By Steve Stanganelli
Dated: Aug 12, 2010

The Baby Boomer financial planning specialists at Clear View Wealth Advisors, LLC have teamed up with an industry-leading financial education program creator to provide free online tools for consumers to use to track their financial goal progress.

The financial planning team at Clear View today announced a new partnership with BoulevardR.com, an interactive website which allows consumers to create a personalized, detailed financial Starter Roadmap that helps investors address a range of issues such as investment, savings and tax reduction strategies.

Steve Stanganelli, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™ Professional and founding partner at Clear View said, “Whether you are retired, a Baby Boomer with a grown family or a recent college graduate, you can use and reuse this tool to check to see if you’re on track, making progress or need to adjust course.”

Stanganelli added, “In five minutes, less time than it takes to make microwave popcorn, you can find out how to get on track to meet your life goals with the online financial education resources” offered on and through the Quest company website.

Quest will host the Boulevard R software on its website and the BabyBoomerRetirementPro.com website and MoneyLinkPro.Wordpress.com blog of Steve Stanganelli, CFP® so that consumers can easily find out if they are financially on track to reach any type of goal including buying real estate, paying off debt, raising a family, paying for college, handling elder care for aging parents or building a retirement income nest egg.

The easy-to-use, interactive tool, developed by leading Certified Financial Planner™ professionals and a top behavioral economist, leads individuals through a process that evaluates their goals and helps them understand whether or not they are on track.

Investors can choose various financial goals such as buying a house, saving for college, or saving for retirement, and can drag-and-drop the user-friendly pictures onto a visual timeline.

Next, users enter details about their current income, family status, geographical location, debt amounts and ideal retirement goals. The tool then produces an eight-page Starter Roadmap and customized online Dashboard providing consumers with narrative explanations of strategies to consider as well as financial education resource links to sites such as Morningstar ®.

While other personal finance tools focus on cash flow management, BoulevardR.com and Quest offer consumers a unique financial Starter Roadmap document that highlights consumers’ current financial health and offers suggestions to get on track.

“It’s important for consumers to learn first-hand about the financial planning process, and this unique tool is a great way for them to get started,” said Marv Tuttle, CAE, Executive Director and CEO of the Financial Planning Association, the industry trade organization for financial planners which has also partnered with Boulevard R. “We hope this roadmap approach helps consumers understand the need for creating a solid, financial plan and will motivate them to work with a qualified financial planner to help plan their future.”

“Consumers need an easy, convenient way to dip their toes in the financial planning waters and see if they are financially on track,” said Matt Iverson, CEO at Boulevard R.

“By partnering with thought-leading service providers like Boulevard R, the team at Clear View is able to give consumers the tools they need to help them understand and improve their financial situation,” said Stanganelli.

To access the tool directly visit www.boulevardr.com/goals/SteveStanganelli

For more information visit http://www.boulevardr.com/welcome/SteveStanganelli or view a two-minute video tutorial describing the service here at:
http://www.boulevardr.com/br/layout/newprofile/includes/video

About Steve Stanganelli, CFP ®
Steve Stanganelli, CFP ®, CRPC ® is a five-star rated, board-certified financial planning professional with over 20 years of experience coaching individuals and businesses on ways to improve and protect their bottom line.

His practice encompasses qualified plan design, retirement income planning, investment management, college funding strategies and exit planning for business owners and professionals. Steve is a published author on financial matters in the press and has appeared on Boston-area TV and radio.

Steve holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™ and CHARTERED RETIREMENT PLANNING COUNSELOR(sm) designations and has been awarded a Five-Star Quality Rating by independent advisor rating service, the Paladin Registry, earned by fewer than 3% of financial planners.

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Clear View Wealth Advisors, LLC
617-398-7494
978-388-0020
steve@ClearViewWealthAdvisors.com

The study, Competing in the Next Great Financial Services Battleground: Strategies and Tactics for Winning the Hearts & Wallets of Mid-Career Accumulators, highlights Boulevard R as a leading example of Accumulation‐focused Advisory Services.  They defined this category as, “advisory firms that focus on Accumulators, and other firms that
offer support services to help advisors market to, and cost‐effectively, support Accumulator clients.”

