Here's how our member, Tom Vilord, explains how we help him. Tom has been a member since 2011.

Prior to joining Peak Advisor Alliance, I had absolutely no marketing plan other than crossing my fingers and hoping old prospects would take my call and eventually meet with me. Once I finally got in front of a prospect, I was an average salesman at best. I didn’t ask enough questions, I didn’t ask the right questions, and I did not have a system on how to close a prospect. My follow-up was unorganized. My system and software for creating a financial plan did not exist and my presentation of the financial plan was about as sexy as socks on a rooster.

Since joining Peak Advisor Alliance, my business has increased 108% in just one year. My office is now close to being 100% systematized thanks to the Peak method of hiring a full-time assistant. The one thing I value the most about Peak is that I finally have (for the first time in my career) an organized method of cultivating a consistent flow of QUALIFIED prospects and a consistent method of bringing on new A+ clients and A+ referrals. I am now in control of every meeting and my closing ratio has been pretty close to 100%. My productivity and efficiency has increased in ways I could only dream of.

It’s very exciting coming into the office everyday knowing that I finally have a system in place that will help me achieve all of my business and personal goals.

Are you ready to be excited about your work again and able to achieve your business and personal goals? Then give us a call at (800) 514-9116.

Congratulations to Laila Pence, Erin Botsford, Debra Brede, Janice Hobbs, and Patricia Brennan, who worked with Peak Advisor Alliance and now are on the Barron's Top 100 Women Advisors List. If you want to get on the list, maybe you should work with us too.

Want to find yourself on this list or other industry-leading lists? Then call Peak Advisor Alliance TODAY at 800.514.9116 or visit www.peakadvisoralliance.com.

Happy Halloween from all of us at Peak Advisor Alliance! Here’s a recap of where you may have seen Peak Advisor Alliance in the news this past month.

The Prosperous Advisor by Steve Sanduski
Simple Power Phrases That Turn Prospects Into Clients – October 11, 2011
Steve Sanduski, the Prosperous Advisor, says advisors should use the English language in inspirational ways to motivate prospects and get them off the fence to become a client. He’s not talking about slick manipulation, but about choosing your words carefully so you succinctly impart your message and create a positive feeling and mental picture in your prospect’s mind.

News from the Fall 2011 Excell Meeting
LPL's Biggest Advisor Rallies His Protégés Nebraska Style – Oct. 14, 2011
From RIA Biz
Ron Carson brings his Peak Advisor Alliance members to his home base of Omaha and surprises them with a famous, and local, coach.

Yield of Dreams: Peak Conference Focuses on Prospecting, Improving the Practice – Oct. 14, 2011
By Diana Britton, Registered Rep magazine
Giving away their trade secrets with competitors wasn’t an issue for the 350 or so advisors who attended the Peak Advisor Alliance conference in Omaha, Neb., where top FAs shared their best ideas on prospecting and improving their own practices.

Yield of Dreams: Live from Omaha: Useful Tactics for Working with the Press – Oct. 13, 2011
By Diana Britton, Registered Rep magazine
In attending the Peak Advisor Alliance (Ron Carson’s coaching program) conference in Omaha, Neb., they asked me to participate in a Q&A session with Jason Lahita, head of the Los Angeles office for PR, Cognito, to provide advisors with some do’s and don’ts on working with journalists.

Click here to view our intro video from the Fall 2011 Excell Meeting.

Click here to view our photo montage.

 

LPL's Biggest Advisor Rallies His Protégés Nebraska Style – Oct. 14, 2011
From RIA Biz
Ron Carson brings his Peak Advisor Alliance members to his home base of Omaha and surprises them with a famous, and local, coach.

Yield of Dreams: Peak Conference Focuses on Prospecting, Improving the Practice – Oct. 14, 2011
By Diana Britton, Registered Rep magazine
Giving away their trade secrets with competitors wasn’t an issue for the 350 or so advisors who attended the Peak Advisor Alliance conference this week in Omaha, Neb., where top FAs shared their best ideas on prospecting and improving their own practices.

Yield of Dreams: Live from Omaha: Useful Tactics for Working with the Press – Oct. 13, 2011
By Diana Britton, Registered Rep magazine
In attending the Peak Advisor Alliance (Ron Carson’s coaching program) conference in Omaha, Neb., this week, they asked me to participate in a Q&A session with Jason Lahita, head of the Los Angeles office for PR firm Cognito, to provide advisors with some do’s and don’ts on working with journalists.

