Summit Brokerage Blog

Happy Holidays from the Summit Team

Rob Crowe — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 14:33:44 +0000

Happy holidays! From the entire Summit Brokerage Services team, we’d like to wish you a peaceful, relaxing holiday season and joyous new year. We are grateful for your continued business and look forward to supporting your independent financial practice and reaching new goals together in 2019.

To stay up to date about the latest trends in independent financial advice or the independent broker-dealer space, visit www.SummitBrokerage.com. If you’d like to experience the difference of working with the #1 boutique broker-dealer in the country, call us today at (800) 354-5528.

About Summit Brokerage Services, Inc.

Summit Brokerage Services is part of Cetera Financial Group. Summit Brokerage provides a broad range of securities brokerage and investment services to primarily individual investors. Summit Brokerage also sells insurance products, predominantly fixed and variable annuities and life insurance through its subsidiary, SBS Insurance Agency of Florida. Summit Brokerage also provides asset management services through its investment advisor, Summit Financial Group, Inc.

About Cetera Financial Group

Cetera Financial Group (Cetera®) is a leading network of independent firms empowering the delivery of professional financial advice to individuals, families and company retirement plans across the country through trusted financial advisors and financial institutions. Cetera is the second-largest independent financial advisor network in the nation by number of advisors, as well as a leading service provider to the investment programs of banks and credit unions.

Through its multiple distinct firms, Cetera offers independent and institutions-based advisors the benefits of a large, established broker-dealer and registered investment adviser, while serving advisors and institutions in a way that is customized to their needs and aspirations. Advisor support resources offered through Cetera include award-winning wealth management and advisory platforms, comprehensive broker-dealer and registered investment adviser services, practice management support and innovative technology. For more information, visit cetera.com.

“Cetera Financial Group” refers to the network of independent firms encompassing, among others, Cetera Advisors, Cetera Advisor Networks, Cetera Investment Services (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions), Cetera Financial Specialists, First Allied Securities and Summit Brokerage Services. All firms are members FINRA/SIPC.

All information herein has been prepared solely for informational purposes, and it is not an offer to buy or sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any security or instrument or to participate in any particular trading strategy.

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Show Your Appreciation

Rob Crowe — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 19:38:13 +0000

With the holiday season in full swing, you may be busy purchasing presents or shuttling between different parties, but there’s one very special group to be thinking about: your clients. If you aren’t already incorporating some sort of client appreciation as part of your holiday giving, now is the time to start. Whether it’s a wrapped gift or a personal experience, client appreciation gestures demonstrate the importance of your relationship and reinforce connection.

End-of-Year Giving

There are several ways you can break up your gifting strategies. Look to your book to determine what’s most appropriate or combine multiple avenues to create the right approach.

By service model: You may choose to have different gifts or experiences for your specific tiers. While your A clients may receive a higher-end gift or be invited to a private event, all gifts should maintain a personal touch.
By niche groups: Does your book have different interest patterns or professional traits? This can be a useful holiday giving guide. If you serve a lot of travel enthusiasts, perhaps you plan a dinner event focused around the cuisine of a particular country or region. If your clients are in a particular field, you may choose a gift that’s helpful in their day-to-day lives.
By location: If you have clients in a different city, or that you tend to work with remotely, give them something they can’t necessarily find where they are. Examples include local food items, wine or beer, or event tickets. On the flip side, if you have a client who recently moved to where you are, you may choose something from their former home to gift and demonstrate your level of care.

These strategies can be applied at scale; if you’re able, you can always take a personal gifting approach for each client (depending on time and resources). FINRA maintains limits on how much you can gift to a client in a given year, so be sure to check your budget before you send.

If you haven’t already, start your holiday giving today to ensure any mailed items get to your clients by the end of the year. Click here for some additional gifting ideas.

Springboard into 2019

The end of the year is typically a time for both reflection and planning ahead—it’s the perfect moment for you to be top of mind. Through your holiday giving, you can provide a subtle nudge to your services and value, and remind clients to think about their financial goals (and schedule their next appointment).

