What’s New- Profiles & Business Model

By admin | Published: June 24, 2009

I think it’s fair to say that when we rolled out AMP, we over-promised what it could deliver right out of the gates.  In the three months since we launched the first profiles, we’ve learned several things from listening to consumers and advisors, as well as tracking the metrics.

Here are the key issues we identified:

  1. If an advisor already has a prospect’s contact information (a Known prospect), they should be able to pre-register them and then email a unique link that automatically logs the prospect in as soon as they click on it (of course the email would explain all that)
  2. Unknown prospects should be able to sign up without having to input so much information, while also getting more value right away by being able to access the Dashboard without having to first sign up
  3. It should be easier for prospects to contact advisors through the profile page
  4. The profile should tell a better story about “this cool new service created by really smart people (economists and financial planners) and used by institutions you can trust (Virginia Tech and Texas Tech)”
  5. Advisors should be able to list specific services they offer in order to further niche their practices and attract prospects

So in response, we decided to launch a new profile (you can check out a live version here and watch the video for advisors that describes the features of their new profile below).

As a results we just launched these major improvements to AMP:

  1. A new profile designed to tell a better marketing story to Unknown prospects, with a video, dynamic contact forms and a place for Unknown prospects to sign up next to an example of the Starter Roadmap.
  2. A time-saving new feature that pre-registers prospective clients through the Advisor Management Interface and emails them a unique link with a token that captures all their information as they enter it, so that advisors don’t have to spend as much time meeting with prospects, while also gathering very helpful data without having to do any of the work.
  3. A new system flow that takes prospects deeper into the educational platform and delivers more value by showing the Dashboard content, while also making it easier to sign up with just a name and email

So far, we’ve gotten very positive feedback from the advisors.  Though this is purely anecdotal, one advisor who is using AMP very effectively as an efficiency tool to screen prospective clients, received 3 unknown, qualified prospects in one week.

Additionally, we’re going to be rolling out a new business model in the next few weeks that will make AMP much more affordable and available.  Most importantly, it will be a big step forward in helping us deliver educational content to help people reach their financial goals.  Which is precisely what we set out to do in the first place.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A new profile for the “Fighting Gobblers”

By admin | Published: April 9, 2009

Boulevard R started out with the mission to make independent financial advice accessible for all consumers.  During the course of trying to make this happen, we’ve realized a few things:

  1. Personal financial content works best when there is a real person on the other side of table.  A computer monitor will only get you so far.  If you’re really trying to solve problems or get personalized, in-depth financial advice, working with a person you trust is important.
  2. Independent financial advisors have always been our biggest boosters
  3. Of the independent financial advisors, younger advisors have been our most active evangelists

So we’re happy to announce that we’re helping to return the favor, particularly to the youngest financial advisors, since we are making the Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform (AMP) available as an educational tool for some of the top financial planning programs in the country.  We’re kicking this program off with the Fighting Gobblers (aka Hokies) of Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech

Last October we had a chance to demo AMP to Prof. Ruth Lytton of Virginia Tech at FPA Boston.  She was impressed with what we had created and in turn, we were impressed by her and VT’s financial planning program the more we learned about it.  This semester, Prof. Lytton is going to use AMP in her client communications course.

We’re excited not only at the opportunity to help educational institutions who are furthering the profession and training the next generation of financial advisors, but also the reach that AMP can have when you put it in the hands of a bunch of smart, enthusiastic students.

Check out VT’s new profile!
www.boulevardr.com/edu/VirginiaTech

Posted in AMP, Financial Advice | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bob Veres & “the future of planning”

By Matt | Published: February 20, 2009

For this month’s edition of Bob Veres’s monthly newsletter, Inside Information, he decided to profile Boulevard R’s Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform (AMP), even though we haven’t launched yet.  We’ll be doing that at the T3 conference in Dallas next week.

Michael Kitces was kind enough to introduce us and during the interview and subsequent communication, Bob asked great questions and really tried to understand how AMP works.  There really isn’t anything in the financial advisor space like AMP.  From what we can tell, there’s not even a category for advisor marketing software.  Particularly one that has the potential to effortlessly deliver so much value to prospects.

We were impressed by how much Bob was impressed.  Here’s a direct quote:

“This may well be a peek at the future of planning itself.”

Bob also really looked at this from a generational standpoint.  It’s true that Boulevard R has developed a lot of our content, as well as our planning approach by working with some of the top younger financial planners.  Bob took this to another level, though:

“I think I’m finally looking at the way the next generation of planners- a generation that is working productively but not totally comfortably withing the Baby Boom paradigm- will offer the planning service when they finally take the reins of the profession.”

