Disqus - Latest Comments for jprendergast

Re: How Financial Planning Retainer Fees Are Going Beyond AUM Fees Rather Than Replacing Them

John Prendergast — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 15:41:58 -0000

Micheal,

Great article and sensible conclusion.

It seems to me that most of the advocacy for hourly or retainer models tend to be from very well meaning industry insiders (FAs, press etc), the supply side. Whereas the demand side is clearly still indicating a preference for payment arrangements that require less decision making. A result, as you point out, that we should expect from behavior economics.

Rather than debating the reasons or if it should be this way, it's more interesting for me to think about one hypothesis this appears to support: This is not a price driven market. Within quite a large price band, clients appear not to shop on price. For the analytical and advocates among us that can difficult to accept. However, if true that fact can illuminate ways to improve the business by helping us to focus on adding more value to the services we provide rather than simply trying to use price to differentiate.

Re: How To Make Panicked Client Calls History

John Prendergast — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 09:17:29 -0000

Hi Matt. It wasn't that the clients were complaining about Blueleaf, they were complaining about a rough market. The advisor mistakenly attributed that to Blueleaf when in fact, the clients with problems hadn't yet been invited to the system. I hope that clarifies.

Re: How a Financial Advisor Closed 94% of Prospects

John Prendergast — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:32:37 -0000

Thanks Joe.

I think that's the beauty of what we're doing. Blueleaf actually manages all that so neither you or your client needs to fuss with it once it's set up.

That said, the point of sending a client "home" as mentioned in the post is really an issue of readiness and qualification. It's also an issue of abundance. If you have enough people coming in the front door, it can make sense to triage those that are most ready.

We appreciate the comments.

Re: How To Create LIVE Financial Reports in Google Spreadsheet [VIDEO]

John Prendergast — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:40:02 -0000

Great point Ted!

However, it's important to point out a critical distinction. Live Data can mean different things.

1) Streaming - Data that is streaming like a ticker or is updated minute to minute for the purpose of seeing intraday changes.

2) Automated - Data that is automatically connected and updated as the advisor needs/chooses for the purpose of eliminating work.

Jim is referring to the latter and in that way case it's no different than data that isn't live except that it's automated in a way that eliminates work allowing you to have more time to focus on the very conversations you rightly point out as critical for helping clients succeed.

Re: It’s Time To Rethink The Standard “Out of Office” Email

John Prendergast — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 09:57:21 -0000

"N21" Carolyn certainly has a lot of nerve suggesting we optimize for humans over bots. She's young, I'm sure she'll learn :-)

Re: Defeating The Silent Advisor Killer

John Prendergast — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:29:55 -0000

Thanks. We used Camtasia on a Mac for screen capture. We use Wistia for the video hosting which is a huge part of the quality of the video

Re: Quarterly Reports are like Ford Pintos – How to Fix it

John Prendergast — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:36:25 -0000

Greg, we always love your perspective.

Personally I wonder if the future of the "quarterly report" is no report at all. That seems to be the way many Blueleaf advisors are already operating or they are heading that way.

In a world with simple on demand reporting and regular client updates the need for a fixed in time report seems to be evaporating.

Re: Revenue Traction Doesn't Mean Product Market Fit

John Prendergast — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:01:35 -0000

There is a systemic issue here. Investors often not only fall for this head fake but demand it. That is a hard spot for a young company to be in.

Re: Blueleaf: a trillion dollar market opportunity

John Prendergast — Mon, 07 May 2012 08:05:35 -0000

Mick,

send us (Blueleaf) an email at vipsupport[at]blueleaf.com and let me know you're email address. We'll get you a working invitation.

Best regards,
John Prendergast
Founder & CEO
Blueleaf

Re: Advisors: Are You Amazon or Borders?

John Prendergast — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:24:35 -0000

Mark is dead on and I don't agree with him on much. You unambiguously CANNOT get useful information about evolving a product or service by asking customers what they want.

This is a really important topic and I'm glad you raised it Russ. It's worthy of a number of blog posts. In the meantime ...

The reason clients can't tell us what they want (what they'll pay for) is that as humans, we don't really know what we want. And we can't predict how we'll respond to some future offer. Also we all have a tendency to ask for "faster horses" rather than a car.

So what can clients tell you? Clients can tell you their problems. In the context of evolving a financial services business, they can tell you not only their financial problems but also the problems they have in using your service. As an entrepreneur and service provider it's our job to innovate to solve both.

Re: Startup Marketing Secrets For Advisors – Part 1

John Prendergast — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:25:28 -0000

Thanks Zack. We're big fans.

Re: Startup Marketing Secrets For Advisors – Part 1

John Prendergast — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:44:23 -0000

Ok, I may be biased but I think three of the best content marketers among Advisors are:

1) Carl Richards with: http://www.behaviorgap.com/, The Book - http://amzn.to/uIPXUe & http://twitter.com/behaviorgap

2) Jeff Rose with: http://jeffrosefinancial.com/, http://www.goodfinancialcen..., http://soldieroffinance.com/ & http://twitter.com/jjeffrose

& 3) Zack Miller with: http://www.tradestreaming.com/ & http://twitter.com/newrules...

Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, these guys have built a following that drives business.

Re: Do You Know What's In Your Mutual Funds?

