When I built my wine cellar, I mentioned it to a colleague who also had one of his own.  He welcomed me to the ‘club,’ and imparted this interesting piece of advice:
“Terry,” he said, “now your first instinct is going to be to fill that wine cellar up as fast as you can.”
I nodded in […]

You may have noticed that a bull market in full swing is a rather poor venue to differentiate oneself as an advisor.  Well then, how about a protracted bear market where the Dow keeps dropping like a stone every day, day after day? Now that’s more like it!
 I was taught by my advisor that there […]

When you recommend a restaurant to someone, or a fine bottle of wine, or a really good massage therapist, have you wondered what is motivating you to do so?  How about music? What is the psychology going on behind the scenes when I tell you that you absolutely must listen to this great band that […]

I was talking to one of my employees about procrastination today, and it made me think of how common it is… and the impact it has on a business.
Dawdle, adjourn, dally, drag your feet, defer, postpone, delay, put off – whatever you call it, it’s a disease that affects most of us to some degree.
 
An […]

When a potential client walks into the office of an entrepreneur whose services they are considering, they often feel apprehensive about facing a more or less aggressive sale. I have found that not meeting their expectations in this regard is a much better approach. Instead, I suggest going through a process that will make the […]

I was talking to one of my Financial Advisor clients the other day. He told me about having a new client from South America. The Advisor had got a call from this fellow, and knew that he would only be in town for one day. They got together, and instead of allowing his procedure for […]

I was talking to one of my Financial Advisor clients the other day. He told me about having a new client from South America. The Advisor had got a call from this fellow, and knew that he would only be in town for one day. They got together, and instead of allowing his procedure for […]

In my travels to various conferences throughout North America, invariably I come across speakers who present on why every entrepreneur should have an elevator speech.
The concept of having a brief, compact statement to make when someone inquires about what it is you do makes sense. However, the inherent flaw with virtually every elevator speech I’ve […]

One of the most valuable services an advisor can deliver is to make it easy for a client to view them as a trusted advisor.
The other day an advisor, who is in the process of implementing their New Client Advocate Process, commented that they were finding the 3rd appointment was running about 2 hours and […]

Over the last 10 years our other speakers, primarily Duncan, have had the opportunity to speak to about 100,000 people at various events across North America. So it isn’t uncommon to have someone tell us about their success they had after one of his talks. Often we hear about it years later.
One such circumstance arose […]