Bob went on to say:

“Until NexGen gets firmly into the leadership saddle of the profession, Boulevard R looks like a nice way to cultivate future clients and offer help where it was uneconomical to do so before.”

Looking at how advice is delivered, which is how Boulevard R wants to impact financial planning so that more people can access independent advice by working with a fiduciary, Bob wrapped up with a forecast:

“But within the next ten years, whether with Boulevard R or some other program, I think you’ll start to see the planning relationship change to something that most of today’s practice owners would have trouble contemplating–a service that will be more democratic, efficient and interactive than it is today.

It’s not hard to see, in the Boulevard R screens, a future where the planner is freed up to offer advice, counsel and wisdom without the administrative chores that make today’s relationships so expensive.”

We’re looking forward to keeping Bob update as AMP rolls out.

If you want to explore a live demo of Boulevard R, including the interactive goals process, Roadmap Questionnaire, Sample Roadmap and online Dashboard, just click here or on the image below.

Explore a live demo

Posted in AMP, Financial Advice | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Dave Drucker Scoops AMP

By admin | Published: January 14, 2009

A couple of months ago, Dave Drucker contacted Boulevard R, since we were quoted in an InvestmentNews story about how younger planners feel a need to serve Middle Market consumers.  Over the course of the interview, I started talking about the new service we were rolling out for independent financial advisors and his curiosity was piqued.

We scheduled another interview so that I could explain in greater detail what we were building and how it could help advisors.  The real challenge was that at the time our site was still all about consumers, so it wasn’t easy to clearly demonstrate the model.

Fortunately, Dave is a very conscientious reporter and he sent me a draft for fact checking, which allowed me to the chance to more clearly explain how AMP works.  The result is a very well written article in Morningstar that covers the old model and then segues into what we’re doing now.  Since the article came out, we’ve received a number of inquires and sign ups.  We’ve also put up a video demonstrating just how the new Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform works (thanks to Aaron Coates).

We’re looking forward to launching AMP at the T3 conference in Dallas (which we found out about only after Dave did the story), where we’ll be able to demonstrate a much more full featured solution that what is described in the Morningstar article.

We’ll also be participating on Marie Swift’s panel discussing how to automate marketing efforts on Saturday morning, so we’re excited about that as well.

Posted in AMP | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Since the NY Times now knows…

By admin | Published: December 11, 2008

When we first started talking about the idea that would grow into Boulevard R in June of 2005, we saw ourselves as a consumer facing site.  We recognized that the majority of Americans didn’t have access to affordable, independent advice and set out to fix that.

We’ve now come to the realization that we can’t do this alone.  We need to partner with others to help us realize our mission of delivering unbiased, actionable advice.  The answer was right under our noses: independent financial planners who act as fiduciaries and in the best interests of their clients.  Many independent planners and advisors recognize that their industry has a moral imperative to serve all Americans, but their business models typically either force them to serve only the wealthy or work on an hourly basis at $100-$250/hour, which still leaves a lot of folks without access to advice.

What I told the reporter from the NY Times who called this afternoon and what will be announced in a Morningstar article that comes out next Thursday is that Boulevard R is shifting business models.  We’re moving from B2C to B2B by providing independent planners and advisors with an Advisor Branded Marketing Platform that will be white-labeled for them.

Our goal is to help advisors bring in more prospects, especially since Americans are demanding more independent advice in the wake of the financial crisis, as well as be able to engage all those who are not yet qualified to become prospects and be able to serve them once they do reach the advisor’s minimum limit.

In essence, we want to help independents automate a lot of their marketing efforts through leveraging existing clients and prospects with online tools, as well as providing them ways to target prospects through online search, online advertising and collateral designed to attract consumers to their profile page.  What Boulevard R gets in return is to realize our mission of serving all Americans by having advisors and planners distribute what we’ve created.  Win-win.

Of course, all existing users will still be able to log into their Dashboard and get value from it as we continue to add content and evolve the platform.

So check back here next Thursday and you’ll see a new homepage and a much more detailed explanation of Boulevard R’s new direction.

Posted in AMP, Financial Advice | Tagged , | 4 Comments

What’s happened to trust?

By admin | Published: October 8, 2008

In an up-market almost anyone can make money on their investments, but if the last few weeks of market turmoil have proven anything, it’s that it is impossible to know what will happen next.

