Financial professionals must be vigilant about doing business ethically. To help them meet the challenge, the National Ethics Bureau publishes Ethics Edge a monthly e-mail newsletter that provides information about ethical business practices.
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Bulletin 238 |
Drive (High Speed) to Success
Welcome to the Internet autobahn, where information zooms from carriers, to advisors, to FMOs, to regulators, to the media, to clients, and back again . . . in seconds. It’s a world that has rendered the following excuse obsolete, “No one told me that.” more...
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Bulletin 237 |
Serve and Grow Rich
Here’s a question that bears reflection: “Do you have the means to live, but little meaning to live for?”
The question comes from Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who lived in Vienna during World War II. After the Nazis invasion, the good doctor and his family were arrested and sent to a concentration camp. more...
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Bulletin 236 |
Leapfrog the Bottom Feeders
Well, the heat’s been turned up on the issue of sales practices in the senior marketplace. When I heard that U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging was planning to hold hearings in September, shortly before the second annual Senior Summit, I expected the result would be a mix of downside risk and upside opportunity. I wasn’t wrong. more... |
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Bulletin 235 |
Love Your Clients, Not Yourself
Remember Narcissus? He was the beautiful youth in Greek mythology who refused all offers of love. As punishment for his indifference, he was made to fall in love with his own image, eventually pining away and turning into a more... |
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Bulletin 234 |
Googled to Death: Keeping Your Reputation Alive
You’ve seen the articles. A financial professional makes a mistake and gets cited by the NASD, SEC, or state regulator. A major newspaper catches wind, interviews the victims, and publishes a front-page story in print and online that shakes the industry. more... |
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Bulletin 233 |
The Trust Factor Part 3: Sing Like Sinatra, Baby
The key to building trust hinges on both doing and being. In prior articles, I discussed specific actions that build more trust . . . such as becoming more credible through professional education and following through on all of your commitments. I also talked about the importance of full disclosure as a strategy for building trust. more... |
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Bulletin 232 |
The Trust Factor Part 2: Get Naked
Last month, we wrote that trust—or the lack of it—is on a lot of people’s minds. In addition, we urged advisors to communicate character and demonstrate competence in order to achieve breakthrough trust. Finally, we wrote that building character and competence hinges on being credible, being reliable, being honest, being personable, and having integrity. more... |
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Bulletin 231 |
The Trust Factor: Transform your business and your life
Has the concept of “trust” been overdone? Trust me…it has. (Sorry for using the industry’s most discredited phrase…)
Amazon lists 354,902 books with “trust” in the title, and the mother of all Internet search engines, Google, returns 259 million trust-related links. more... |
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Bulletin 230 |
Who Owns You, Cowboy?
Many insurance and financial advisors savor their independence. That’s why captive agents often go independent as their skill, knowledge, and client list grow. But even as a free agent—a lone cowboy or cowgirl—how independent are you really? Are you subject to the influences of other entities in your professional life? Do you let those influences affect your decisions—and your ethics? Do you let them call all the shots? And most important, can you truly more... |
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Bulletin 229 |
Lurking in the Shadows. . .Unethical Clients
When we talk about ethics, we often train our spotlight on advisors. We assume unethical conduct usually starts inside them and spreads like the gathering gloom of a winter evening. But clients can trigger misconduct, as well. In their desire to make money or save money, they can push their advisors into ethically gray, if not black, areas. And because many advisors believe the client is always right, they go along. Wrong! more... |
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Bulletin 228 |
READ THIS NOW! (not later)
I’ve been planning to write this column for months, but never got around to it. No
wonder . . . my topic is procrastination.
If you’re like me, you occasionally put off a task you should really do now. That’s human nature and acceptable once in a while. But when procrastination dominates your work and life, watch out. As Mae West once purred, more... |
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Bulletin 227 |
No Excuse for Excuses
Have you ever forgotten to do something—or did the wrong thing—and needed a way out? We’d like to believe that most people in the wrong respond by doing right. They own up to their mistakes, apologize, and try not to repeat it. But that was before the Alibi Network, an Illinois company that provides excuses more... |
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Bulletin 226 |
Sell with Honey for Lasting Success
Do negative sales tactics bring positive results? Some advisors must think so, given the uptick in negative selling we’ve seen recently. This is unfortunate, because badmouthing competitors creates a negative marketplace dynamic that hurts everyone in the industry, especially the advisor who stoops to more... |
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Bulletin 225 |
Managing Client Information: Oxygen for Successful Selling
President Reagan was speaking about the important role that unrestricted information plays in securing freedom. But he could have as easily been talking about the importance that open information plays in your freedom to act as a trustworthy advisor. more... |
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Bulletin 224 |
The Temptations of a Financial Advisor
Even the best-intentioned advisor can fall prey to the temptations of unethical conduct. How? By giving in to these common seductive pressures. more... |
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Bulletin 223 |
The Dollars and Sense of Business Ethics
Most financial advisors understand instinctively the financial value of ethical business practices. If you treat people right, they not only become and remain clients, they generate lots of referrals. But now there’s some new research that quantifies the link between business ethics and a firm’s financial performance. All insurance and financial advisors should read this study and apply its findings to their own practices. more... |
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Bulletin 222 |
Use Ethics-Driven Marketing to Grow your Business (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this article, we defined ethics-driven marketing as leveraging your good ethics to grow your business. We explained that it involves defining your personal ethical beliefs, evaluating your business practices against those beliefs, and communicating your ethical values to the marketplace. more... |
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Bulletin 221 |
Use Ethics-Driven Marketing to Grow your Business (Part I)
Ethics-driven marketing is the practice of using your good ethics to grow your business. It involves defining and documenting your personal ethical beliefs, evaluating your business practices against those beliefs (and fixing them if needed), and communicating your ethical values to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. more... |
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Bulletin 220 |
Good Deeds Are Good Business
Ethics is a quality of the heart. It’s something that grows within you, but that isn’t easily seen from the outside. For that to happen, you need to express your ethics in deeds that are visible to others. To paraphrase Henry Ford, “A person who makes nothing but money is a poor kind of person." more... |
| Bulletin 219 |
Ethical Leadership Makes Good Business Sense
Our regulators and product companies are good at disseminating compliance rules. They love to publish weighty manuals and distribute ominous-sounding memos. Unfortunately, the human brain is hard-wired to break rules, even though it’s illegal. Most people resent being told what to do. more... |
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Bulletin 218 |
Get Serious About Suitability
Would a surgeon recommend an appendectomy to fix your pesky gallbladder?
