Saturday, September 12, 2015

Save the date! T3 Technology Conference for Financial Advisors - Feb 10-12, 2016 - Florida



See You at FPA B.E. in Boston? Here's How to Find Marie Swift.

I'll be at the FPA B.E. Conference in Boston. Find me and say hello!


I'll be hanging around these booths -- all of which are Impact friends and clients, all of which offer some pretty fantastic solutions for independent advisors and allied institutions:


  • Vanare | NestEgg - Table #17
  • Client Driven Practice - Table #15
  • Scottrade Advisor Services - Booth 308
  • Strategy and Resources - Booth 302
  • Entreda - Table # TBD
  • GuideVine.com - Table #TBD
  • Everplans Pro - Table #TBD


See the interactive map of the exhibit hall for visual of the booths and tables.

I will also be live tweeting some of the sessions including:

Retirement Roundtable - Sept 26 at 2:20 pm ET
Robert Powell, respected journalist

Cutting College Costs - Sept 26 at 4:30 pm ET
Lynn O'Shaughnessy, respected columnist

New Rules of Marketing and PR - Sept 26 at 8:00 am ET
Jill Schlesinger, respect journalist

Robo-Advisors Point / Counter Point - Sept 27 at 2:20 pm ET
Michael Kitces (Nerds Eye View), Rich Ellinger (Wealthminder), and Lex Sokolin (Vanare | NestEgg)

Investing Roundtable - Sept 27 at 3:55 pm ET
Advisor Partners CEO - Dan Kern

M&A and Succession Planning / Financing - Sept 27 at 5:00 pm ET
Marion Asnes (Idea Refinery) + Folks from Live Oak Bank and FP Transitions


Unfortunately, I have a flight on Monday September 28 -- I am heading right to Phoenix so I don't miss too much of the Bob Veres' Insider's Forum (and I am also speaking there alongside with my strategic partner Marion Asnes) -- or I would have loved to attend the Women and Investing session sponsored by Money Magazine and staffed by a host of awesome women I know (sorry ladies, alas a different duty calls). 

If you haven't signed up yet for the Insider's Forum, you can save $75 off your first registration with this code:


2015IMPACTCOMM

If you want to find me at FPA B.E. and prefer not to look for a "chance encounter" please stop by the Strategy and Resources booth #320 and leave a message with whoever is there. If you leave your cell phone number or mobile email, I will be in touch and we can meet up!



Friday, September 11, 2015

Trends That Matter: Top Issues for Major Firms Today

Matt Lynch, Managing Partner at Strategy and Resources, LLC will discuss trends that affect major firms, from the “vendor identity crisis” to “regulatory pressure,” to “trends in advice” as well as “succession issues” and “micro-marketing.”

Matt's presentation will be followed by table discussions centered around the key trends, facilitated by Strategy and Resources' resource partners (industry thought leaders Marie Swift, Julie Littlechild, Marty Miller, Joni Dunn, Scott Taylor, Mitch Vigeveno, Bob Cogan and Marion Asnes), after which the group will share its conclusions.

WHEN:      Friday, September 25, 2015 from 3:00 - 4:00 pm ET

WHERE:    FPA Major Firms Symposium in Boston, MA


WHAT:      Trends That Matter: Top Issues for Major Firms Today
                 ~ Featured presentation by Matt Lynch and strategic partners ~

WHO:        Executives from Major Firms in the Financial Services Industry

WHY:        Enjoy a full day of interesting dialog and presentations thanks to 
                  FPA and supporting sponsors shown below 

Email your RSVP request to Lucy Solomon at FPA




Monday, September 7, 2015

See you at Bob Veres' Insider's Forum - Sept 28-30 in Phoenix?

So this is cool ...

Marion Asnes and I will be tag teaming at Bob Veres' Insider's Forum this fall. We'll be delivering a CEO TED Talk called "Secrets of Branding in the Robo Age."

Hope to see you there!

If you'd like to save $75 off the first registration for your firm, use this code: 2015IMPACTCOMM


If you'd like to save $75 off the first registration for your firm, use this code: 2015IMPACTCOMM

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Finding Your Voice and Building Your Brand as a Financial Advisor Today

Based on a conversation I had a few months ago with Bob Veres and Marion Asnes, I have been thinking about and reading up on "voice" and "branding" with an eye toward bringing something fresh and helpful to the CEO TED Talk that Marion and I will be co-delivering at the Bob Veres Insider's Forum in September.

