired of having too much money at the end of the month?” That’s a headline that snared me recently. Aren’t you usually concerned about the opposite problem, of having too little money at the end of the month?
In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath say, “The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns.”
“Surprise jolts us to attention,” as the Heaths say.
Can you use surprise in your next client communication? PIMCO’s Paul McCulley did it in “A Kind Word for Inflation.”
“Should you always label a white paper with the term ‘white paper’?”
Michael Stelzner asks this question on his Writing White Papers blog.
My answer: it depends.
When you say “white paper” to financial advisors, they probably know what you’re talking about. In fact, the term conjures up the image of a helpful tool.
Say “white paper” to an ordinary investor and you’re likely to get a blank look. In this case, it’s far better to call it a “special report” or even just an “article.”
What do you think?
“The Top Seven B2B Communications Mistakes” offers some useful advice for investment and wealth management marketers, whether you’re targeting businesses or individuals.
For example:
When I review investment and wealth management firms’ content, I often find it focused on them, not on their clients. It takes a mighty motivated buyer to plow through content that takes that approach.
As for informing instead of selling, I don’t think you can follow this rule 100% of the time. But many firms could benefit from taking this advice more frequently.