Year-Round Appreciation

While people tend to be in the giving spirit come the end of the year, you don’t have to limit giving to just this season. Your service model should incorporate various gifting or client appreciation touchpoints to continuously reinforce your value and personal relationship. As noted above, you will have to remain aware of how your gifting strategy adheres to FINRA’s gifting regulations and develop a year-round strategy that keeps you in compliance, while still demonstrating care to clients. Even personal touches like a handwritten card or bouquet of flowers can go a long way.

How do you show appreciation for your clients?

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About Cetera Financial Group

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Giving the Gift of Financial Confidence

Rob Crowe — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 15:31:47 +0000

‘Tis the season for holiday giving! With countless ads, online retailer emails, and a barrage of sale announcements, your clients may be stopping to think, “Maybe I should try something else…”

This year, if their situation allows, you may talk to clients about incorporating financial savings strategies in their holiday giving. Options could include bonds, 529 plans (tax-advantaged savings accounts to be used for educational purposes), charitable donations made in the recipient’s name, or even the establishment of the recipient’s first savings account. Discuss with them the potential impacts any financial giving could have on their own planned goals so they’re not derailed by the holiday season.

Why Choose Financial Holiday Giving?

Toys are temporary. Think of the “gotta have it” toys from your life. If you received any, how long did you play with them after the initial gift? Are you still using them today? Even taking the same amount your clients might’ve spent on a new video game or fancy jacket can help their loved one have added security for an unexpected expense or milestone purchase. That never goes out of style.

Patience and persistence. While not as exciting as opening a shiny wrapped box, giving a monetary or savings vehicle gift helps reinforce long-term planning and strategic thinking about the recipient’s financial future. As anyone who’s ever purchased a house knows, you can’t save it all overnight. Starting early can help the client’s loved one reach their goal, and that gift could be the kickstart for diligent, sustained saving.

A foundation for the future. By using this strategy for holiday giving, your clients can set an example for their loved one, especially if the recipient is a child or young adult. Advise clients to explain what their gift is, why they gave it, and how it can help the recipient in the future. They should use concrete, relatable terms their loved one can grasp. The recipient can get a better sense of how valuable long-term saving can be and can apply that knowledge in future financial decisions. Your clients can help reinforce that planning and saving are important components of future success. That’s not to say their loved ones can’t splurge on wanted items in the future, but they’ll understand how spending can have an impact on long-term goals.

Have you ever given monetary or savings vehicles as part of your holiday giving?

Before investing, the investor should consider whether the investor’s or the beneficiary’s home state offers any state tax or other benefits available only from that state’s 529 plan.

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Thankful for You

Rob Crowe — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 15:03:08 +0000

From the entire Summit family, we want to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving! We are grateful for your business and the opportunity to work with dedicated individuals like you every day. The work you do for your clients is so important, and we are honored to make supporting your efforts our central focus.

Wishing you a day full of celebration, gratitude, and relaxation. Happy Thanksgiving!

About Summit Brokerage Services, Inc.

About Cetera Financial Group

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Ensuring Client Satisfaction

Rob Crowe — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:22:29 +0000

Even as an independent financial professional—someone who listens to others and guides them toward fruitful outcomes—can use a sounding board. That’s where having an advisory council can come in handy.

An advisory council is a group of trusted clients you can work with to solicit feedback, try out new ideas, preview service or policy changes, and generally get a sense about what those you serve are thinking and feeling about working with you. These individuals can help you incorporate a different perspective into your services and understand what’s most important to them. Having an advisory council demonstrates to current and prospective clients that they come first in your independent financial practice and client satisfaction is paramount.

How to Set Up an Advisory Council

Decide on the purpose and general structure: What do you want your council to focus on? Will they help to shape your client experience model? Preview fee or policy changes? A little bit of everything? To get started, select some general parameters and determine what you want both sides to get out of the relationship. Other factors to consider are council size, meeting frequency, and potential turnover (if you have yearly terms or someone serves in perpetuity). You’ll finalize these guidelines later but having a loose structure now can help keep you focused on selecting the right candidates.

