Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible. The Advisor's Advisor

315 Pages·2002·7.91 MB·English

by  Rattiner J.H.

Critical Praise for
Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible: The Advisor’s Advisor
“Indispensable advice from an industry leader. Jeff Rattiner, one
of the foremost financial planning educators in the country, has
written a book that belongs in every planner’s library.”
—Richard J. Koreto
Executive Editor
Financial Planning Magazine
“A one-stop shopping resource for setting up and running your
financial planning practice. This is a comprehensive guide for be-
ginners as well as advanced planners. I wish this bible had been
available when we started our investment advisory firm 5 years ago.”
—Steven I. Levey, CPA/PFS
Principal
GHP Investment Advisors, Inc.
“Jeff Rattiner knows this business. For rookies just starting out or
mid-career advisors refocusing their practices, this book offers
sage advice on marketing and practice management. As the finan-
cial services industry continues to reinvent itself, all advisors can
benefit from his experience.”
—Mitch Rose
Executive Editor
Horsesmouth
“Jeff Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible is an indispensable tool
for any advisor interested in meeting the competitive challenges in
today’s environment.”
—E. Clark Griggs
Vice President-Financial Consultant
A National Financial Services Firm

Rattiner’s Financial
Planner’s Bible

Rattiner’s Financial
Planner’s Bible
The Advisor’s Advisor
Jeffrey H. Rattiner, CPA, CFP, MBA, RFC
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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ISBN 0-471-22034-5
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my children, Brandon, Keri, and Matthew, who everyday pro-
vide me with my greatest inspiration.
To my wife, Rochele, for her continued love and support.
To my parents, Esther and Ronald, who, when the going gets tough,
never give up!

Preface
Through all the training I provide to companies, the one central
theme everyone always seems to ask questions around is: “Jeff,
we’ve been practicing for 20 years and we’re still not sold on how
we can create the optimum practice. We try this, that, and the
other thing; yet we always seem to be going in circles. I’d like to es-
tablish a prototype model on what’s required to develop the
model practice. How can we be the best financial planners we can
be? How do we learn to think outside the box, and not get caught
up in the fads of today?”
Well, that got me thinking. I said to myself, if I were starting
out today, what kind of tool would I like to see that would put me
on the path to success? Or, if I was an experienced practitioner,
what could I learn from other successful planners that would en-
able me to benefit from their experiences? At which point I said to
myself, wouldn’t it be great to develop a model of how practicing
financial advisors can achieve these dreams and their lifelong am-
bitions of providing the ultimate in services to their existing clients
and a model framework for acquiring new ones? And then, would-
n’t it be great to write these ideas down for a practical book so
other financial advisors can have the benefit of these ideas when
they can still make a difference in their clients’ lives? And would-
n’t it be great to educate existing financial advisors on how they
can make that happen, while showing them the pitfalls to avoid,
the issues to contemplate, the steps to consider, and the hard de-
cisions to make, while remaining focused in their quest to take
their practices to unforeseen levels? What it came down to, in
essence, is a book about being a strong, competent, and ethical fi-
nancial advisor.
When I think about what makes a strong financial advisor,
the one characteristic I see repeatedly is “doing what’s best for the
client” in an ethical, practical, and professional manner. How can
ix
x Preface
you make your clients’ lives better? How can you get them to
where they want and need to be down the road, versus where they
are today? In essence, how can you make their lives better? When
you think about it, nothing else really matters, not the image you
bestow, the type of office you have, or even the way you are paid.
It all boils down to client honor and advisor integrity. And that is
when I decided to take John Wiley & Sons up on their offer to
write a book that shows advisors how to do the things necessary to
build this successful practice. “Successful” being defined as what to
do for your clients as well as what to do for yourself, or, in other
words, creating the ultimate balance in your practice so you can
have your cake and eat it, too!
The purpose of this book is to provide you with the logical
and tested steps necessary to achieve this mission, all the while sav-
ing you time and resources, and avoiding any unnecessary mishaps
and heartache experienced throughout the years by leading prac-
titioners. It takes a consortium of approaches from various finan-
cial planning practitioners emphasizing the good, the bad, and
the ugly, while telling you about the do’s and don’ts of each. This
book does not follow the sequence of a traditional book on finan-
cial planning or the way some of my other books are laid out. I de-
scribe to you things the way they are, not the way you would like
them to be. I provide a reality check to help you distinguish fact
from fiction. I delve into 50 insightful ways of marketing your
practice that many practitioners do not currently use, as well as 25
intriguing ways to build up the infrastructure of your practice to
support the things you want to do but cannot. We show you how to
work with external alliances to create true win-win scenarios, be-
cause there really is enough money out there for everyone.
To help you visualize where you are in your practice, I have
developed a self-assessment system that allows you to quantify ex-
actly where your practice is today and what you can do to make
improvements to match the objectives you have set for yourself. I
have developed worksheets and audit-type programs to give you a
true picture of where you stand today and what you need to do to
practice successfully. All these practical ideas, along with a model
for capturing the technical aspects of our business for planning in
the areas of insurance, investment, income tax, retirement, estate,
and other disciplines, are provided. By reading this book, when