What Advisors Can Learn from Steve Jobs, a.k.a. “The Comeback Kid”
By Steve Sanduski, CFP®

With the passing of Steve Jobs, we wanted to reprint this article which highlights some of his key ideas and applies them to your work as a financial advisor. He set an example for innovation, product perfection and style that advisors would be well-served to emulate.

Steve Jobs's business career is remarkable by any standard. His ability to go from boy wonder co-founder of Apple Computer, to Chairman and CEO of Pixar, to the largest individual shareholder of The Walt Disney Company, to ousted executive who returned to save Apple and turn it into a seemingly unbeatable brand, is simply amazing. While he made plenty of mistakes in his youth, he matured into a very successful businessman with some profound thoughts on business success. While Jobs’ ideas are applicable to broader business, upon close examination they seem tailor-made for the financial advisor in particular.

“Connect the dots.”
Over time, all of us have incredible life experiences—some positive, and some not. Regardless of the outcome, they ultimately shaped the person you are today. Everything that has happened to you in your past has the ability to positively affect you in the present—if you connect the dots. Jobs relates a story about how on a whim, he dropped in on a calligraphy class while he was attending Reed College back in the early 1970s. At the time, he found the class utterly fascinating, but totally useless. It wasn’t until 10 years later, when he was designing the Macintosh computer, that he was able to connect the dots. The result…the Macintosh became the first computer with beautiful typography and it became a huge hit in the desktop publishing industry.

Think for a moment about some of your life experiences. What lessons have you learned? What stories can you create from these lessons that you can share with your clients to deepen your relationship with them? Stories are the best way to turn a complicated idea into an understandable teaching point, so don’t be afraid to leverage your life experiences, even those you think have no bearing on your current reality – connecting the dots can be a powerful method of uncovering your inner innovator.

What dots can you connect to make your business better?

“Say no.”
There is no shortage of opportunities in this business. However, there is a shortage of conviction. The easy thing to do is to go to a meeting, hear a few good ideas, then go out and try them. When that does not work, you go to another meeting or hear another speaker and repeat the process with similar unacceptable results. Soon, you find yourself literally trying everything, and successfully completing nothing. Jobs does the opposite. He’s an obsessive focuser on a small number of things that are truly important to him.

How many major products does Apple sell? Essentially four: the Macintosh computer, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. With just four main product lines, Apple has a market capitalization of more than $300 billion. Despite pleas from analysts and other pundits, Jobs has resisted the call to offer lower-end products and milk the company’s great brand. He said, “It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” Having a well thought-out and focused mission statement is a great place to start. A quality mission statement can act as a “not to do” list. If you’re considering new opportunities, check your mission statement. If the new opportunity doesn’t fit your mission, move on.

What can you say “no” to so you have room to say “yes” with complete conviction to something else that’s more important?

“Quality, not quantity.”
Many of the advisors that I’ve worked with over the years had more than 500 clients. By financial measures, these advisors had successful businesses that generated substantial revenue and comfortable profits. Yet who got shortchanged in that deal? The clients! None of those advisors would ever go on the record as saying they did a great job of taking care of all of their clients. Typically, 20 percent received great care and the other 80 percent were mainly an entry in a database.  This is not due to a lack of good intentions; it is simple math and human capacity. These advisors did not have the time to meet once or twice a year with 500 clients let alone have a meaningful advisor to client human connection.

At Pixar, where Jobs built the firm from peanuts into a company that he sold to The Walt Disney Company for $7.4 billion, there is no 80/20 rule. It’s simply what I call the Rule of 100™—every effort gets 100% support. Accordingly, Pixar delivered an average of only one movie every 18 months; a weak pace by major movie studio standards. However, the result was anything but weak. Pixar has generated more than $6.8 billion in worldwide box office receipts since 1995—and they’ve had no bombs.

How can you restructure your business to deliver 100 percent quality to 100 percent of your clients 100 percent of the time?

“Hire the best.”
Quality work starts with quality employees. For many advisors, finding and retaining quality staff members is a perennial issue. Advisors are tempted to hire the first person that marginally fits the bill. Unfortunately, that’s a recipe for long-term pain. It’s better to bite the bullet now and continue pursuing the right person, rather than settle for an average candidate who is destined to deliver mediocre results. Like other notable business leaders, Jobs devotes a material amount of his time to “working the phones” and talking to prospective employees that he thinks can be A-list players on his team. At the end of the day, there are no weak links in his executive suite.

