Archive | February, 2009

Tweets and Blogs from T3 (Tech Tools for Today Conference)

Posted on February 26, 2009 by in Practice Management

The Technology Tools for Today Conference (T3) kicks off today at the Dallas InterContinental Hotel in Addison, TX.  Due to scheduling conflicts, I’m not able to attend, but I will be able to stay on top of the action at the conference through blogs and people I follow on Twitter.

Here are some useful links to keep up to date on T3 events.

Blogs

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CRM Review: AdviceAmerica ClientVision

Posted on February 21, 2009 by in Software

This is my first in-depth review of an application targeted for financial advisers.  Please post your comments on things like image quality, layout, and descriptions to help me improve the review process.

After exchanging several tweets with Bradd Delmuto (@bdelmuto), I attended a demonstration of AdviceAmerica, Inc.’s new ClientVision CRM utility.  Bradd was very helpful in coordinating a live demo with Gary Kinghorn, director of product management for AdviceAmerica.  Gary walked me through many of the features of this new program that I’ll share with you below.

First, some background.  AdviceAmerica has been around since 1999 and financial advisers may recognize the company for its AdvisorVision product, a web-based financial planning software tool now in its 7th major release.  For more on the company’s AdvisorVision offering, read Joel Bruckenstein’s review in the November 2006 edition of Financial Advisor Magazine.

Update: AdvisorVision 7.0 was reviewed in July 2009 by Joel Bruckenstein in this Morningstar Advisor article.

Do Advisers Need Another CRM?

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One Simple Step to Prevent Backlash from Clients

Posted on February 18, 2009 by in Software

The Internet community (including the Twitter population) is buzzing about the latest Terms of Service posted by Facebook this week regarding the company’s unrestricted rights to use any content posted on their site.  This resulted in significant backlash from irate users, whereupon Facebook promptly revised the terms.  For more details, read:

PC World: Facebook Owns Your Business Data
CNN: Expert: Social networkers risk ‘losing control’ of privacy
AP: Facebook backtracks on terms of use after protests

There’s a lesson in this story for financial advisers.  Yes, you can prevent client backlash by polling them ahead of implementing new policies.  This principle also applies to vendors to the financial services industry.

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Kristen Luke’s $3,000 Marketing Plan for Advisers

Posted on February 9, 2009 by in Practice Management

Attention! There’s still time to register for the FPA of Oregon & SW Washington’s 2009 Mid Winter Conference in Vancouver, WA.  Sessions begin Tuesday morning, February 10, at 8:00AM.

Coming to the conference? You won’t be able to miss me: I’ll be making many of the speaker introductions and other announcements.  Catch me during breaks and say hello! 

On with today’s post.

I’m a technology guy and not really a marketing guy, so allow me to refer an excellent blogger on marketing strategies for independent financial planners and investment advisers that frequent FPPad.com

Go visit Kristen Luke’s blog and add her RSS feed to your reader.  Don’t have a reader?  Use Google Reader, or you can always subscribe to email updates for most content, including Kristen’s.

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Bernie Madoff Victim Tag Cloud

Posted on February 5, 2009 by in General

Don’t have enough time to sift through the 163-page list of Bernie Madoff victims?

Once again, tag clouds to the rescue.  I took all the text from the PDF and loaded it into Wordle, here are the results:

Huge Northwestern University CFP® Education Program WSJ Ad

Posted on February 5, 2009 by in Professional Development

Did you happen to notice the huge ad from Northwestern University about their CFP® Education program in today’s Wall Street Journal?

Click on the thumbnail to view the full ad.

This is a pretty prominent ad and must have cost a pretty penny to run in the WSJ.  Perhaps Northwestern believes the newly unemployed will consider making a career change into personal financial planning…

 

Related Posts:

Free Download of Acronis True Image 10 Personal Edition

Posted on February 2, 2009 by in Software

FPPad readers, go get a free copy of Acronis True Image 10 Personal Edition today!

Update 2/3/09: The website is back online. Try registering again.

I found out about this deal from LifeHacker.com where they have this to say about the disk image backup solution:

True Image does offer backup archive validation, a recovery disk creator, a startup interrupter that can re-apply a backup image, and other tools for those shaking their fists at the Windows gods.

See the full LifeHacker.com write-up by clicking here.  Advisers need to think about full disk imaging solutions in disaster recovery and business continuity plans.  When (not if) your main server’s hard drive fails, what will you do?  Dig up yesterday’s backup tape and run a full restore?  How long will that take?

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Avoid This $600 Mistake on Your Tax Return

Posted on February 1, 2009 by in Taxes

Last year I wrote about several technical issues regarding tax return filing, primarily dealing with the requirement to file a tax return in order to become eligible for the Economic Stimulus Payment (ESP).

Unfortunately, this year is beginning with similar issues concerning tax returns.

Recovery Rebate Credit Confuses Taxpayers

First, the IRS is reporting preliminary information from early returns where 15% of filers are completing the Recovery Rebate Credit (RRC) incorrectly.

Click here to read IRS Offers Tips to Avoid Recovery Rebate Credit Confusion.  Update: The Wall Street Journal picked up on these errors in a February 4 column; click here to read Early Filers Pile On Errors.

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