In last month’s posting, I pondered the variations among similarly minded advisors’ business strategies and compensation models. This month, I continue with observations on the ongoing evolution of “passive investing” as we know it. Just as I began to think about this, I discovered that maybe the world really does revolve around me. As if [...]
A new year inspires reflections and prognostications: What does the passive advisor resemble today, and where are we going next? First, what is “passive investing”? If ever there were a contest for descriptors that failed to capture what was truly meant, this one might be the champ. But, alas, for the time being, it remains [...]
Forgive me while I make an exception to regularly scheduled programming in my blog and e-mail advice. Typically, I like to provide entertaining and enlightening communication-enhancing ideas. But this month, I have special news to share. I am thrilled to announce my all-new Wendy J. Cook Communications Subscription Service. While it never hurts to learn [...]
“When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.” – Anatole France Whether it’s on your blog, in a client letter or during a group presentation, a perennially popular strategy for communicating your own ideas is to quote somebody else who agrees with you. With good reason. [...]
Maybe it was fate, maybe dumb luck. Call it what you will, but it’s true: If it weren’t for some random social networking with a gal named Jill, I wouldn’t be in my current career. And yet it all happened a good half-dozen years before Mark Zuckerberg began contemplating, let alone coding, Facebook. Rewind to [...]
Some connections are no-brainers. Like, passive investing and the Vanguard Diehards/Boglehead forum. Others are less obvious, but no less useful to being the best investment advisor you can to your clients. My friend and colleague Kathy Rowell of Katherine S. Rowell & Associates helps healthcare professionals cleanly capture, manage and communicate complex data. Sound familiar? [...]
In lieu of my usual monthly blog posting and in alliance with Back Office Advisor, I have hosted a webinar: READY TO COMMUNICATE? NOT SO FAST… So, you’d like to improve your corporate communications. What are the essentials for being efficient and effective? Wednesday, August 3 Wendy J. Cook of Wendy J. Cook Communications will [...]
In my last blog, How to Waste Time and Influence People, we covered productive ways to wander on the Internet. You also can benefit by harnessing the Internet more intentionally, as it relates to your fee-only, passive management advisor practice. I’m not an investment advisor, but as a professional service provider for advisors, I share [...]
Ah, the Internet. Could there be a more usefully annoying, time-sucking, time-saver? During your day job, how do you harness the power of the Internet without it galloping off with your valuable time? Take the cartoon at right. It took me under a minute to track it down at www.xkcd.com/386/ and determine that the author [...]
Perhaps because social media is so, well, social, I find it particularly painful to see someone go on a poorly rendered rant on the Internet. As Gilbert K. Chesterton says, “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” How do you speak [...]