If you currently have no support staff, then go out and hire your first person. Without staff, you’ll have a job, but you’ll never have a business. In fact you and your clients will find yourselves perennial victims of the afore-mentioned 80/20 rule. If you have existing staff, continue to support and nurture your “A” players. For your weaker links, work with them to try to get them to “A” status. If they can’t make the jump after you’ve given them every opportunity to do so, it’s time to let them go. While letting someone go is never easy, I’ve found that if their employment is not working for you, it’s not working for them either. By giving them a compassionate push out the door, you’ll enable them to find another job that’s a better fit for their interests and skill set.

How can you upgrade your staff and which A-list players should you be calling to add to your team? 

“Don’t settle.”
It’s a pattern that I've seen repeated over and over again. An advisor rises to a level of production that makes them comfortable and then they coast. They have the house, the cars, the vacations, the club membership, and the kids’ college education pre-funded. It’s the American dream. No need to push yourself any further by asking for a referral or making more calls, right?

Recently, our company, Peak Advisor Alliance, delivered a three-day True Wealth Institute for approximately 65 advisors. The attendees were highly successful financial advisors who wanted to add life planning to their practice. Interestingly, by material standards, these advisors had it all—they were an embodiment of the American Dream. Yet, here they were, spending three full days in Omaha, Nebraska learning how to keep growing. What they were seeking was not just business growth; it was personal growth, too.

When you get to a point in your life where you are comfortable, coasting is the worst thing you can do. You’ll get stale, disenchanted, and start feeling that indefinable ache. The key is this—if growing your business is no longer satisfying, it’s time to start growing your self.

When I talk about growing your “self,” I don’t mean this in a self-absorbed, egoistic way. I’m talking about using your life’s wisdom to reach out to the world in new ways; stretching yourself in terms of how you can impact others. Perhaps you do this by adding life planning to your practice. Perhaps you start giving back to the industry by teaching or mentoring industry newcomers. Perhaps you start volunteering more.

Jobs says, “We’re just trying to make great products. We do things where we feel we can make a significant contribution.” To him, it’s about staying focused. It’s about creating products that are, “insanely great.” It’s about loving what you do and doing it with all your energy. Don’t settle for anything less.

Instead of settling, where could you start growing?

In a 2004 BusinessWeek interview, Jobs reflected on his personal growth that resulted from him successfully bouncing back from cancer. He said,

“I realized that I loved my life. I really do. I’ve got the greatest family in the world, and I’ve got my work. I love my family, and I love running Apple, and I love Pixar. And I get to do that. I’m very lucky.”

By following this simple plan—connecting the dots, saying no to the unimportant and yes to the most important, focusing on quality, not quantity, hiring the best, and not settling—you too can end up with a life you love. Do that and you’ll be one of the lucky few in this life who can look back at the end of their days and say with great conviction, “It was a life well lived.”

Check out what Peak Advisor Alliance has been up to.

The Prosperous Advisor by Steve Sanduski
China’s Impact on the World Stage – Part 3.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Japan was on a roll. They had one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Their manufacturing prowess grew to be the envy of the world. Their stock market soared 373 percent between 1980 and its peak in 1989. And, like China today, there were predictions that Japan would overtake the United States as the largest economy in the world. But, as The Prosperous Advisor Steve Sanduski points out, times sure have changed.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of China’s Impact on the World Stage.

7 Principles for Gaining Control of Your Day
From the September 2011 issue of Investment Advisor
Advisors often ask us, “What’s the single most important thing I can do to be productive and profitable?” While we’d like to say there is “just one thing,” the reality is there are seven core principles that every advisor should follow.

Congratulations to Peak Advisor Alliance members who made Barron’s 2011 Top 100 Independent Wealth Advisor list, including and Steve Lockshin #1 and our very own Ron Carson, #8.

Click here to view Barron's list: Top 100 Independent Wealth Advisors 2011.

Ron (#7) and Steve (#13) also ranked on Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisors 2011. Click here to view the entire list.

Peak Advisor Alliance hasn’t been on vacation this summer! Check out the following articles that have been published about us or we have had published in the past month.

