The Financial Advisors Guide to Independent Business Ownership January 2009, Issue 1

For a FREE subscription, go to:www.transitions-mag.com

May

200

9

Gol

den

Nug

gets

of E

duca

tion

… FirmSurveillance Techniques

(Page 7) Page 7

Table of Contents

Letter from the Editor ..................... 1In the News .................................. 3Calendar of Events ......................... 6

Firm Surveillance Techniques ....... 7 by Paul Lieberman & Robert Ross

The Golden Nuggets of ............... 11Continuing Education with J William Cooley When You Don't Have ............... 17 A Leg to Stand On by Dave Williams, CFP®

Not Just Windows: ..................... 21 The Google Phone by Joel P. Bruckenstein

Apps Done Better by ................... 24 My iPhone by David J. Drucker

Business Profile .......................... 26 featuring Lead Generation Consulting

Book Review: Financial ............. 30 Services Marketing authored by Jay Nagdeman

Lessons Learned from T3 ........... 31 by Marie Swift

Today's Opportunity to Build ....... 35 a Winning Culture by Jamie Ziegler

Road to Recovery ....................... 39 Schwab Study

For Crying Out Loud ................... 41 by Dan Taylor

Resource Directory ..................... 43Grin and Bear It! ......................... 45

Dealing with TemporaryDisabilities

Page 17

Not Just Windows?

Page 21

THE INDUSTRY'S

OF ITSKIND

1st

Planning a move? Better know about ...

J William CooleySuccessCE.com

Page 11

Transitions™

26 May 2009 www.transitions-mag.com

A Conversation With …Lead Generation Consulting

By Sydney LeBlanc

Can you imagine a firm that owns and operates 5,000 websites? Now imag-ine that the firm generates consumer leads from those sites and offers to connect advisors with consumers in real-time at a subscription price that will pay for itself with the first new client or piece of business that is ob-tained. Sound like a great opportunity?

That’s what Chairman and CEO David Phillips of Lead Generation Consulting, who is also the owner of the flagship site, www.financialadvisor.org, tells us his service can do. Says Phillips, “Lead Generation Consulting owns and operates 5,000 websites, and our largest market is our

retirement vertical. We currently own 2500 retirement, financial-related, and investment websites. And to the best of my knowledge, no other company owns the type of unique URLs that we do — sites such as www.fivestaradvisors.com, www.willmymoneylast.com, www.retireontrack.com, and thousands of others.”

Phillips believes no other firm can compare to their web presence on the major search engines like Google Yahoo, MSN, and ASK. “Our websites show up on the first page of all the major search engines, and it’s all very relevant geo-targeted traffic. It’s called behavior and attitudinal-based traffic.” He says it’s the way consumers, especially baby boomers, are searching online that makes it so relevant. Searching for re-tirement planning in Michigan on the Yahoo network, for example, will show up as #1 among more than 12 million search results, making them #1 in the world. Phillips says it’s all due to their powerful internet infrastructure that they bring to the table. “They are all true organic natural rankings,” he says. The high net worth, newly married couples, pre-and post-retirement individuals and more are all searching online.

According to Phillips, the sites have received more than 3.5 million visitors through their approach in 2008. And the more sites they launch, the more visits they get. How did it all begin? Phillips tells the story of his dad, Robert Phillips, and how he was instrumental in de-veloping the concept. The story goes like this: “When we started the company, my dad put together an Excel spreadsheet called Bob’s Calculator,” began Phillips. “He retired from GM after 32 years and decided to de-velop retirement software for himself. So, the product he created determined the maximum amount of money he could safely withdraw from his retirement savings account to ensure his money would last through retirement and beyond. It was a very helpful tool. At that time I was head of sales for a lead generation

Bus

ines

s P

rofi

les

www.transitions-mag.com May 2009 27

Transitions™

company in Minnesota, and my mom called me one day and suggested I put up a website with the tool. Mom had a great idea! As a result, our very first website was cre-ated as www.retirementcalc.com and we sold retirement software online.”

Phillips explained that soon after that, his firm and the software tool was noticed by Ray Martin, the top financial analyst on CBS’ the Morning Show, Money Matters. “The exposure gave us a third-party credibility for our software product, and that was very helpful to us. It was about that time we decided to get into the lead generation business. As early as 2007, we were generating anywhere from 300-500 leads per day from our sites.”

