The standard process for an investor seeking an advisor is to ask around and get referrals from family members, friends, and maybe even coworkers. Then the pondering starts and hesitation begins because often times the investor doesn’t really know what to look for and is fearful they may choose the wrong advisor. 

If the investor takes the most effective approach they will interview numerous advisors which will be narrowed down to about 3 to 4 choices and so begins the angst and daunting process. 

In the investor’s mind they may favor 2 out of 4 potential advisors based on first impressions: personality, looks, style, and over all demeanor. However, they still don’t know what level of service any of the finalists actually provide to their clients. 

I saw this when I was an advisor and continue to see it in our investor research. The quest for the right advisor impacts some investors so much they suffer anxiety, stomach ailments, and even depression. The risk is very real to them and they know it can have an everlasting negative or postive impact on their retirement future. 

I don’t think the investment community really understands the stress that investors face when seeking an advisor for the first time and I know they don’t understand the angst when an investor is looking to leave their current advisor because of his lack of service just to start the process all over again in finding another who may be worse- not better. 

A great advisor who really understands customer service will take the time and step out of his own shoes of the daily quest to gather assets, and see the big picture of what investors go through.  If an advisor can successfully do this, then his business will grow because his clients will speak highly of him and others will remember it. For the other advisors that put on the act - you can fake sincerity, but ultimately your actions and bottom line will reflect it!

Nothing, and I mean nothing, will make an advisor shine and produce more referrals than great customer service. It’s what business is all about; the relationship. And the greatest asset retention tool a financial advisor has at his disposal is his reputation for great customer service.

It’s easy for an investor to leave their advisor when there’s no relationship, they just have to go through the process I mentioned earlier to find the right one. But when a strong relationship exists, there is an emotional tie that has to be broken and the investor is less likely to walk out that door when their portfolio is taking a beating in the market. So, the question advisors need to ask themselves is this: How many of your clients are with you only until they find someone with better customer service?  

Here’s where financialJoe’s “Track Advisor” tool comes into play and helps take away the angst an investor feels and provides the assurance that they made the right choice.  After the investor interviews all their potential advisors, they can add and track those advisors on their “My Advisors” page at financialJoe watching how each advisor is reviewed by their clients over several months. The “Track Advisor” tool can easily and efficiently assist them in making their overall decision. 

If an investor really wants to put each advisor to the test based on performance, they can track each advisor’s recommended portfolio 0n their personal “Myfinjoe” page, but we don’t recommend that an investor ever make a decision on which advisor they choose based solely on portfolio performance…which comes and goes.

Hope your day started off great and ends even better.

Shawn Tierney, Founder/CEO                                                                   financialJoe 

Can FINRA and SEC governed financial advisors use financialJoe based on Social Networking/Media guidelines established under notice 10-06?

The answer is yes, if you are looking at notice 10-06 only. But if you’re looking at it from your firm compliance then the answer is; you have to ask your compliance for approval.  

The main area you will need to get approval on from firm compliance is creating your profile. This is considered static content, thus approval is a must for you to be compliant under notice 10-06. Getting the approval is not a big deal. The information in your profile is basically the same information one can obtain from your firm website and FINRA.

What separates financialJoe from sites like Linkedin, facebook, and twitter is the fact that on financialJoe you have no control over third party testimonials.  Meaning if one of your clients, friends, or family members post on your Linkedin, facebook, or twitter account that you’re a great advisor who provides great service and they would recommend you to family and friends, you now have a testimonial on a page that you have complete control over with the ability to delete that post.  With financialJoe you have no control over third party client reviews and no ability to delete reviews, thus removing any type of compliance or notice 10-06 violation.

The feedback we have received from advisors who have already completed their profiles is very positive. Firms that are allowing their advisors to participate in social media/networking have not had an issue with their advisors creating their profiles on financialJoe. The issues for those advisors who cannot create their profiles on financialJoe are those advisors employed by firms that are not allowing their advisors to participate in any type of social media/networking at this time.

Social media/networking is very young and the financial industry is still in the conception stage due to regulatory oversight. But be patient and the doors will soon open.

Hope your day started off great and ends even better.

Shawn Tierney, Founder/CEO

financialJoe

I was surprised by the contact of an investor advocacy group this week inquiring if financialJoe was going to contact FINRA and the SEC reference better investor protection.

