This post is by Certified Master Coach, Kary Mangat .

One of the best coaching books I have read is “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith.

The author has worked with many successful people who have needed help doing more.  One characteristic these people had in common is they were all willing to make changes, both personally and in their business life, in order to achieve their goals.

Coaching is about identifying a person’s habits, beliefs and behaviors that — when improved upon — will help that person and their company achieve more.  Marshall Goldsmith has identified 20 bad habits of leaders.

This is the final post in a series focusing on Investments during the month of May. Your guide for the month is D2s own investment expert Jon Randall. You can find the first post here. or you can download the all four posts as a whitepaper: The Ideal Investment Department .

If you use stop loss orders, set them up on the same securities at the same price for all of your clients that have them. It will be very easy to track, and you will not have situations where some clients got “stopped out” and others did not.

This is the third in a series focusing on Investments during the month of May. Your guide for the month is D2s own investment expert Jon Randall. You can find the first post here .

Delivering enhanced value can equal an enhanced price. You can easily charge for doing more for your best clients! This is how top advisors in the industry are able to charge 1.5% to 2% for their asset management services. The cost savings of using more ETFs in a portfolio, compared to all mutual funds, can often deliver a 1-2% difference (especially when considering mutual fund trading costs, which is one of the biggest expenses that many advisors are not aware of – see www.personalfund.com for more information).

This is the second in a series focusing on Investments during the month of May. Your guide for the month is D2s own investment expert Jon Randall. Stay tuned each week for free downloads and other resources. You can find the first post here .

If you want to be an ordinary financial advisor who blends in with the rest of the industry, it is easy to offer ordinary products with ordinary pricing. Mutual Funds and centrally managed portfolios with an average advisory fee pricing near 1% will do just that. Ordinary services like this are adequate for smaller and sometimes medium clients (depending on the capacity of the advisor and their team).

This is the first of a series focusing on Investments during the month of May. Your guide for the month is D2s own investment expert Jon Randall. Stay tuned each week for free downloads and other resources.

The financial industry is a vast landscape of financial advisors and financial services companies doing a little for a lot of people. This “mass services” approach has driven down industry pricing. This is basic supply and demand; if there is an abundance of average product supply, prices decline. Can you give your best to all of your clients at all times? This is virtually impossible.

Hello all! After a break, D2 is back in the blogosphere with some great content planned for you over the next few months.

Our plan is to focus on a different theme each month that is pertinent to financial advisors. We want to give you as much valuable content as we can, so we’ll start with a white paper on each topic, followed by several blog posts around that month’s theme. Various topics will include investments, practice management, strategic planning, etc. You may even see a video or two.

We’re kicking things off in April with Marketing! Anjuli Kumar. D2’s very own marketing expert, will be your guide for the month.

To be successful and achieve the results you want, it is important to have a clear vision of what you want.

I recommend developing a Vision Board as a means to revive your dreams and live a life rich in the values and beliefs you choose.

To create a Vision Board, start thinking about what you value. What do you pay excellent attention to in your daily life? What do you want to be doing that you neglect on a regular basis?

Use words, photographs and illustrations to capture what your value on a piece of paper, a PowerPoint slide, anywhere that is convenient for you.

Create Kodak Moments at Your Events

For a financial advisory practice (or any service business), a marketing event allows the advisor to connect with clients and prospects on a personal level while generating a memorable experience. Photographs tend to provoke emotions and the primary reason people take them is to share that with others. Be sure to take pictures of you with your clients at your event and send it to them as a memento in an attractive frame. They will show it to others!

And in this digital age, it is always a good idea to post your event photos to your personal Facebook page or website where they will fall under the gaze of even more people in a shorter amount of time!

Involve your best referral sources in event planning