Subsequently, Bob wrote a nice piece on branding essentials for his Inside Information subscribers. Marion and I were quoted, as were some of my other favorite industry insightfuls (Steve Wershing: here's looking at you, kid). If you missed that issue, head right on over to www.BobVeres.com and sign up for Inside Information -- it is one of the best publications in the financial advisory space, chock full of insights and good food for thought, written especially for financial advisors and others who are a part of that service ecosystem.

I then wrote a piece which I called "Being a Social Leader Online" -- which is all about building trust through authentic voice and transparent communications -- for Financial-Planning.com. They renamed the piece "Why Financial Advisors Can't Ignore Social Media" -- which is true, but was not really, to my thinking anyway, the focus of the piece. Never-the-less, I know a bunch of financial advisors and allied others read it because I saw a ton of conversation and energy happen on Twitter. So that's good. But the whole point of that piece is that high-trust leaders are those who are willing to show their personality -- and even their vulnerability.

I subsequently had a conversation with some business colleagues who left the corporate tech and ad agency worlds and now basically ghostwrite blog posts and long-form LinkedIn Pulse posts (along with corresponding social media posts for Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter) for financial advisors. They have developed this thing they call "Voice Science" so that when they write the pieces for their clients, they actually CAPTURE that person's authentic voice. 

I'm excited about the free webinar they are doing for Friends of Impact this Tuesday, August 11, at noon CT. 

The big idea here is not to sanitize things so much. Yes, be professional. Yes, do a spell check. Yes, think before you post. But be your true and authentic self. To do that, though, you should really think about who that true and authentic self IS ... and if you are a part of a team (or a team of one) working as a business then there needs to be some dialog and consensus on what your "brand" is before you can synch up your "voice." 


One more helpful tidbit: Bob and his team at Insider's Forum asked me to come up with a guest post for their blog. Since the whole topic of "brand" and "voice" have been on my mind more than ever recently, I wrote a piece called "Finding Your Voice Online." I hope you will read it and do some of the exercises I suggest. 


I hope to see all of you at the 2015 Insider's Forum where we can continue this "brand" and "voice" conversation. 


To save $75 off your first registration, enter 2015IMPACTCOMM


Final thought for today: As I was following some links on Twitter, I stumbled upon this article by a content marketing guy named Marcus Sheridan. He says that we can never REALLY find our true and authentic voice ... because it is changing all the time


His call to action is good:

From this day forward, stop worrying about “finding your voice.” And if you do find it, throw it back in the river so you can find it again later. Finding is not the goal here. This is about GROWTH, pure and simple. And trust me when I tell you that if you’re growing, happiness will follow.

My take: We must all constantly reinvent ourselves. If we do that, I submit that in addition to personal growth and happiness, our business growth and happiness will also multiply.


So, ask yourself regularly: 
"Who am I? And why should others care?" 

Challenging questions, to be sure, but well worth the contemplation. Time for me to go on a long walk and think about those questions myself.




Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Marketing Your Financial Services Firm in the Digital World

Free Webinar: 
Marketing Your Financial Services Firm in a Digital World

On September 2, 2015, Marie Swift, founder of PR and marketing firm Impact Communications, and business colleagues Blane Warrene, co-founder of technology consulting firm QuonWarrene, and Julie Edge, co-founder of custom content creation firm Creelio, spoke about marketing your financial services firm in the digital world.

Download the recording and you will learn:

- Why People Share Online and Off
- How to Create Compelling Content
- Why Being Seen as a Leader Online is Vital
- How to Stay Relevant in Digital Age
- How Mobile Connectivity is Reshaping Consumer Mindsets
- Tools for Measuring, Monitoring and Managing Social Media

In short engaging "spotlight appearances", Marie, Blane and Julie each presented their best thinking on the topics above. Marie fielded questions from the audience at the end of the three mini-presentations.

Download or watch the recorded webinar now:
https://vimeo.com/138137726

Feel free to share with interested others.

See you next time!
Marie Swift and Friends