While these are certainly difficult times, we feel that independent, unbiased financial advice has never been more needed than it is today.  We even got a call yesterday from a local small business reporter asking about how many more people have been coming to Boulevard R.

A recent FPA/Ameriprise study conducted by Harris Interactive points out the value of financial planning.  What was particularly interesting to us, was that 84% of Americans with $50K and above don’t see the value in financial planning or don’t think that they can afford it.  Of the 9% of Americans who have received a comprehensive financial plan, they were overwhelmingly more confident about their future and their financial security when compared with those who don’t have a plan (though this was before the $700B bailout plan and the collapse of AIG and Wamu).

Anyone can help people invest their savings, but where can consumers go to get actionable financial advice that they can trust?  I think that trust is actually at the heart of the current financial crisis.  No one trusts what financial services companies are telling them.  One day they announce that they’re financially sound and the next day they blow up.

This is a resounding failure of leadership both from inside the financial services industry and the agencies who are tasked with oversight (though my guess is that many of the agencies have seen their regulatory powers stripped over time or have had less than pro-active leadership running them).  The financial services industry was already steadily losing consumer confidence (except for independent financial advisors) and after what’s happened in the last few months, that’s going to turn into a precipitous decline.

I’m certainly not an economics major, but I wonder why the federal government doesn’t take some of that $700 billion and send out an army of auditors to review all the accounting books of financial services companies and then publicize their findings so that we can restore some transparency and trust in the marketplace.

Part of what we’re trying to accomplish with Boulevard R is to restore some of the trust that’s been eroded by a lack of openness and advocacy on behalf of consumer’s best interests.   At our core, Boulevard R demonstrates that independent, unbiased financial advice which doesn’t have an ax to grind can help all Americans- not just the rich who have typically been the only ones who either can afford it or qualify for this kind of advice.

There is still a lot that Boulevard R can do to make the planning process more effective (some of it’s on our development plan and the rest we hoping to hear from you after Oct. 14th), but we feel that our solution goes much farther than anything we’ve seen and really helps consumers with some real expert guidance based on who they are and what’s important to them.

Posted in Financial Advice, Planning Process | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Hiatus

By admin | Published: October 7, 2008

Since FinovateStartup at the end of April, Boulevard R has been busy developing and building out a comprehensive platform for delivering personalized, unbiased advice.  To really understand financial planning and how it is delivered, we’ve been working closely with some of the leading independent financial planners in the US, particularly within the Financial Planning Association (FPA).

In July we attended the annual conference for FPA’s NexGen, which is a group of all-star younger planners who are particularly passionate about making financial planning accessible for all Americans.  Because of the business model that the financial services industry has adopted, almost none of the the 20 and 30-something planners can have their peers as clients, even though these are the people who often times need guidance the most.

The conference underscored for us that financial planning done right is truly a noble profession- one centered around service that can have a dramatically positive impact on the lives of people who typically don’t have the expertise to understand how all the  complexity behind planning.  The planning relationship is really about trust and that’s something that Boulevard R strives to accomplish through transparency and best practices.  The NexGen folks inspired us to build something that uses technology to dramatically scale and increase the productivity of advice delivery in a way that is independent, actionable and personalized.  Many of the NexGeners are already making major contributions to the content on Boulevard R.

What we’ll be launching next week at Finovate 2008 will be the result of our 6 month quiet period.  Not only have we developed a platform to create high-level, comprehensive financial plans which we call Roadmaps, but we’ll also be rolling out an online dashboard that offers some real utility by helping consumers consolidate their financial life without having to give up the passwords to their accounts, while  breaking down Goals and Ways to Protect Yourself just like an independent financial planner would.  In fact, all the content has been developed by Certified Financial Planners™, which is the financial planning credential that is the most rigorous and difficult to earn.

At Finovate 2008, we’ll also be announcing a partnership with a major financial services company dedicated to helping small businesses get the advice they need to weather the economic storm.

Posted in Financial Advice | Tagged | Leave a comment

A new direction

By admin | Published: May 29, 2008

Boulevard R has made a pretty significant adjustment in how we approach financial planning. Up until about a month ago, we were focused on retirement planning. But over the course of talking with users, experts, friends and strangers, we came to the realization that what consumers are more focused on are their immediate financial goals.

At FinovateStartup we launched our new approach: creating personalized financial plans prepared by independent Certified Financial Planners™ to help non-wealthy consumers reach their financial goals. We figured that the rich had enough people fighting with each other to serve them, but that those with less than $500,000 in investable assets didn’t have a lot of options when it came to unbiased financial advice.

