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Deena Katz on Practice Management

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Deena Katz on Practice Management

For Financial Advisers, Planners, and Wealth Managers

Bloomberg Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

If you’ve always dreamed of walking out and hanging out your own shingle, read on.”

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Deena Katz, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) who has given financial advice in magazines and on TV, describes how to set up a practice as a financial planner and adviser. She discusses how to grow your business and manage your clients’ lives as well as their dollars. She draws on her experience, interviews and networking with other practitioners to provide a detailed hands-on guide. She considers such issues as recruiting, hiring and firing staff, working with partners, using hardware and software and setting up effective systems. She provides tips on public relations, hiring, firing and refusing clients, and keeping good clients. Her book concludes with a targeted resource section on useful books, journals, magazines, newsletters, software programs and Web sites. getabstract highly recommends this comprehensive introductory guide. Although it is directly targeted toward individuals in the financial planning arena, many of its ideas apply to starting any type of small professional or service business.

Summary

Your Own Practice: Core Values, Mission and Vision

To launch a financial planning or services business, think about how you want to offer value to your clients. This value comes from helping your clients meet their goals, with the assistance of your knowledge and skills. Express this value to your clients in terms of benefits, rather than features. Don’t just tell them how you design well-balanced portfolios and how you will help them allocate and diversify assets. Your value is helping them avoid getting hurt in the market, so they can sleep well. Deena Katz defines her company’s value as "keeping our clients from chasing returns in bull markets and from bailing out in bear markets." The company emphasizes helping clients manage their expectations.

When you start your own practice, begin by determining the unique service you plan to provide. This is the one thing that will set you apart from other financial planners. Commonly, planners seek to inspire trust and confidence, develop good personal relationships and offer their clients a high level of personal service. Your value doesn’t lie in preparing elaborate reports or extensive analyses of the market.

Then...

About the Author

Deena B. Katz , CFP, has published extensively in such magazines as Financial Planning and Dow Jones Investment Advisor and has offered financial advice on numerous television programs, including Good Morning America and CBS This Morning. She is the president of and a partner in Evensky, Brown & Katz, and speaks frequently for national and international legal and financial organizations. Consumer Reports selected her to evaluate the work of other financial planners and Fortune magazine’s "1999 Investor’s Guide" identified her and her husband-partner Harold Evensky as "innovative gurus" in their profession.

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