Mary Rowland has distilled the experience of an elite group of 55 financial advisors into a compact handbook on excellence for planners of all kinds. Anyone managing money-fee-based planners, brokers, trust officers, attorneys, accountants-will reap scores of valuable tips and recommendations from 55 professionals considered by their peers to be among the best in the business. Based on hundreds of hours of group discussions among these top performers, Best Practices For Financial Advisors lays out practical steps for improving business quality, efficiency, and volume. It gives tested solutions for the most challenging problems financial planners face. Whether the concern is staying current, answering legal questions, earning client loyalty, or marketing new services, Best Practices For Financial Advisors has authoritative information on: Getting the best training and education; Legal steps to registering with the SEC and other key certifications; What due diligence means in practice; Avoiding, disclosing, and eliminating conflicts of interest; What to tell clients about fees, procedures, asset classes, and risk; Meeting fiduciary responsibilities-and the business benefits of putting the client first; Strateties that match clients with suitable investments; Ways to market services, retain the best clients, and attract business.
Rowland (A Commonsense Guide to Mutual Funds, LJ 5/15/96) aims here at those who provide fianancial advice or manage other people's money, i.e., "fiduciaries." He explains where to get the best training, which groups and conferences are valuable for networking, how to handle the press, how to market the services, and how best to charge for services. She gathered this information in teleconference calls with 55 of the field's best practitioners. It is not enough to be expert in the complex fields involved; the ideal planner/adviser looks at clients holistically, tries to determine their risk tolerance, and avoids conflicts of interest. Although Rowland's work is directed at a comparatively small audience, the average reader, too, can learn not only what to look for in hiring an adviser but how to be a better client. For business libraries.?Alexander Wenner, Indiana Univ. Lib., Bloomington
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.