China’s Impact on the World Stage -- Part I – August 4, 2011
From Financial Planning magazine’s, The Prosperous Advisor by Steve Sanduski
I’d like to share with you some personal observations about what’s happening in China based on my recent visit to Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. While there as a tourist, I made a point of talking to the locals and keeping my eyes and ears open for anything that would help me figure out whether this Chinese growth story will save the world economy or whether it’s a bubble ready to burst.

7 Principles for Gaining Control of Your Day
From the September 2011 issue of Investment Advisor
Advisors often ask us, “What’s the single most important thing I can do to be productive and profitable?” While we’d like to say there is “just one thing,” the reality is there are seven core principles that every advisor should follow.

When They Need Help, Advisers Call: 'Coach!' - August 21, 2011
From Investment News
While on the way to building a successful advisory firm, David Frisch, like many advisers, hit a speed bump.

Use Exponential Difference Makers to Grow Your Business
From the August 2011 Issue of Investment Advisor
As a child, we learned that any number multiplied by itself several times in a row will generate a much bigger number: for example, 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32. We can also express that as 2⁵ and we call that an exponential expression. Applying this mathematical concept to your business can help you double or possibly even triple or quadruple it.

Congratulations to Peak Advisor Alliance members who made Barron’s 2011 Top Advisors List, including our very own Ron Carson, #1 advisor in NE.

Others on the list: Sal Flores (AZ), Trevor Wilde (AZ), Kerrick Bubb (CA), Mark Brown (CO), Dan Pinkerton (ID), John Lynch (MD), Joe Jacques (MD), Leo Lapito (MT), Roy Williams (NJ), Patti Brennan (PA), and Gordon Wollman (SD).

Click here to view Barron’s 2011 Top Rankings: State by State.

Do you know the top 10 activities million-dollar producers have in common? We do! A study of million-dollar producers conducted by Peak Advisor Alliance shows that these 10 key activities account for approximately 75% of million-dollar producers’ average week. Want to learn what the top 10 activities are? Then click here to read this interest list from Peak Advisor Alliance’s very own Steve Sanduski, also the author of Financial Planning magazine’s new blog ‘The Prosperous Advisor’.

So, what do you think? Is the Top 10 list on target or do you think we missed a key activity? Let us know, we’d love to read your comments!

At Peak Advisor Alliance we love a good list…to-do lists, shopping lists, our Six Most and The Vital One^TM. That’s why we were so excited to learn that Tested in the Trenches:  A 9-Step Plan for Building and Sustaining a Million-Dollar Financial Services Practice by Ron Carson and Steve Sanduski made Financial Planning magazine’s list of Ten Must-Read Books for Advisors from Amazon.com. Click here to read the entire top ten list.

By the way, want to learn more about the Six Most and The Vital One? Just visit the Advisor Resources tab and select Free Resources at www.peakadvisoralliance.com and scroll down to Tools.

Today we unveiled the new Peak Advisor Alliance. Our PEAK brand got a facelift with a new look and logo, and a brand spanking new web site. We couldn’t be more excited to share this with you and hear your feedback on our new design.

And we can’t talk about facelifts without a Joan Rivers analogy. Think of our new look like Joan Rivers. Even though she’s had a lot of work done, she’s still the same brash, ballsy comedian that she was six (okay maybe a lot more) plastic surgeries ago. Her core comic style hasn’t changed. And although our brand has been given an update, our core philosophy to serve our members with the best Tested-in-the-Trenches tools and strategies remains intact.

Our fundamental goal is simply to support financial advisors with the Three C’s:
1. CONTENT - Peak Advisor Alliance delivers detailed, multimedia Tested-in-the-Trenches resources, strategies, systems, and toolkits for financial advisors.

2. COACHING - Peak Advisor Alliance provides one-on-one and group coaching support delivered by knowledgeable, experienced coaches that addresses the specific needs of our members.

3. COMMUNITY - Peak Advisor Alliance members are an unparalleled network of unique individuals, all with something to share, all with a strong desire to connect with other professionals and to learn from and support each other.

We can’t wait for you to start nosing around on the new site. Contact us and one of our Business Development Consultants can take you "under the hood" and show you our new, members-only online dashboard, which helps you track progress on your goals. Also, our new search functionality makes is super easy to find the exact content you are looking for. Again, we are so excited to share the new Peak Advisor Alliance with you!