The beauty of the service is the value that Lead Genera-tion Consulting of-fers to consumers and financial advi-sors alike. Explains Phillips, “We offer free retirement resources online to consumers, and in par-ticular the baby boomers who really utilize what we offer. These turn into quality leads for advisors and is a big help for investors who are looking for a quality advisor.”

Phillips continues, “We integrate with bankrate.com; they are our strategic partner and provide content for us. We get a direct feed into our tabs on our website from them and we also offer our own tools: the retire-ment calculator, our Retirement Intelligence newslet-ter, a Retirement Knowledge Center with articles about retirement and decision-making, a book called Retire in a Weekend: The Baby Boomers Guide to Making Work Optional by CFP® Bill Losey. We also just added another great product that my dad recently developed called the Social Security calculator, which is also web based. In addition, we have an affiliate program with 600 partners that drive links back to our site. For example, strategic

partners like www.seniordiscounts.com — their target is seniors 62 and older who want to buy senior discount cards to get discounts for golf and traveling etc. — they have approximately 250,000 seniors in their database, approxi-mately 25,000 plus visitors per month and we have expo-sure to them. That’s been a big part of our success online — finding the right kind of relevant strategic partners.”

Lead generation services are not new and there are several advisor match services already available, some privately owned and some are promoted through industry organi-zations. So what makes Lead Generation Consulting so unique? Phillips told us several facts.

“We are unique because of our network — advisors who sign up are seen on 2500 sites. The way our competitors are structured, they only own one website. Most really haven’t built the consumer side of their business. They may be partnered up with a publication for the advisor side, but not too much energy is spent on the con-

sumer side.”

“Another thing that makes us unique is how consum-ers can search for advisors on our network of 2500 re-tirement and financial related websites as well as the www.financialadvisor.org site. We have advisor services and products that are on the site’s drop-down box, for ex-ample, annuity strategies and ideas, retirement planning, insurance and so on. So it’s very targeted and specific as to what the consumer’s needs are and what they are look-ing for in an advisor.”

One of the first independent advisors who signed on in December of 2006 said the leads coming from the Retire-ment Calculator are looking for a service, rather than a product. Said Chris Radar, President, R Financial Group in Raleigh, North Carolina, “They are quality leads be-cause the customer knows what they are signing up for, compared to other lead generators,” he said.

Business Profile

“We offer free retirement resources on-line to consumers, and in particular the baby boomers who really utilize what we offer. These turn into quality leads for ad-visors and is a big help for investors who are looking for a quality advisor.”

28 May 2009 www.transitions-mag.com

Transitions™

Phillips also described his pricing model. “We entered the market with about a third of the cost that our com-petition charges. So immediately, we are the most affordable price point for our advisor memberships. For example, our Premium Advantage membership with unlimited services is only $299 a year. We have three levels of memberships: Premium at $150 a year, Premium Plus at $250 and Premium Advantage at $299. Ninety-nine percent of the advisors who have already signed up purchased a Premium Advantage membership because they like the unlimited ser-vices they receive.” In addition, the innovative advisors are signing up for multiple zip codes. They are buying zips codes in the area they do busi-ness, and by the highest net worth zip codes in their state. The more an ad-visor can buy, the more geo-targeted exposure they get.

Phillips explains that the advisors who participate today can integrate this service with their current mar-keting programs and by participat-ing they will have the advantage to significantly grow their business now and in the future. He discusses the potential: “The internet continues to grow and when we look at the statis-tics provided by eMarketer, a third party analytics company (market re-search and trend analysis on Internet, e-business, online marketing, media and emerging technologies) those stats show that 56.7 million boom-

ers make up the largest U.S. internet population and it is a demographic that will be bigger than the kids on MySpace.com And an estimated population of baby boomers that will be using the internet in 2011 is a whopping 68.3 million.”

