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BOOK: The One Thing You Need to Do as told by the Financial Advisory Industry's Top Coaches, Consultants & Industry Insiders
By "D" Shannon and David Drucker ($39.95 UPS, The Financial Advsior Literary Guild, 2005)
Planning industry savants Laron "D" Shannon and David Drucker drew inspiration for their latest book from the 1991 movie, City Slickers, in which Jack Palance memorably tells Billy Crystal: "Just figure out the one thing."
And that's what Shannon and Drucker – who hadn't met before this project – set out to do. The two hit the road in the fall of 2004 to interview more than a dozen of the financial services industry's biggest stars, writers, gurus, and experts:
Don Phillips, Deena Katz, Bob Veres, Bill Cates, Dan Sullivan, Mitch Anthony, George Kinder, Bill Bachrach, Tom Gau, David Grau, Mark Tibergien, and others are all featured largely in their own words, with intervening commentary by the authors.
The resulting collection, while a bit of a hodge-podge of insights and wisdom, is a remarkably fun journey through some of the best minds in the business. It certainly gives financial advisors a lot to chew on and an interesting backdrop to explore industry trends such as life planning, team-building, and the move toward retainer or fee-only pricing.
Was there one thing all the gurus could agree on? Drucker and Shannon point out that all their interviews and advice seemed to boil down to five simple truths:
- It's relationships, not return on investment
- Advisors need better conversations with their clients – open-ended ones that are all about the clients' agendas, not the advisors.
- Financial advisors are the most valuable professionals in the world because of the pending Boomer retirement crunch and the over-arching search for fulfillment.
- Financial advisors need to build a business, not a practice, using carefully crafted systems.
- Be passionate, purposeful and congruent about what you do.
And, as they rightly conclude … any one of these might be the "one thing."
"D" Shannon, MBA, LUTCF has served as a fee-only planner in NAPFA, sold life insurance and qualified for MDRT. With experience as a captive producer as well as an independent, "D" became one of the top producers for the nation's largest independent broker-dealer network. He sold his financial advisory business, joined the National Speakers Association and created The Experienced Advisor to help financial advisors transform their businesses and their lives so they can live the lives they have dreamed of.
David J. Drucker, MBA, CFP ® is the co-author of Virtual Office Tools for a High-Margin Practice: How Client-Centered Financial Advisors Can Cut Paperwork, Overhead, and Wasted Hours and The Tools & Techniques of Practice Management.
Drucker writes on practice management issues as a contributor to Bloomberg Wealth Manager Financial Planning, Research and Financial Advisor magazines, and as a columnist for the MorningstarAdvisor.com website and the NAPFA Advisor. Drucker is a fee-only financial advisor who started his advisory firm in the Washington, D.C., area in 1981 after working as a financial analyst in government and private industry for more than 10 years.
Purchase of the book includes an exclusive interview with each author that adds insights and commentary to supplement the book. These interviews are only available at Financial Forum Bookstore (see below).
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