More specifically, here’s what they had to say:

Boulevard R is a holistic, web‐based solution that gives independent advisors a strong web presence and set of tools for client acquisition. This small start‐up offers tools for advisors to profile clients, formulate goals, and develop a “roadmap” to meet them. The firm also offers what it calls an “advisor‐branded marketing platform” (AMP) to help advisors attract new clients online. The combination of online capabilities and low‐costs
makes Boulevard R a potentially useful tool for independent advisors to develop relationships with Accumulators.

The AMP is designed to do three things:
• Help attract exactly the type of prospects the advisor is looking for
• Ensure a high close rate, by helping to ensure that the advisor converts desirable prospects into clients
• Helps advisors nurture a relationship with prospects who are not qualified today, but who are likely to be
qualified in the future

Although the Boulevard R Web‐site is template driven, advisors can add their own pictures, logos, articles and press clippings. Furthermore, Boulevard R will perform search engine optimization so that the site attracts the right type of prospects for the advisor. For example, if an advisor has a niche specialty, such as charitable giving,
the search engine optimizer will be geared to make sure those looking for a financial planner specializing in giving will be able to find him when searching the Web.

The report went on to cover the following three categories:

1. Accumulation‐oriented Web‐site from an Industry Leader
2. Online Value Providers
3. Investing, Saving, and Planning Tools

If you want to learn more and download the report prospectus, just click here.

If you want to learn more about how you can serve Mid-Career Accumulators, check out the webinar replay for the presentation 180+ advisors recently attended on Why Gen X Accumulators are the Future for Your Business:

http://discover.byallaccounts.com/Webinar_Gen_X.html

In this interview, Bonnie details how she:

• Structures her time to make sure she’s out there meeting with people
• Communicates the value she delivers as a financial planner
• Takes advantage of local marketing opportunities and gets involved in groups full of potential clients

Additionally, Bonnie was an early sign up and has had a Boulevard R profile for over a year.  Presently, she is using our software to help get her foot in the door at local companies, while also providing a valuable service to business owners.  Here’s the short 2 minute clip on where she sees Boulevard R making “a huge impact”:

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Here is the full interview- with all the juicy “how to” details:

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1) The new tab

2) An explanation and option to view a sample Starter Roadmap

3) A streamed, viewable version of the Starter Roadmap, which opens in a new tab or window

We interviewed Jay at his home in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Best Marketing Idea
Here’s a two minute excerpt from the interview where Jay answers the quesiton about the best marketing idea he’s implemented in the last couple of years:

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Here is the full interview:

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So far, this traffic has come almost exclusively from buttons that an advisor puts on their own website (we strongly suggest they be prominently placed on the homepage).

Now you can get your affiliates and clients in on the act.

Boulevard R has just released some new buttons (on the Advisor Management Interface > Marketing tab > Website buttons page) designed to help your clients and your affiliates drive traffic to your landing page (or if you prefer, either your profile page or straight into the interactive goals process).

Here are some of the latest website buttons that affiliates can put on their sites:

Here is one of the new buttons for clients:

The full collection can be found in the Advisor Management Interface (part of any Boulevard R plan), along with other custom marketing tools.

If you’ve signed up for a Boulevard R plan and haven’t yet taken us up on our new offer to create a complimentary, personalized marketing plan for you, please send an email to support@boulevardr.com so that we can get started.  The personalized marketing plan has actionable steps, based on best practices, as well as useful resources to help you attract more prospective clients.

We found that simply giving advisors an orientation on how to use our software wasn’t enough. They need the big picture (amplifying client referrals by giving them a reason to talk about you with the Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform’s offer of a complimentary Starter Roadmap), as well as the specific steps that need to be completed and the resources to make it all happen.

To help advisors over the marketing hurdle, we created an marketing plan template that is personalized based on:

• The advisor’s target market
• What the advisor is already doing on the marketing front
• What marketing activities the advisor is considering or open to doing
• The advisor’s referral process

We designed the plan to be very easy to read through and use as a working document with step owners, deadlines and costs (where appropriate).  Here’s a shot of the cover page, which hints at the non-intimidating nature of the plan:

Boulevard R started out with a mission to serve those who traditionally did not have access to financial planning / wealth management services.  The partnership with FPA has moved us further along on our mission to make sure that all consumers, regardless of how much they’ve saved or what their income is, have access to some tools to establish whether they are on track and how they can improve their situation.

