Practice

FaceOff: Advisor commissions debated

Welcome to FaceOff which features a discussion from two advisors on a hot-button topic. This month, we hear from opposite ends of the country about how advisors are paid and whether fees and commissions are scrutinized fairly. Originally moderated by Deanne Gage Participants: How they’re paid Brad Brain: In our practice, when it comes to […]

By Deanne Gage |September 1, 2009

6 min read

Planning and Advice

The product pusher, thankfully, won’t survive

I’m biased. I think most of the Canadian wealth management industry has got it backwards. Case in point, the financial regulators that inadvertently support the product pushers. They’re well meaning and do a pretty good job, but they regulate products instead of advice. There’s a different regulator for insurance, stocks, mutual funds, and for mortgages […]

By Ted Rechtshaffen |September 1, 2009

14 min read

Planning and Advice

Celebrating Advice: Using tax planning to drive advice

Blair Corkum, CA, R.F.P., CFP, CLU, RHU, FDS President Corkum & Associates Charlottetown Years in the business: 31 About me As a public accounting office, I am not licensed to sell product, and offer advice only on an hourly basis. I consider myself a chartered accountant offering business and tax advice, with a niche in […]

By Blair Corkum |September 1, 2009

4 min read

Planning and Advice

Celebrating Advice: Downturn has helped advisors

Hello there. How’ve you been since old Beasley was dumped last year for a newer model? (Thanks, I missed you too.) You notice it took a dozen writers to fill Beasley’s shoes for the year? Actually, I think the back pages have improved a great deal since yours truly hung up his quill, so it’s […]

By Beasley Hawkes |September 1, 2009

3 min read

Celebrating Advice: Why I’m staying with my advisor

Finding that right fit, that right advisor takes time and effort but when things finally come together, the business relationship can become something mutually beneficial. Case or is that cases(?) in point… B.E. Simpson, president, Vesey’s Seeds Limited, York, Prince Edward Island Simpson’s advisor: Blair Corkum, Corkum & Associates We first worked with Blair when […]

4 min read

Teach clients’ kids about financial planning

When I was a teenager, my mother reluctantly told me her annual income, and how much she actually received in her bank account each month. She talked to me about income taxes and other deductions. Then she explained what a mortgage was and how long it would take her to pay off our house. That […]

|September 1, 2009

3 min read

Assigning jobs to retirement portfolios

Over the next few years, you’ll see a tidal wave of prospects looking to you for retirement solutions. Will your business sink under the weight of stale retirement concepts or will your book ride the retirement wave using innovative ideas and expert research? Some advisors may choose to retest their clients’ appetites for risk with […]

4 min read

How to really resonate with clients

Keep asking good questions that help your client move out of crystallized-thinking mode and into emotional contemplation. Position yourself as a right-brain advisor who uses left-brain tools to accomplish the client’s goals. For example, “I am a coach, an educator and a catalyst for my clients,” rather than “I am an investment advisor, an insurance […]

5 min read

Conservative investments guide this advisor’s choices

Laurie Rafter started her career when she was all of 19—an administrative assistant to the very first female licensed broker in Canada. By 24, she was a full-fledged broker, defying convention not only by being among the very few women who stepped onto the investment turf back in the early ’80s, but also one of […]

5 min read

Time to open up the NRD

About 10 years ago, when I still lived in the States, I got tired of a broker I’d been working with. He’d tried to argue with me about a couple of transactions I’d ordered: And seeing he was only registered as a BD and not an investment advisor, I concluded that wasn’t his job. Further, […]

3 min read