Look at your list of A clients: Your A clients, or whatever you call your top tier individuals, are a great place to start looking for advisory council members. They are individuals you value and trust, and who may also find the opportunity to participate in this group to be an exclusive benefit. Identify your top council candidates as well as several backup members, based on the size guidelines you set previously.

Create a special invitation: This is an exciting opportunity for clients, but it’s also a big ask. Invite them to participate in a way that makes them feel special and valued. You could design a fancy printed invitation, send them a small gift, or hold an exclusive event. The invitation should reflect your client service model, personality, and overall appreciation.

Finalize guidelines: At your first advisory council meeting, go over the general overview you created and (for the first time) get your group’s feedback. How do they see the council evolving over time? What else do they want their role to include? Have an open discussion, then take their feedback and finalize the overall rules. Your council members will see from the outset that you’re open to collaboration and know that you take their input seriously, hopefully leading to many more productive conversations in the future.

Show appreciation: Your advisory council members are going above and beyond for your practice—make sure to thank them! Look to your existing client service model and find ways you can go beyond the A level service they’re already receiving. Give them a distinctive keepsake, have a special end-of-year party just for council members and their family, or even take a small trip. Let them know regularly how much you value their input and continued partnership.

Do you have an advisory council for your independent financial practice?

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About Cetera Financial Group

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Create Your One-Word Client Experience Model

Rob Crowe — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 14:56:40 +0000

Quick! What’s the first thing you want clients to say about working with you? If you don’t immediately know the answer, chances are your clients don’t either.

Take some time as you wrap up 2018 to think about your one-word client experience model: taking the instant gut reaction of working with your practice and weaving it into all your client and prospect interactions. Refreshing your client service model and having a clear direction can help reinforce your value, deepen connections, and boost referability.

Getting Started

First, look at your value proposition, or the pitch of why an investor would choose to work with you over any other independent financial practice. What is the key point or message? For example, if your value proposition discusses how you “deliver comprehensive wealth management services to help investors build a more confident future,” you could have several different answers:

Comprehensive: You take the time to look at all aspects of a client’s life to help them design the right plan for them.
Confident: You demonstrate a high level of care, detail, and preparation so clients know they’re ready for what comes next.
Future or long-term: Clients know their relationship with you is built to last and that today’s decisions will help them for years to come.

Find the explanation that resonates most with you. For a second opinion, talk to your team members or a group of trusted clients. What’s their instant impression?

Putting Words into Action

If your outside sources said the same word or explanation you were thinking, your client experience model is moving in the right direction. If not, it’s time to align. Working on your client service model can be a great addition to your 2019 business plan.

Using the previous example, say you selected “confident” as your answer. Compare “confident” to your existing service model: How does it hold up? What are you doing to inspire confidence?

Do you greet clients with their name and ask about personal details from the last time you met?
Can your clients expect to hear from you within 24 hours when they reach out to you and when there are news and market moves that may impact them?
Do you proactively keep in touch and share news and articles related to their goals?
What support are you offering for unexpected events?

Do this exercise for all your client touchpoints, including your website, social media channels, brochures and collateral, and email. A unified experience means you’re staying consistent and helping your overall brand.

Sometimes it may be an easy fix, like incorporating language that reinforces your ideal (even using the one word itself) in your marketing channels. Others—like client review meetings, calls, and unexpected market events—rely more on feeling and intuition, and they make take a little more time to get exactly right. Collaborate with your team members to make these updates and look to your group of trusted clients to help test them out. These individuals already deeply believe in your value and would likely be glad to assist in finding the right way to share it. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that this trial period can make them feel exclusive!

By creating your one-word experience model, you’re ensuring clients know exactly why they choose to work with you—and exactly how to share your value when their friends look for an advisor recommendation.

What’s your one-word client experience?

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Are You Listening to What Your Clients Are Telling You?

Rob Crowe — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:30:45 +0000

Good relationships are based on communication—your client relationships are not different. Not only do you have to possess the ability to break down complicated concepts and connect on a personal level, you must be able to understand if what you’re saying reflects what your clients tell you. The CFA Institute’s From Trust to Loyalty study cited “failure to listen” as one of the top reasons clients don’t like their financial advisors.

