What you’re missing if you don’t blog

Financial planners who don’t blog are missing out on a great opportunity to connect with prospective clients, according to “Social media in financial planning — the sweet spot and the sweet gap.” Why? Because many of your most desirable prospects read blogs. On the other hand, if you do blog, you’re in a minority. Apparently […]

provocative quote about target date fund (TDF) advisers

Are target date fund advisers swayed by a conflict of interest? On p. 41 of CFA Magazine (Jan./Feb. 2009), Mark Ruloff, director of asset allocation for Watson Wyatt Investment Consulting, says, “Advisers…are implementing the glidepath. They might have a bias toward keeping higher equity allocations longer because it helps their own fees…. There are legitimate […]

How to avoid "Really BAD PowerPoint" presentations

“No more than six words on a slide. EVER.” That’s the advice of Seth Godin in “Really BAD PowerPoint (and how to avoid it).”  Here’s his rationale: “Communication is the transfer of emotion.” Too many words on the slide prevent you from connecting emotionally with your audience. Moreover, a PowerPoint slide shouldn’t serve as the […]

Eaton Vance, Evergreen, and FRC on "Communication Strategies for Good Times and Bad"

Mutual fund companies are ratcheting up their communications, as you might expect in challenging  times. I learned some of their strategies in a panel on  “Communication Strategies for Good Times and Bad” with speakers from Eaton Vance, Evergreen Investments, and Financial Research Corp. They spoke at NICSA’s East Coast Regional meeting on January 15. Social […]

Website lessons from the Obama administration

You can learn about good website design from the Obama administration. Writer Matthew Battles explains how in “Extreme makeover WhiteHouse.gov edition: How should we read the new Obama home page?”, in today’s Boston Globe. Some of the key lessons illustrated by the new whitehouse.gov website: Prioritize. Put your most important information first. Remember the top […]