Since then, we’ve been getting some positive reviews about how we’re approaching financial planning. Not only from financial planners who are frustrated with an industry business model that relegates them to serving only wealthy clients, but analysts are also interested in what we’re up to.

Here’s what a senior analyst from Aite Group wrote in his assessment of how Boulevard R stacked up within the category of companies we presented with at FinovateStartup:

“Investment analysis/planning.
By my count, there were eight firms that fell into this category, including Boulevard R, Zecco, Cake Financial, Motley Fool CAPS, Invesra, Money Pools, Trade King, and Vestopia.

My take:
…I’ll tell you who I’ll be watching in this space: Boulevard R. While they offer an assessment approach not too unlike the Wells Fargo and ING approach I criticized here, what distinguishes Boulevard R’s approach from the big firms was the apparent level of detail in the plan that’s produced (I say apparent because they flipped through the screens too quickly, which was understandable given the time constraints)…“

We’ve also been getting a bit of press from InvestmentNews and TheStreet.com:

http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/REG/218681369/1046

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10418059/2/get-your-computer-to-build-your-financial-future.html

We’re now turning our focus to improving the online dashboard so that consumers can get expert advice on how to complete their Next Steps and reach their financial goals. If you have any thoughts on how we can make Boulevard R better for you, we’d love to hear from you. You can email us at support@boulevardr.com

Posted in Financial Advice, Planning Process | Tagged | 1 Comment

Recessions and retirement savings

By admin | Published: February 27, 2008

So what happens when the economy hits a bump and some of the luster comes off the nation’s financial outlook?  Do people modify their behavior so that they can still save for retirement or do they just worry more because it’s something that they’re increasingly unable to do.

If what’s happening with retirement accounts is any bellwether, folks are pulling their savings out.  According to a recent MSNBC article:

“Some of the nation’s largest retirement plan administrators, such as Great-West Retirement Services and Fidelity Investments, are seeing double-digit spikes in hardship withdrawals and increases in loan requests, a sharp departure from levels that traditionally varied little.”

What’s interesting, is the article ties these 401(k) loans to credit card debt, which in turn is tied to living beyond your means, which will ultimately have a very real effect on US long-term economic stability.  And so we have a government offering up an economic stimulus package designed to reinforce an over-emphasis on consumerism.  Somehow it’s hard for me to follow the logic.

At some point, we’ll have to address the “direct hedonistic component,” which is what drives unwise consumer decisions.  That’s what gets us thinking, “Well, I could put this bonus towards my retirement (a distant unknown that could reduce future anxiety), but what I’d really like to have that new BMW instead (something that’s going to be enjoyable now- though the satisfaction will wear off over time).”

So it appears that the recession is going to take both a short-term and long-term toll if consumer continue to tap their retirement savings to cover poor spending decisions.  What would be interesting is if the economic stimulus package focused on making saving and retirement planning look patriotic, instead of a quick infusion of cash into the economy focused on spending, which is likely to do very little good over the long term and actually reinforces some of the bad habits that helped get us here in the first place (an economy overly reliant on consumer spending).

Posted in Retirement Planning | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Communing with late stage retirement

By admin | Published: February 21, 2008

I just spent the last week getting in touch with what life feels like at the end of retirement. The flu set in and I spent my days just hoping for the next to be a little less painful.

And it made me think that I don’t want to be spending my retirement isolated in some apartment where no one in my building knows me. At the same time, a certain amount of independence, like still being able to live in an apartment, is a real luxury. I’m really not keen on spending my days in a nursing care facility.

Who knows what kind of situations we’ll find ourselves in at the end of life? It’s partly this uncertainty that makes it difficult to motivate to plan for retirement. I should plan to live to 90, but what happens if I only make it to 80, or just 70? I can always keep working if it looks like my health is going to carry well into old age, right?

A study by McKinsey points to the fact that of those presently retired, 40% were forced into retirement. The two main causes of these premature retirements: disability and layoffs. An early retirement can put a serious crimp in quality of life later on. Fortunately, there are still some social and community services for older people to ensure that they can get the most basic care.

Retirement planning is tricky because we all want to hope for the best and it’s an event that is sufficiently far enough away that we can tell ourselves that there will be plenty of time to deal with this later. It’s also complex and not clear to most on where you should start your planning. The more money saved now, though, could be mean tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars extra in retirement. And that could have a major impact on how you live your life in your later years. Worse case scenario if you over-save, you’ll have money to leave behind so that others may benefit from you hard work. That’s not so bad.

Posted in Retirement Planning | Tagged | Leave a comment