We have been talking with FPA’s consumer group since 2008, so when we agreed to work together in February (they’ve been beta testing our software on their consumer site over the last two months) we were excited to get their vote of confidence.  In fact, the Advisor Branded Marketing Platform (AMP) grew out of discussions that we had with FPA about how we could leverage our technology for individual FPA members.

At FPA’s 2008 national conference in Boston (as the financial markets were imploding), we sat down with Michael Kitces, who is now the Director of Research at Pinnacle Advisory Group in Maryland, and hashed out how we could better reach consumers by building a marketing platform for advisors.  I still remember Michael’s comment at the end of the meeting, “Imagine that- a marketing service that actually delivers value!”

Two years later, we’re convinced that we can deliver real value to both prospects and advisors.  Whether it’s advisors such as Jay Peroni who has attracted five new clients in six months or Ben Baldwin who is using AMP to deepen relationships with their existing clients while also reaching out to prospects, it feels good to be making a difference.

In their own words (and a few of ours), here is the press release that FPA started circulating yesterday:

DENVER – March 31, 2010 – The Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) today announced a new partnership with BoulevardR.com, an interactive website which allows consumers to create a personalized, detailed financial Starter Roadmap. FPA will host the Boulevard R software on its website so that consumers can easily find out if they are financially on track.

The easy-to-use, interactive tool, developed by leading Certified Financial Planners™ and a top behavioral economist, leads individuals through a process that evaluates their goals and helps them understand whether or not they are on track. They can choose various financial goals such as buying a house, saving for college, or saving for retirement, and can drag-and-drop the user-friendly pictures onto a visual timeline. Next, users enter details about their current income, family status, geographical location, debt amounts and ideal retirement goals. The tool then produces an eight-page Starter Roadmap and customized online Dashboard.

While other personal finance tools focus on cash flow management, BoulevardR.com offers consumers a unique financial Starter Roadmap document that highlights consumers’ current financial health and offers suggestions to get on track.

“It’s important for consumers to learn first-hand about the financial planning process, and this unique tool is a great way for them to get started,” said Marv Tuttle, CAE, Executive Director and CEO of the Financial Planning Association. “We hope this roadmap approach helps consumers understand the need for creating a solid, financial plan and will motivate them to work with a qualified financial planner to help plan their future.”

“Consumers need an easy, fun way to dip their toes in the financial planning waters and see if they are financially on track,” said Matt Iverson, CEO of Boulevard R. “By partnering with FPA, we are able to give consumers the tools they need to help them understand and improve their financial situation.”

To access the tool, visit www.FPAforFinancialPlanning.org.

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About Boulevard R
Boulevard R’s Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform (AMP) is the first web-based marketing software created for financial advisors. AMP helps advisors find new clients by automatically engaging, qualifying and setting up a first meeting, while effortlessly delivering real value to every prospect through the complimentary Starter Roadmap and online Dashboard. Visit www.BoulevardR.com for more information.

About FPA
The Financial Planning Association® (FPA®) is the leadership and advocacy organization connecting those who need, support and deliver professional financial planning. FPA demonstrates and supports a professional commitment to education and a client-centered financial planning process.

Based in Denver, Colo., FPA has 97 chapters throughout the country representing tens of thousands of members involved in all facets of providing financial planning services.  Working in alliance with academic leaders, legislative and regulatory bodies, financial services firms and consumer interest organizations, FPA is the community that fosters the value of financial planning and advances the financial planning profession.  For more information about FPA, visit www.FPAnet.org or call 800.322.4237.

The Financial Planning Association is the owner of trademark, service mark and collective membership mark rights in: FPA, FPA/Logo and FINANCIAL PLANNING ASSOCIATION. The marks may not be used without written permission from the Financial Planning Association.

It’s a good idea to accompany the video with a website button (embed code can be downloaded from the Advisor Management Interface > Marketing tab > Website buttons page) just below it. In the first example, the video is the same width as the website button (can be used if you have a column width constraint).

