Practice

Some rules aren’t meant to be broken

If someone asked me to come up with the two defining characteristics of financial markets, my answer would be “opportunity” and “risk”. The opportunity to make a good return on an investment and the risk that an investment will diminish in value. Both have been well-illustrated in the past three years. Unchecked, opportunity and risk […]

By Peter Drake |July 12, 2010

6 min read

Planning and Advice

80% say “Help Me!”

On May 20th, Manulife Bank released the results of a survey: http://www.bit.ly/cIqjiX. You may have read about it. The results show that over 80% of Canadians rank becoming debt free as a top financial priority. Even with all the volatility we live in today, debt is still keeping our clients – and maybe even us […]

|July 2, 2010

4 min read

Planning and Advice

What’s your CPH?

The financial services industry is one of the best places to work. We have the freedom to earn as much or as little as we want to. The freedom to work as many or as few hours as we wish. It also gives us the freedom to deal with the types of clients we want […]

By Robert Abboud |June 28, 2010

3 min read

Planning and Advice

Good debt versus bad debt

How do you approach your clients so they aren’t afraid of leveraging? Can you simply explain the concepts we are taught? Here are some of the ways I clarify the concept of good debt versus bad debt. As I work with my clients, whether they are business owners or employees, I always try to teach […]

By Sue Ricketts |June 21, 2010

4 min read

Lessons learned from privacy violations

No disclosure of personal information without an individual’s consent is allowable under paragraph 7(3)(c) unless the legal writ (e.g. subpoena, warrant) specifically requires the disclosure to a named party or parties. The information disclosed in compliance with the legal writ under paragraph 7(3)(c) must be limited to that which is specifically requested by the writ […]

5 min read

Ditch the pitch

During my first year in the business a wholesaler at an insurance firm told me the key to success would be to get 20 meetings a week. Although 90% would say no, 10% would become clients. That’s the way it was at the time. A few years later, I took in a presentation on ‘How […]

3 min read

NOT your responsibility, totally YOUR problem

In April, I traveled across the country on a speaking tour as part of the ‘World Critical Illness Insurance Conferences Road Show’. One of the subjects my fellow speakers talked about was critical illness insurance and how important it was. How the lives of their clients (or even their own) had been changed forever because […]

|June 7, 2010

4 min read

A “fee” for non-advice

Here’s an idea for some intrepid entrepreneur: beat the consumer-ignoring Canadian regulatory system at its own game. When Melanie Aitken and her people at the Competition Bureau are through with real estate agents and their monopolized access to MLS, they could do something similar regarding mutual funds. The way things are structured now, most discount […]

3 min read

The profitability of business ethics

While many proponents of business ethics claim they are good for business, critics remain skeptical and demand to statistical data to substantiate such claims. Today’s consumer-based free market economy necessitates a quantifiable economic value be placed on goods and services in order that the efficient utilization of resources results in the creation of wealth. The […]

4 min read

Succession planning: Securing your future

With the average age of a financial advisor in Canada being 54, many advisors are considering semi-retirement and starting to plan for succession. Time and time again, what they are lacking though are the different compensation strategies they can employ. Succession plans can vary with advisors depending on their product focus, length of time in […]

4 min read