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1. Six Reasons Why Your Friends Don’t Do Business
You are a financial professional working with individual clients and businesses in your local area. You know plenty of people. You have been in the business for years. Plenty is going on to rock the financial boat. Inflation persists. The stock market has its ups and downs. Expenses like home, car and medical insurance are going up. It is logical to assume your friends are confused, squeezed or uncertain about the future. If they know what you do, why don’t they ask you for advice? Why are they not saying: “Can I become your client?” — Bryce Sanders
2. Do I Need to Wine and Dine My Best Clients? My Unpopular Opinion
Have you ever found yourself stretched thin, trying to bridge the gap between professional commitment and personal life? You hear all the time that you should be taking your best clients out to dinner... but when? You've got a calendar full of soccer practices and baseball games. — Libby Greiwe
3. Forgetting an Important Investing Fear
Investors should remember what selling at highs implies. The market participant engaging in such behavior, broadly speaking, is assuming no further highs will arrive anytime soon. That amounts to market timing, one of the most foolhardy endeavors in all of investing. — Todd Shriber
4. Tell Your Prospects What Matters Most
Clients, prospects, and referral partners need to hear your conviction for what you do, how you do it, and why. Tell them what matters most. — Paul Kingsman
5. Are Stocks Ready for a Deeper Correction?
Stocks took a downturn on Thursday, with the S&P 500 index closing 0.74% lower after setting a new record high of 4,341.88 early in the day. Initially, the market rallied on Wednesday’s earnings release from NVDA, but soon, the bears took over, pushing prices lower. However, NVDA gained over 9% while most of the market was consequently selling off. — Paul Rejczak
6. Food Trends Indicate Slowing Personal Consumption
Our food analysis, shown below, is based on sales from the following companies: Albertsons (ACI- data since 2020), Kroger’s (KR), Starbucks (SBUX), McDonald’s (MCD), Coke (KO), Pepsi (PEP), Chipotle (CMG), YUM Brands (YUM), Sysco (SYY), and ADM (ADM). We took the same approach and compared each company’s current annual revenue growth to 2021-2022 and the three years before the pandemic. We also weighted their revenue growth and calculated a weighted aggregate sales growth. Remember that the graphs and the results from the first commentary do not account for inflation. — Lance Roberts
7. Embracing Change: Investing in Companies of the Future
Growth investors are continuously looking to identify the next transformative company that can alter the course of traditional industries. And while there are many measures investors utilize in their search, we believe one stands above the rest: Persistent spending on research and development (R&D). However, it is important to recognize that investing in companies with high R&D spending isn’t just about short-term gains, it's about recognizing the potential for long-term value creation. Historically, companies that consistently reinvest in R&D often do not experience robust sales growth until down the road, but ultimately are enabled to maintain their competitive positions as well as potentially expand their market presence. This can lead to compounding returns for those investors who are patient enough to stay the course. — Shiv Patel
8. The Future of Mortgage Rates: What to Expect
The residential housing market may never experience a boom quite like it did during the pandemic driven by a lack of housing supply after over a decade of under-building relative to population growth, strong demand across consumers thanks to fiscal support and the desire for more living space, and rock bottom interest rates. Since then, and as highlighted in a recent post, the rise in mortgage rates and home prices has crushed housing affordability, making achieving the American dream of home ownership unattainable for many people. — Jordan Jackson
9. Here’s a Solution for Your Organic Growth Problem With Steve Gresham
Steve Gresham is the Managing Principal of NextChapter: an industry community and a tech-enabled solutions company focused on creating better retirement outcomes for everyone. In this episode, we’ve invited Steve to share his insights on organic growth, exploring what fuels it, why it’s crucial, and how advisors can harness its power effectively. — Power Your Advice
10. How Financial Advisors Can Capitalize on the "Money in Motion" Era
A staggering 75% of advisory clients left or considered leaving their advisors in 2023, according to a recent YCharts survey. This alarming trend highlights the shift in the financial advisory landscape, with clients increasingly seeking better communication, service, and guidance from their advisors. As clients become more discerning and willing to switch advisors, a substantial amount of money is now in motion. Advisors who can adapt to this environment and position themselves to attract and keep clients by delivering the exceptional service and value they demand have a unique opportunity to capture this moving money. — Don Sondhelm
11. Stop Blaming Your Leads, if You Can’t Convert New Clients
Many advisors jump to the conclusion that their leads who back out of the sale simply weren’t ready or qualified. And the answer to this which I hear a lot of is: “I just need more leads.”. This spurs advisors to launch into time consuming marketing projects, like building out complex email series, hire LinkedIn consultants, start social media campaigns, and buy expensive CRM systems like Salesforce, etc. — Ari Galper