Would an accountant propose amending your taxes when what you really need is to file an extension? Would an attorney recommend that you sue somebody when you just require a new will? (Sorry, this one’s arguable - but please read on…) more... |
| Bulletin 217 |
Steering You Straight: The Ethics-driven FMO.
Once upon a time, a financial marketing organization (FMO) would simply provide a broad range of products on a profitable basis to their contracted agents. Period. Then product-driven FMOs became marketing-driven, helping their insurance and financial advisors identify and develop productive market niches. more... |
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Bulletin 216 |
Let Trust Define You (part two) .
Last month, we raised the issue of consumer mistrust of insurance and financial advisors. We explained that trust occurs when advisors establish credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low levels of self-interest. We then suggested that having trusting clients was a realistic and achievable goal for most advisors. But it takes work. more... |
| Bulletin 215 |
Let Trust Define You (part one) .
To say that there is a lack of trust in the financial services business is like saying that Enron just lost a few points. Today more than ever, consumers doubt their financial advisors. Eventually, this doubt becomes active mistrust, and eventually mistrust sparks defections to other advisors. And the cycle begins again. more... |
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Bulletin 214 |
Regular Contact Is The Right Touch.
A recent insurance marketing survey determined that 40% of investors who are dissatisfied with their financial advisor said that the number one reason was because the advisor didn’t stay in touch. In a related study, a whopping 72% of those who made the decision to leave their advisor for a competitor cited broker “indifference” as grounds for change. more... |
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Bulletin 213 |
Too Good To Be True? Probably.
According to state and federal regulators, volatile stock markets, record low interest rates, rising health care costs, increasing life expectancy, and even the devastating aftermath of hurricane Katrina have combined to create a "perfect storm" for investment fraud.
more... |
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Bulletin 212 |
Polish Yourself with (A) Pledge.
The year 2005 is now history, and what a difference a few years makes. The dirty stain made by consumer fraud, elder financial abuse, investment scams, corporate scandals, and "creative" accounting practices, has continued to soil the confidence of investors in the financial services industry.
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Bulletin 211 |
Be Good or Be Gone.
Over time, the financial services industry has changed dramatically, moving from one way of conducting business to another, which has significantly affected the way advisors market and sell financial products.
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Bulletin 210 |
Top Reasons to Practice Good Ethics.
Some financial advisors still believe nice people finish last. They think embracing ethics (i.e., doing the right thing for their clients 100 percent of the time) will limit their options, their opportunities and their very ability to succeed in business. It's time to think again.
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Bulletin 209 |
Want Trust? Then Expose Yourself!
As reported last month investment scams of all shapes and sizes continue to grab headlines. Recently, securities regulators and consumer watchdog groups alerted millions of investors to the fact that insurance agents.
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Bulletin 208 |
Top Ten Scams for 2005.
Recently, securities regulators and watchdog groups have alerted millions of consumers to this years most common schemes and scams. Nicknamed "The Dirty Dozen", the top twelve rip-offs are ranked in order of prevalence and seriousness,as follows:
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Bulletin 207 |
The Ethics Quiz.
According to a recent Times/Mirror survey, Americans named the lack of ethics as the fourth-leading problem that faces consumers today and that the public views financial professionals as being less ethical than most other professionals, including lawyers. Recently we have seen record-level consumer fraud:
more... |
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Bulletin 206 |
New Restrictions for Soliciting.
NEW RESTRICTIONS ON SEMINAR ADVERTISING
No advertisement for an event where insurance prospects will be offered for sale may use the terms "seminar", "class", "workshop", "informational meeting", or an equivalent term to describe the purpose of the event, unless:
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Bulletin 205 |
Top Ten Scams for 2004.
Recently the North American Securities Administration (NASAA) released the Top 10 investment scams that are facing investors in 2004 and ranks them in order of prevalence and seriousness, as follows:
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Bulletin 204 |
Internet Advertising Guidelines.
The Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to act unilaterally in the interest of all consumers to prevent deceptive and unfair practices. In interpreting Section 5 of the Act, the FTC has determined that a representation, omission or practice is "deceptive" if it is likely to do the following:
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Bulletin 203 |
Twisting & Churning.
Commissioner Garamendi holds a press conference to highlight the Tuesday morning sentencing of a former insurance agent to six years in prison. David Alfred Tetley, 50, eventually pleaded guilty to six felony counts of financial elder abuse and grand theft. An investigation by the CDI Investigation Division more... |