Not only was I surprised by the contact, but I was surprised financialJoe was even on the radar for such a thing. I thanked them for their contact and agreed with them that there are advisors who shouldn’t be in their positions.  But, I felt that most advisors truly have their client’s best interest at heart, however a lot of advisors need to step up their customer service.

I further stated that financialJoe was not an advocacy group and not looking to challenge FINRA or the SEC in their regulatory oversight.  I clarified that I don’t think that FINRA or the SEC will ever be able to prevent a financial advisor from making the choice to put his interest before a clients, in the same manner an alarm company can’t stop a burglar from breaking into a home.  But what the alarm does do is draw the attention of the neighborhood and the burglar cannot continue on with his deed.

I explained that financialJoe functions in a similar manner. We connect investors who utilize the same financial advisor and each investor provides a review about their advisor that can be updated at anytime.  Investors read client rating on “service” not “portfolio performance” that advisor provides.  If the advisor does not put their client’s interest first, it will be revealed in the review which all his other clients receive by email notification.  Investors then login to their financialJoe account to read the detailed review. 

At the end of the day, I would say this makes financialJoe a type of early warning monitoring system.

Have a great day!

Shawn Tierney, Founder/CEO

FinancialJoe

I had the pleasure to engage in a lengthy conversation with someone who is in upper management with a national investment firm.

I was able to share how financialJoe will empower financial advisors to market themselves to the masses with very little effort. We further discussed how the traditional avenues advisors use to build their book of business such as seminars, dialing for dollars, and joining the rotary club will, and are, quickly becoming a business practice of the past.

We surfed through the financialJoe website. I love nothing more than seeing the expression I seek every time that I show and explain the site…”they get it”.  They see the power, they see the benefit, they see the potential, they see the efficiency, and they see the unstoppable change coming.  

Then the inevitable statement comes, “There are advisors out there who could really get some negative reviews,” and I firmly agreed.  I further explained that I don’t waiver from this subject and expect numerous advisors to get less than favorable reviews from clients.

I went on to explain that I understand how advisors and firms would only want positive reviews, but that’s hardly reality and by just looking at the amount of accounts that transfer in and out of firms every day is all that needs to be said; investors aren’t happy all the time with their advisors. We discussed how much training time through seminars and continuing education is spent reinforcing customer service as the number one priority an advisor should focus on. We then both agreed that no matter how much customer service training and education firms drill into their advisors, nothing makes them act on it and they are the ones who ultimately decide how well they’ll service their clients.  

This is where I stepped in and revealed the true benefit financialJoe brings to the table for the investor, the advisor, and the firm.

Investors want to find a great advisor and financialJoe fundamentally will force advisors to provide that outstanding service.  Otherwise, the dissatisfied customers will let others know and potential customers will be alerted and in turn, seek advisors with a solid satisfied customer base. Firms want happy clients and to retain and grow assets under managements (AUM). The first feeds the latter, thus a happy client leads to firm retention of client assets delivering increased AUM.

At the end of the day, financialJoe is positive for both the investors, firms, and even those advisors who currently don’t provide great customer service.  Why?  Because they will no longer be able to sit in front of a prospective client and claim outstanding customer service when potential investors can simply see the advisor’s service reviews on financialJoe.

financialJoe is not designed to side one way or the other, but is neutral with the goal of facilitating the investor and advisor relationship to improve the overall industry.

I hope your day started off great and ends even better.

Shawn Tierney, Founder/CEO

financialJoe

Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter are all great tools for the advisor, and the advisor only. They do nothing for the investor. They only provide the same information the investor can obtain from the advisor’s firm website or FINRA website. They allow the advisor to get out bits of information to existing clients, but even that is limited.

Angst is the biggest word to describe an investor looking for an advisor to manage their money. Lack of assurance is the most uttered phrase used to describe an investor who has an advisor.

Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter do nothing to dissolve angst for an investor looking for an advisor, or give complete assurance to an investor who already has an advisor…The Big Picture!

Investors want Social Tools to take away the angst and to provide the assurance that they’re picking the right financial advisor, or reassure themselves that they already have the right financial advisor.  

The only way this can be done is through investor to investor contact. An investor telling another investor-

“Yes, he’s a great advisor and provides the best service.”