John Prendergast — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:45:51 -0000

Jack,

Your assertion is correct. It is possible for a fund to own more than 5% stake in company and it isn't technically prohibited. It requires SEC filings to do it actively or it can happen passively as in the case in this example.

Thanks for the request that I clarify. There are several issues going on here.

1) Simplification - to keep the article short I omitted several details. a) Mutual Funds can make special filings with the SEC to continue purchasing shares above 5% if their charters allow. This rarely happens in practice however. b) there is no divestiture requirement if ownership above 5% happens as the result of appreciation. However, some mutual fund charters may explicitly deal with this situation.

2) Appreciation - AAPL has increased four fold since 2009 when it was trading around $100 per share. It's now at $366. It was $257 at the time of this article.

I hope that makes sense.

Re: Feeling Lost In Social Media?

John Prendergast — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:31:16 -0000

Thanks Vinod. It seems that in most things achieving success requires that we stop long enough to figure out what we want to do. And we need to specify it in enough detail to be able to use that definition as a navigational beacon.

Re: How To Fix Free Financial Consultations

John Prendergast — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:42:43 -0000

Thanks Russ. Great thought. It seems like the core question is 'Where in the funnel does a free consultation increase the conversion rate?' and that is likely the point where I already want to work with you and i need to get over the hump.

To me the good news is that all of this is an objective question of fact. That's because it is all testable. Anyone who is serious about building their business will make testing and marketing analytics a cornerstone and we're looking forward to discussing way to do that in future posts.

Re: Salespeople, We Don’t Need No Stinking Salespeople!

John Prendergast — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:29:13 -0000

I think the difference would be semantic if it were, in fact, only a name change. This isn't a comment on the quality of person represented by a salesperson. Like any role, the good ones are great. This is about changing the roles, responsibilities and system in which these people work.

While we didn't get into it in the post, there are significant process and responsibility differences between our coaches and typical sales structure. For one, the incentive compensation model revolves around customer happiness not deals. Another difference is the coaches responsibility for service inquiries (along with everyone else in the company). There are many more differences we've built into the system and many more will evolve. It's just a different approach described in a post with a headline inspired by Mel Brooks.

Re: Caution for Startup Kids

John Prendergast — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:53:46 -0000

Fantastic advice Mike. Particularly the part about larger companies generally undervaluing the "utility infielder" type skills developed at a startup compared with more highly valued specialist skills. Partly this is a reflection of the human need to be able to peg you as an expert in SOMETHING.

Great stuff.

Re: Measuring your Personal Investment Returns with Blueleaf

John Prendergast — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:52:10 -0000

Performance is a tough thing to find across custodians. Love to talk to you about what we're doing and also love to learn more about what you guys are doing. I just sent you an email.

Re: Why Advisor Software Feels so Outdated

John Prendergast — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:34:29 -0000

Bill, welcome aboard @blueleaf we're thrilled to have your perspectives and contributions!

It seems pretty clear to me that it is vendors who will need to "blink" as you put it and innovate. Advisor software is too hard to try, too hard to buy, too hard to use, and once you've made it through all the vendor hoops and try to make it part of your work, it screams for attention like a colicky baby. Vendors own the burden here.

All advisors need to do is stay engaged in the conversation, the vendors you want to work with will do the rest.

John Prendergast
Co-founder & CEO
Blueleaf

Re: Continuous Deployment

John Prendergast — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:55:27 -0000

I'm sure their QA is excellent but the speed of fixing bugs like that comes more from the limited batch size which in turn limits the potential causes of the bug.

Re: M&A Fundamentals

John Prendergast — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:56:25 -0000

Fred, this comment is worthy of an entire post (or an entire book!). Far too many entrepreneurs believe that you can sell the business whenever you'd like. Its almost never true and its a belief that often sets you up to fail.

Re: Acquisition Finance

John Prendergast — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:37:51 -0000

Fred, I think this is a great topic area. One area I'd like to see explored in the series is the problem of boards and management teams betting on a single acquirer, particular acquisition rationale or specific acquisition timing.

I've seen a lot of teams disappointed as a result of betting on a specific acquisition catalyst without a strategy to create multiple options. (The most important of which is building a strong stand alone business.)

As someone who has spent a fair bit of my career doing M&A, I can tell you buyers do things for their own reasons, most of which are unpredictable.

Re: Chasing Returns

John Prendergast — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 12:51:15 -0000

So if jet fuel is cheap, "fuel up the jet and get out of the Prius". Genius quote, love it!

Re: Chasing Returns

John Prendergast — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 12:39:57 -0000

Couldn't agree more.

Milestones are just free options with a locked in price for investors. Get the money you need to hit a value inflection point and then some to allow for pivots. Of course this is assuming the business is right for venture funding in the first place.

Re: Chasing Returns

John Prendergast — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 12:35:51 -0000

Venture money most certainly is jet fuel, with angel funding, it depends. The issue is that if your business is venture appropriate, by all means, raise your capital.

The problem is that normal markets help determine which deals are venture appropriate. Markets like this tend to fund deals that aren't venture appropriate creating a bad situation for the entrepreneur and investor alike. In those deals the entrepreneur is almost always better off bootstrapping, funding with friends and family or angels with more modest expectations.

Just an opinion.