There are over 300,000 insurance agents brokering financial products occasionally. Unfortunately, they are confused with the true independent insurance financial advisors, whose numbers are significantly smaller. Much of the misconception to potential clients between the two groups is the fault of the insurance financial advisors. That alone can lead to a substantial amount of lost clients and opportunity.
What does it take to add the wording financial planner, or financial advisor on a business card? Nothing. Although a liability suit could arise, there is no law or ruling against using financial planner or insurance financial advisor on your business card, stationary, or mailings. Look at the word advisor. Was it not the life insurance underwriters association that changed its name to reflect both financial and advisor? Therefore, it is up to you to emphasize your knowledge and what distinguishes you from the large pack.
Brochure Promotion Here is a warning. Printing up a brochure promoting your designations, your associations, and your accomplishments overall is wise to do. However, while people like to do business with a knowledgeable expert, they hate doing business with someone projecting themselves way over their prospect. Keep a brochure sincere. One where the contents are worded that anyone with an eight grade reading level can understand.. Never make it sound like a political campaign speech, as many of your associates do.
Hint: Write your personal brochure on Microsoft. Then go to the top and select tools. Select spelling and grammar. This will also provide sentence structure suggestions. In the summary, you will see at the very end the Flesch Reading Ease, preferably around 50%. More importantly, the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level should be 8.0 to 8.6 ideally.
Stress Your Diversity Agents representing just one company may simply pushing the highest commission products without the client's knowledge. With your independent insurance advisor contracts, you should develop a plan that is beneficial to the client and yourself. Disclose this information to your client, who will appreciate your honesty. Another hint: Over 85% of independent insurance financial advisors have a NASD license. On the other hand, with "insurance advisors" not independent, less than 40% are NASD licensed. If you are truly doing financial planning, as you know, it will take a combination of products to solve a client's needs.
Times Are Changing As far as earnings among financial advisors go, stockbrokers and planners affiliated with captive broker-dealer firms always averaged the highest yearly income. Following by about 20% behind is the insurance orientated financial advisor. Way behind are the hundreds of thousands of rookies to experienced insurance agents calling themselves financial advisors and planners. With a swift downturn in the nation's economy, a chill has swept through stockbrokerage and captive broker dealer-firms. Except for ridiculously loaded products, they are running and further margins. The pressure on these advisors is mounting while incomes are declining.
New Competition As always, you have had competition from stock brokerage style financial advisors. Like you, they have a NASD license. Unlike you, they have very few life companies and life insurance products to use. With tight economic times, the profit margin on non-insurance products has greatly shrunk down. The economy can be in limbo or suffering, which makes your insurance backed annuities that much easier to promote and sell. Watch skilled captive stockbrokers and captive advisors seek their independence, finding insurance as a profitable base to start their planning..
Silver Lining Having more time, means more clients and more income. If you truly are an independent insurance financial advisor, you can outsource almost every facet of your advisory services. Of course, this does not include client contact, an area you can never get too much of. Modern technology is being developed rapidly so you spend less time monitoring and even creating your client-planning portfolio of products. In addition, if you have not noticed, the tyranny days of broker-dealers is beginning to cease. This means switching from one independent broker-dealer to another, along with all your account will be a snap. This will leave a lot more time for insurance review, including the need for long term care insurance.
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