“Yes, he returns phone calls right away and keeps us updated about what is happening in the market and how our portfolio will react to it.” 

“We trust him to put our needs before his own and feel comfortable to call him anytime.”

“We would recommend him to all our family and friends.”

“He created a financial plan for us and made sure we understood the investments before he invested our money.”

“He calls and makes trusted recommendations when our portfolio needs change.”

You see, these are the things that an investor wants to know when they sit down and interview an advisor to manage their life savings. These are the things they want to know after interviewing five advisors who all present similar plans and all sound the same. These things…these things are client reviews on financial advisors and being connected to the advisor’s other clients. These things take away the angst and give assurance. 

financialJoe offers these things to investors. What the advisors and firms need to realize are that these tools will create a closer relationship with investors and will be the most powerful marketing tools they can ever utilize. 

If you are a financial advisor or management for your firm, please feel free to contact me and see how financialJoe can open these doors for you. 

I hope your day started great and ends even better!

Shawn Tierney, Founder/CEO

info@financialJoe.com

Posted by Jim Nichols on July 6th, 2011 at 12:01 am

In my life there have been about six times when a decision left me full of angst and uncertainty. Car buying. House closing. Choosing a health plan. A couple of others. And determining what to invest in, and which advisor to work with.

I am not alone on that last one. You only need read the WSJ for about 20 minutes to realize that there are thousands of options and very little in the way of truly reputable advice on which to base your investment advisor decision.

You uncle tells you about his financial advisor, and you go with her just because. You stick with the guy you’ve got, because, well, you don’t know WHO to switch to.

 Oh yes, there are ratings services and all that. But I’ve been in marketing long enough to know that you can cut ANY data in such a way as to have an upward pointing graph. And there’s probably a ratings organization that will give a AAA to anything.

Thanks to financialjoe, a new community for individual investors, you can get a lot of new information on what to do and who to do it with. The idea behind the site is to let a community of involved investors collaborate to find the best investments and advisors for their particular investment style and risk profiles.

Wouldn’t you rather SEE how a particular advisor is doing for people that think like you do? Wouldn’t you rather share thoughts about what you are doing? And in so doing begin, perhaps, to level the playing field versus the major Wall Street institutional investors?

To fully participate in the site, you first take an Online Asset Questionnaire that analyzes your goals and risk profile. This 15 question tool was developed in close aprtnership with a core team of advisors and investors who helped identify the characteristics of their relationships that resulted in long-term satisfaction. Apparently many advisors who use the tool find themselves changing the way they work with investors — for the better.

financialjoe finds like minded investors for you by comparing your answers to those of  other members. From there, you can observe what they have revealed about their investments, share opinions on advisors, and track the specific performance of advisors through information they make available on the site. You can also rate advisors that are not yet participating in the community. financialjoe isn’t in the business of advising you – rather, you and your peers share with one another, and consider the ideas and track records of investment advisors that participate in the community.

The import of this site is that it is a great example of how digital and democratization of information are eliminating the friction in the market in many categories. Why have dissonance and angst when you can participate in a community and get the answers and information you desire?

Years ago when I was in business school, I had a prof that said that the individual investor is probably best off buying S&P 500 index funds until they are 50 or so, because the best you are going to be able to do is to meet the market. Beating the market, in his view, was an unrealistic expectation because of the huge disparity in the information YOU HAVE versus what institutional investors have. Now all this was before the Internet got its start, but I expect that the disparity of available information is even more pronounced today.

financialjoe can’t get you all that information. But what it CAN do is help you make more informed decisions in who you invest with and how you invest. And that, my friends, sounds like progress to me.

Seattle, WA - July 11, 2011 Financialjoe interviewed numerous financial advisors and their clients regarding several subjects which revealed important aspects of social media in the financial industry are being missed.

Financialjoe’s research goes beyond the advisor’s ability to post tweets through Twitter, friend people on Facebook, or place their profile on LinkedIn.  Though Twitter and Facebook each offer the advisor the ability to get information out to their clients, it for the most part, is one-sided to the advisor offering little for the investor.

Financialjoe surveyed numerous investors with regards to the process they went through to find their financial advisors. Several stated they simply went with the advisor a family member used, but really did not know that advisor to the degree they were comfortable with before hiring him.  Others stated they interviewed several advisors which was stressful, time consuming, and the final decision on which advisor to hire was made with great hesitation and angst.  It was also revealed that investors feel advisors “all sound the same” though they presented different recommendations.