Phillips stresses that the statistical in-formation he offers about his service is not limited to proprietary research. It is also confirmed by Quantcast. “With a credible source like Quant-cast, it really adds credibility. We can upload our 2500 site network into their technology platform, and they can tell us which websites have a similar audience and relevant traffic to www.financialadvisor.org. What they told us was that our audience gets the same relevant traffic as CNN Money, Met Life, Fidelity, Smart-Money and Bank of America. And if we throw stats in by Neilson NetRat-ings: CNNMoney.com was the num-ber one standout in the business and finance category. So our relevancy to CNN Money, MetLife, Fidelity,

Business Profile

SmartMoney, Bank of America, well it’s really impressive for Quantcast to say that.”

Is it too good to be true? No more prospecting? Asking for referrals? Says Phillips, “Think about it — if you are a financial advisor, wouldn’t you want to be on the most trusted domain name for advisors? It is like The Who’s Who of Advisors or the Facebook for Advisors. This is what we are building, it’s simple and af-fordable. It takes two minutes to sign up. Advisors get an automated triggered email with their passcode. They log in and with just 10 easy steps they can upload their profile to 2500 financial, investment and retire-ment planning websites for millions to review.” What a great way to help grow your business!

uuu

Editor’s note: Phillips mentioned that they just launched their direc-tory about eight weeks ago and are

US Baby Boomer Internet Users & Penetration2008-2013 (millions and % of population)

'08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13

Baby Boomer Internet Users

56.7 57.4 58.0 58.5 58.9 59.3

% of baby boomer population

73.5 74.7 75.8 76.8 77.8 78.7

% of total internet users

29.4 28.8 28.3 27.7 27.3 26.8

NOTE: Baby Boomers born between 146 and 1964SOURCE: eMarketer, November 2009 / www.Marketer.com

www.transitions-mag.com May 2009 29

Transitions™Business Profile

SAMPLING OF WEBSITES

Lead Generation Services www.leadgenerationconsulting.com

Financial Advisor Directory www.financialadvisor.org

Free Retirement Resources www.retirementcalc.com

Commercial Loans and Hard Money www.multimilliondollarloan.com

Creative and Website Design www.nicholascreativemedia.com

Direct Marketing Services www.bressers.com

Get a Car Loan Online www.creativecarloansinc.com

Real Estate Leads www.hotrealtyleads.net

Retirement Leads www.retirementleads.com

having a tremendous response to it. As a matter of fact, he was of-fered $500,000 for his domain www.financialadvisor.org recently and has no intention of selling. For more information on the lead gen-eration service, visit their website at www.financialadvisor.org. Or, if you would like to learn more about Lead Generation Consulting and their various internet companies and how they build hundreds and thou-sands of microsites for clients visit www.micrositegenerator.com

Your ONE SOURCEfor ALL of Your Continuing Education Needs!!

Affordable CE · FirstChoice CE · ClienTell CE · Success CEThe Success Family of CE Companies

- Over 350 courses approved NATIONWIDE for Insurance, CFP, and CLU/ChFC- Courses available in Textbook, Online, and Live CE formats- Be recognized as an expert by presenting CE- Gain the trust and respect of your producers- Become an approved CE instructor

For more information, please visit our websites or call

(949) 706-9453

2 Corporate Plaza Drive, Suite 100Newport Beach, California 92660

ClienTell CE - Obtain CE approval for your company content

and product benefits

- Pre-Approved and also Co-Branded

presentations for your executives and

wholesaling team in all states

- CE approved for Webinars

- Double your attendance with Live CE for

Insurance, CFP, CLU/ChFC, and CPA continuing

education

Success CE

Affordable CE - Textbook courses approved NATIONWIDE

- Over 250 courses available (including ALL State-Specific required courses)

- Volume discounts available for your company

Agency, B/D and organization

- Ask about our Insurance and Securities

Pre-Licensing online study material

www.AffordableCE.com

First Choice CE - Private (In-House) CE customized for your

company

- Online - Textbook - Live CE

- Become approved to present CE to your home

office and field insurance licensees

- Low Cost - High impact programs

www.FirstChoiceCE.com

- Online - Nationwide approved- Co-Branded CE credit cards or vouchers for your wholesalers- Co-Branded websites to recruit and retain your producers- Includes all state and CFP required CE courses such as Ethics, Annuity Training, and LTC- Unlimited Success Package for all your insurance CE for $39.95- FINRA and Firm Element Package pricing $29.95

www.SuccessCE.comwww.ClienTellCE.com