One of the things I’ve always been committed to is giving my clients the best service and experience that I possibly can. My thought is this: If I can let people have a “WOW Experience”, it will endear them to me. But beyond that, it will compel them to tell other people about the experience. [...]
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Get Out Of the Alligator Pit At Least An Hour Every Day
Recently, two business partners came to visit me, looking for magical help with their host of terrible problems. Without dragging you through all the details, the bottom line: they have no terrible problems. They have a few minor problems. But, overall, they’re in pretty good shape. Theirs is a business that peaked at about 2.5 [...]
State Regulators Issue Guidance On The Five Most Common Deficiencies Of Investment Advisors
The association of state securities regulators, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), earlier this week issued a release listing the five most common deficiencies regulators find at Registered Investment Advisers. They can serve as a guide to advisors to minimize the risk of regulatory violations. NASAA’s list was developed after a review of the [...]
The Narrow Path
Government does not work because it is more about royalty remaining royalty than it is about results, so the only time it gets anything of real importance accomplished is in moments of severe crisis, when all the royals are equally threatened. Business works – when it works – because of an opposite operating system. Small [...]
Finding the Right Trust Jurisdiction
It’s a big challenge for advisors to help clients pick the right jurisdiction for trusts, and picking the right one can be complicated. Indeed, there are many factors that go into this determination. The task usually involves evaluating how a jurisdiction has formulated its trust laws. Consider, for example, a state’s rule against perpetuities (RAP), [...]
Being About Something More Than Chicken
Each year, the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain, famous for its tongue-in-cheek ads featuring cows urging folks to “eat more chicken”, has a Cow Appreciation Day. Customers who come in dressed up as cows eat and drink for free. Anybody wearing anything with a cow pattern – hat, cap, shirt – gets a sandwich free. Last year, [...]
The threat from personal liability lawsuits
The more your clients have, the more attractive they are as a target for a liability lawsuit, and lawsuits can be very expensive. Personal liability awards and settlements can reach into the tens of millions of dollars, far exceeding limits in basic Home and Auto policies and perhaps even their current Umbrella coverage. From 2000 [...]
On Achievement, Prosperity, and Envy
Oscar Wilde said: “It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.” There’s nothing wrong with both, of course. Those who insist that money doesn’t buy happiness are usually short on money, ignorant of means of getting any, and selling their philosophy hard because misery loves company. Mark Twain wrote that, actually, [...]
Beware of the Natural Entropy in Customer Service – How to Prevent Incremental Degradation
By Michael Masterson One of the first things I did upon taking on AP as a client was call his customer service line, pretending to be a customer. The phone rang eight times before it was picked up. Then I was put on hold. Then someone answered by saying, “What?” This was an $8 million [...]
The Truth about Quitting
My father told me that the reason doctors whack babies on the ass immediately after they are born is to communicate a fundamental truth they need to know to survive: outside the womb, life is tough. (Do doctors still do this? I don’t know. I’d guess not; today, it’d be viewed as infant abuse and [...]