Review the following to enhance your communication techniques and build deeper client relationships.

Give clients space to be heard. Remember the saying, “You were given two ears but only one mouth”? Your clients want to know you have the depth of knowledge to help them, but they also want to fully express their needs. In your client meetings, aside from providing context on performance or different investment strategies, give them the floor.

Use open-ended questioning: This is a great way to give clients the floor and encourage them to open up. Avoid asking a lot of questions with a straight “yes” or “no” answer. Instead use the five Ws and how:

“Who will be impacted by this decision?”
“What are your long-term goals?”
“Where do you envision your retirement going?”
“When do you want to implement this strategy?”
“Why are these elements important to you?”
“How do you prefer to receive performance updates?”

This gets clients to think through their objectives and express them in greater detail.

Mirror client language: When your clients share their answers, use their same words and phrases in your responses. This demonstrates your level of comprehension—plus, repetition never hurts in making a concept stick. You can use any of the following phrases for effective mirroring:

“What I’m hearing you say is…”
“To recap…”
“Did I capture this accurately?”

Watch for what’s not being said. Nonverbal cues, or body language, can tell you a lot about what your clients are thinking. Eye contact, postures, and even handshakes can alert you to whether your message is resonating, or if you need to provide further explanation (or stop to ask for feedback). Click here for more information on how to interpret these nonverbal cues.

What communication techniques do you use with clients?

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4 Scary Truths About Retirement Planning

Rob Crowe — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 17:24:27 +0000

With Halloween approaching, we’re thinking about haunted houses, ghouls, and other things that go bump in the night. The scary thing many Americans may be dealing with isn’t limited to just October but could affect them for the rest of their lives: retirement planning.

Just as clients look to you for guidance in their immediate future, they need help with long-term planning, too. Below, we look at four retirement realities and what you can do to help.

Fact: 42% of Americans will retire with less than $10,000 saved for retirement.¹(GOBankingRates 2018 Retirement Savings Survey)

What You Can Do to Help: Talk to clients about the importance of not only investing, but saving. Set realistic targets for monthly and yearly savings so they can bolster their retirement income. If they are closer to retirement age, discuss income-generation strategies that can add to Social Security distributions, and if they will need to think about working longer or continue working part-time for a few years to add to their savings.

Fact: Finances can cause negative emotions: 54% of Americans say they feel anxious about their financial situation, 52% say they feel insecure, and 48% say they feel fear.² (Northwestern Mutual Planning & Progress Study 2018)

What You Can Do to Help: Hold regular educational events with your clients and in your community. Financial literacy events can benefit pretty much everyone, no matter their stage of life or financial situation. Showcasing your depth of knowledge on important topics can potentially lead to new clients: Attendees already can see your experience and may be more likely to work with you. Additionally, be sure to keep in regular contact with clients through email, social media, or phone calls and meetings. Share your knowledge so they can gain confidence about theirs.

Fact: The average couple will need $280,000 (in 2018 dollars) for medical expenses in retirement.³ (Fidelity)

What You Can Do to Help: In your client reviews, discuss medical history, family longevity, and any potential health-related concerns. This can help determine if there’s a need to implement long-term care insurance or annuity solutions.

Fact: Only 52% of millennials with employer-sponsored retirement plans available are making contributions.⁴ (Pew Charitable Trusts)

What You Can Do to Help: Walk through your clients’ employment-related retirement options and see if they’re taking full advantage. If they aren’t, and it’s not beyond their means, encourage them to up their contribution. If they aren’t enrolled in a retirement account, or if their employer doesn’t offer one, help them set up their own long-term savings account as part of your planning services.

How are you helping clients prepare for retirement?

¹ https://www.gobankingrates.com/retirement/planning/why-americans-will-retire-broke/

² https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-2018

³ https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/personal-finance/plan-for-rising-health-care-costs

⁴ https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2017/02/retirement-plan-access-and-participation-across-generations

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Protect Your Clients’ Digital Data

Rob Crowe — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 18:31:33 +0000

Think of the last five purchases you made. How many of them were online? Chances are, your clients will have a similar answer. What are they doing to ensure their purchasing or personal information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands?