In addition financialjoe’s research also revealed that investors want tools that allow them to see how their advisor’s other clients feel about his services, and they want the ability to receive updates from those investors on a continuous basis.  Financialjoe posed this question to the investors:  If you had the ability to see how an advisor’s other clients felt about his services, would it sway your decision in one direction or another?”  Every investor surveyed stated having information from the advisor’s other clients would be the defining factor on who they would ultimately hire.  They further revealed it would provide them greater confidence and peace of mind.

With the evolution of Social Networking and Media, consumers make daily decisions on what hotel to stay at, what car rental company to use, what airline to travel on, whether to eat at a restaurant or not, what attorney, contractor, and doctor to trust, and so on.   So, why would they not want the same tools that allow them the peace of mind when it comes to the ongoing relationship with the  person managing one of their largest assets that can make or break their future?  Financialjoe empowers investors to meet those demands. 

Financialjoe determined there had to be something the great advisors were doing to stand out from the others. What was revealed through the survey is that it had nothing to do with market performance; which comes and goes - but everything to do with service and relationship; which should always be there. 

 Financialjoe went to great depth creating our advisor rating questionnaire with five seasoned advisors and a few of their best clients. Through that process they developed 12 simple questions created by both the advisor and investor stressing the reasons that their relationship is so successful.  The investors that created the questions along with the advisors also revealed that these are the reasons they have never left their financial advisor when market conditions were at their worst and their portfolios were taking a beating.  The conclusion of the survey revealed to the advisors that if other financial advisors serviced their clients in accordance with our basic questions, there should never be an issue with a client. What’s even more amazing is that over the last month when other advisors read the questions the first thing out of their mouth is, “I’d better start calling clients I haven’t talked to in a while.” 

 Shawn Tierney, the founder and CEO of financialjoe states “The rhetorical question often posed is, “How good would any relationship be if we spoke once a year?” To us, that’s what financialjoe is all about; improving the investor and advisor relationship by bringing together investors and revealing to the advisors the importance of continuous and sincere communication with their clients through accountability.

 For more information on how to take advantage of financialjoe’s many ways to build credibility and share reputation online visit www.financialjoe.com

I’m the founder of financialjoe and we launched this week. I couldn’t agree more that investors need additional tools to guide them in their decision making. Most of the information currently found online is just glorified white page info on different looking websites. FINRA has made it pretty easy to get the generic employment and discipline history on advisors, but what next?  The industry is currently filled with information overload.

Just because a financial advisor doesn’t have an official complaint doesn’t mean they’re a good advisor who provides great services to his clients. And, just because he does have a complaint doesn’t mean he’s not a good financial advisor. There are complaints filed by investors that are false too; money can make people do funny things!

Most investors leave their financial advisors for lack of service or poor investment advice and don’t file a complaint, they just find another advisor. This is the revolving door that causes so much frustration for investors when looking for another advisor because they have no idea how that advisor really services his clients.   A simple 1-5 star rating doesn’t cut it, and doesn’t tell you anything except that there is some type of dissatisfaction, but what is it?  

What investors want is a way to rate their advisor’s services in detail. Financialjoe has 15 simple questions created by both the advisor/investor stressing the reasons that their relationship is so successful. The investors that created the questions along with the advisors also revealed that these are the reasons they have never left their financial advisor when market conditions were at their worst and their portfolios were taking a beating.  

Investors want the ability to connect with their advisor’s other clients, receive updates on their advisor, have the ability to compare their portfolios, and get general questions answered.   This in-turn will drive advisors to step up their service and communicate with their clients.  How good would relationship be if you only spoke once or twice a year?  The bottom line is: investors want a relationship management tool.

Financialjoe is facilitating the relationship between the advisor and the investor to improve the overall experience.  It’s free for investors, and we don’t charge advisors to put up their picture, claim their profile, and most important to them - they control all their information.

 Well, this is www.financialjoe.com

 Warm Regards,

 Shawn Tierney Founder/CEO financialjoe

After tons of bootstrapping! Tons of hard work! Tons of dedication! And tons of perseverance! We did it, but still have a lot of work to do.

Now the hard work comes….building the customer base!