Video not in HD (loads faster and is less likely to stall when playing), at a width of 175 pixels:

Video embed code:
<object width=”175″ height=”124″ data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”src” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /></object>

Video in HD at a width of 175 pixels:

Video embed code:
<object width=”175″ height=”124″ data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”src” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /></object>

The same video, not in HD, at a width of 300 pixels:

Video embed code:
<object width=”300″ height=”193″ data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”src” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /></object>

Video in HD at a width of 300 pixels:

Video embed code:
<object width=”300″ height=”193″ data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”src” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/I214wWJE2l4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0&amp;hd=1″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /></object>

Advisors didn’t get into the business in order to be marketers, but with an increasingly difficult and competitive business environment, they’re now having to focus on business development much more than in recent years.

I spent last week at FPA’s Business Solutions conference in Dallas (we were in Dallas this time last year for T3) and it became clear to me that Boulevard R’s Advisor-Branded Marketing Platform (AMP) needs support in two areas:

1. Helping advisors generate leads (i.e. those individuals AMP helps engage, qualify and then set up a meeting for), by providing easy, concrete ways that they can incorporate AMP into their workflow
2. Once they have a prospect who is qualified and wants to meet, helping advisors communicate their value proposition so that the prospect selects them

The combination of a marketing plan on the front end, accompanied by coaching (to bring accountability, discipline and improved communication skills) throughout the prospect life cycle seems to be the winning solution.  To help advisors really leverage our software, Boulevard R is going to spend an hour with each advisor (two 30 minute sessions) to create a personalized, free marketing plan if they sign up for either the Performance or Firm plan.

When you consider the following, which I gleaned from the Business Solutions conference and various publications, you get a pretty clear picture of how poorly financial advisors are performing when it comes to being effective marketers:

• Regarding prospecting and lead generation, 21% of firms with $100MM+ have NO process.  A whopping 41% have an informal process and only 16% of all these firms are tracking their process (Schwab 2009 Benchmarking Study)!
• When it comes to barriers to growth, “marketing and business development” takes the cake, with 22% of $100MM+ firms identifying it as a major barrier to growth, while “staffing and organization” and “strategy and planning” tied for second place as major barriers to growth with 8% each (Schwab 2009 Benchmarking Study).
• Most advisors spend fewer than 5 hours a week on marketing (Tiburon Strategic Advisors, January 2010).
• 2 out of 3 independent advisors have no written marketing plan, while 75% of top producing independent advisors have marketing and business plans (Tiburon Strategic Advisors, January 2010).
• The top 15 challenges agreed upon by advisors include finding new clients and building revenue (Quantuvis Best Practices: Business Performance Study 2009)

When it comes to firm growth, the biggest drivers by far are referrals.  According to Schwab, while average firm growth from prospecting and marketing programs accounted for around 10-20% of growth, referrals from clients and business partners accounted for roughly 65-75% of firm growth.  This is why Boulevard R is coming up with ways for advisors to incorporate AMP into their client meetings, so that clients have a reason to refer their advisor by promoting the Starter Roadmap and online Dashboard to friends and family.  AMP is also a great way to engage business partners, by being able to effortlessly help all of their clients.

The premise that business growth is generated through referrals was backed up by Quantuvis’ Best Practices: Business Performance Study 2009, recently published in Financial Planning, which indicated that advisors anticipated that the primary growth drivers over the next three years will be driven by:

1. Referrals from existing clients (91%)
2. Referrals from other professionals (60%)
3. Stock market growth (50%)
4. New client acquisition from firm marketing (47%)
5. Referrals from strategic alliance relationships (44%)

To help advisors break through their resistance to planning and executing on their marketing plan, as well as to help them boost their referrals, Boulevard R will personally work with advisors who sign up for a Performance or Firm plan to create an actionable, step-by-step marketing plan.  We’re also partnering with coaches who specialize in working with financial advisors, in order to keep the plans on track and the firm accountable.

Just because your training isn’t in marketing, doesn’t mean you can’t plan and execute your way to attracting new clients and increasing your profitability.