1. Your Value Is What the Client Says It Is
You know the value you deliver to clients. Or you think you know. You are not actually the authority on that topic. The client is. Their perception is the only one that counts. It is the basis of any referral they may make. If they don’t perceive or understand it, value was not delivered. — Stephen Wershing
2. How to Help Nervous Clients Nibble at Bitcoin
Plenty of advisors likely know this already, but the first bitcoin exchange traded fund debuted Tuesday, marking a momentous occasion in ETF industry histor. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSEARCA:BITO), which could imminently be followed by several competitors, lived up to the hype. It closed its first day of trading with $570 million in assets under management. Take it from someone that's covered ETFs for 13 years. That's a stellar one-day showing and one of the best on record. — Todd Shriber
3. Advisors: Don't Let Clients Get Complacent
After experiencing years of strong investment returns, your clients may be getting too comfortable. After more than a decade of generally favorable conditions in stock and bond markets, financial advisors' clients may be feeling a bit complacent and acting, well, a little spoiled. — Rob Isbitts
4. What Causes “Transitory” Inflation to Become “Persistent”?
You are the CEO of Acme Widget Factory. Among your many duties is overseeing production and profit margins related to your core product, widgets. Competition in your industry is stiff, with over a half dozen widget producers. The pandemic and recovery are throwing the widget industry for quite a loop. In the spring of 2020, there was no demand for widgets. You laid-off employees and limited production while focusing on survival. During the summer of 2020, fiscal stimulus was percolating through the economy, and demand soared. It continues at a robust pace. Acme’s future is brighter, but as CEO, you face a new set of problems. Your factories are running at full force, as are your competitors, but demand appears insatiable. At the same time, the prices of the materials needed to make widgets keep rising. Further, new and existing workers are demanding higher wages. The problem facing Acme’s CEO is occurring in executive suites across America. Their decisions about how to navigate through 2022 and beyond in this unprecedented period illuminates a potential source for “persistent” inflation. — Michael P. Lebowitz
5. The Tax Consequences That Will Follow When the Infrastructure Bill Passes
For those of you who are Popeye fans, you probably remember Wimpy’s famous request, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” As Congress tries to scurry to push through an infrastructure package, you can expect some significant tax changes to occur to help pay for it. When it comes to taxes, it is important to be aware of what could be coming, but it generally makes sense to take a little bit of the Wimpy approach by not paying taxes today. — Ross Levin
6. How Much Time Do Super-Successful Advisers Spend on Marketing?
How much an adviser should spend on marketing is a perennial question with an expectation that there is a definitive $ or % answer. There isn’t. So the better question is how much time should an adviser spend on marketing. We know that time is money. We know that marketing costs money. But the most effective marketing costs more time than money. — Tony Vidler
7. Five Ways Your Prospect Signals “I’m Ready to Buy”
We all have fantasies. Wouldn’t it be great if during your presentation the prospect said: “Stop talking! I’m ready to buy! Where do I sign?” We know real life isn’t like that. Prospects do give us certain clues they are ready to buy. Why is this important? Because we need to know when to stop presenting (selling) and start closing. We’ve heard about people who “talked the prospect into a sale but talked them out of it because they kept on going! — Bryce Sanders
8. Why Are Oil Prices Soaring?
Oil prices have risen substantially this year; WTI crude is up 60.1% to $77.43/bbl and Brent has risen 58.1% to $80.98/bbl1. While it was expected that easing pandemic conditions would support demand for oil, the move in spot prices this year has caused investors to question whether these price pressures will persist and lead to higher inflation. — Jordan Jackson
9. Everybody’s Crushing It: InvestX
Our topic on today’s episode of Everybody’s Crushing It, is private equity, and my guest, Brian Schaeffer, managing director of InvestX is the perfect person with whom to have this discussion. InvestX delivers access, liquidity, and innovation to the private equity asset class through investments in Pre-IPO Giants on a state-of-the-art trading platform, InvestX GEM. They empower broker dealers and advisors with a marketplace, technology and insights for investing and trading in institutional quality private equity without the traditional multimillion-dollar investment minimums. — Douglas Blake
10. How to Network Like a Millionaire
Let’s face it, people who know how to network and take the time to build strong connections are significantly more successful than their peers. The “new business norm” is reducing our ability to network and meet with people in person. In this episode, we dive into three critical steps that will help you grow your business regardless of outside circumstances. — Annette Bau
11. Estate Planning for ‘Cryptonians’
In recent years, the global market has opened itself up to a whole new idea of trade…a cashless society! Cryptocurrency (crypto for short) are intangible digital assets that are not issued by a central authority. As an unregulated currency, crypto is controlled by the developers themselves. These days, crypto can quite easily be converted into cash. Since 2009, crypto has soared in popularity, with the likes of Litecoin, Ethereum, and the most popular of them all, Bitcoin, becoming household names. Statistics show that there are 200-million crypto users globally and 18,000 businesses (and counting) that accept cryptocurrency payments. For the millennials and festival goers out there, Howler is an example of a business that has gone completely cashless. With 4.2 million crypto owners, South Africa ranks in the Top 10 ‘crypto nations’ in the world. — Kyle Abrahams