Help them stay safe online and take extra precautions (especially as we move into the holiday shopping season) to safeguard their information.

5 Ways to Protect Digital Information

Use individualized, secure passwords: Passwords should contain a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. You can use a website like StrongPasswordGenerator or a service like LastPass to create strong, randomized passwords. An important note: Don’t use the same password for different websites. In the event a hacker gets access to an account, they can use the password to try and get into other accounts with the same password.

Don’t store your credit card information: To stay safe, especially during the holiday shopping season, consider removing any credit cards you may have linked to online retailers. Not only does this help curb impulse purchases, it prevents credit card information from being stolen in a data breach. Click here to review our past post on staying safe when shopping online.

Be mindful of sharing online: Some items seem obvious, like don’t post your address or your credit card information, but you and your clients may be giving away more than you think. Seemingly innocent items like posting a parent’s birthday or doing a #ThrowbackThursday post about your first pet or high school graduation could give away answers to account security questions. That’s not to say you can’t post anything—just be conscious about your privacy settings and who has access to view your social accounts.

If it looks suspicious, don’t open it! You may receive an email or website link from someone you know, but something seems…off. It could be a phishing attempt or vulnerable website designed to get your personal information. Look out for misspellings, incorrect logos, or website addresses that aren’t secured. Click here to review some telltale signs of phishing attempts.

Consider freezing credit or using an identity protection service: You can go a step further to protect digital information by enlisting the pros. You can contact the three credit bureaus to freeze your credit, which you’ll be able to lift or re-freeze when the need arises. You can also subscribe to a service like Lifelock that works beyond freezing credit to protect your personal information.

What cybersecurity tips do you recommend to your clients?

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Finding the Right Time for Hiring New Staff

Rob Crowe — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 15:59:55 +0000

When is the magic moment to increase head count for your independent financial practice? Like many elements in life, it depends. However, there are factors you can consider now to better pinpoint when, why, and how to add a new member to your team.

Questions to Ask Before Hiring New Staff

What are you looking to achieve? By bringing on a new person, what will they help you do? Defining their specific purpose can help you gauge your needs and timing. A few examples:

You’re looking to elevate the experience you provide to clients, so you’d like to add a client service associate.
You’ve received a number of qualified referrals but don’t have the capacity to serve them, so you want to hire an associate financial advisor.
Operational tasks are starting to pile up, and a new administrative assistant could be a big help.

It may also help to come up with a job description and a list of their responsibilities to help you reach your objectives.

What is your timeline to achieve these goals? If you’re already falling behind on your desired outcomes, the time is now. However, if you see that you have a few months of runway, you may want to start putting out feelers now. This is especially important if you’re looking for someone to fill a very specialized role: How long will it take you to find them? Is the talent available in your area? Make sure you have enough time to find the right person so that your client service doesn’t suffer and you aren’t making a bandage solution.

Can you outsource this work? There will always be tasks that require a human touch, but you may be able to benefit from automation. Consider using electronic document storage or a centralized client relationship management (CRM) tool to keep track of client information instead of relying on a more manual paper process. If you need a helping hand with administrative work, you could opt to use a virtual service.

Are you able to handle it? Hiring new staff means much more than simply sourcing and interviewing. You need to spend time training, mentoring, and helping them ramp to full capacity, along with providing ongoing professional development. Be sure you have time to allot for this new responsibility. Another consideration is cost: Adding new personnel creates another expense on your budget. Do you have the resources to support this new hire today and beyond?

Is there anyone currently on your team who could take on this role? Have any of your team members expressed interest in moving into this position? Making an internal move can potentially help with costs and training time, as they already understand your workflows and culture. However, if your current staff is already taking on this work and falling behind, it’s likely the right time to get a new person on board to help. You don’t want to continuously play catch-up if your staff is stretched thin and there are qualified candidates available to join your independent financial practice.

Have you recently gone through the process of hiring new staff? When did you realize the time was right?

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