Last month, I sent out an article about creating a dream board with the steps to take. Here's what Heidi, an advisor and subscriber had to say: "What great timing for this article!   I just scheduled a workshop for clients to create vision boards. Your suggestions are great. Keep them coming!" Her note went onto say that Heidi is hosting a Vision Boarding event for her clients. Intimate marketing a "non-salesy" way to market a business and continue to retain clients.  They are small gatherings of ideal clients and 2 of their friends for an event.  They allow clients to get to know you on a deeper level, you to get to know your clients on a deeper level AND for your client to bring

When speaking in another country, buy images of people who LOOK like the audience. It really does matter. Recently, I conducted 2 presentations in India and needed 2 presentation decks. I first considered doing what I usually do — updating the PowerPoints I had, change what needed adding, removing, or adjusting slides based on the customization talks. But once the decks were complete, I realized I needed to do more, the images that didn’t sit well with me. While the people in the images were diverse, they didn’t look like the population I was going to be speaking to. I knew my audience of advisors would be dressed in suites and pressed shirts. They would also be

Calling financial industry speakers whose niche is financial professionals. The Financial Industry Speakers Group on LinkedIn is looking for you. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6955664 Financial Industry Speakers (FIS) is a clearinghouse for speakers, whose niche is financial advisors, planners and wealth managers. Insurance agents. CPAs, Accountants. The mission of the Financial Industry Speakers group on LinkedIn is to provide a matchmaking forum for financial industry professional speakers who specifically speak on practice management and business development issues -- and the firms, associations, organizations who are looking to hire us as speakers. Your speaking topics would be topics such as team building, client acquisition, marketing, social networking, operations management, process improvement, marketing, strategic planning, niching, referral marketing, LinkedIn, technology issues,

Many conferences and some firms expect speakers to speak without payment. I find this is true no matter what industry they're in... but the accounting and finance industries are big culprits of not only asking speakers to speak for free... but some also ask speakers to pay them to speak! After all, "you could get some business". And it does happen sometimes, when you speak for free, that you do gain a client or two. You could be asked to speak at 7 am or 7 pm and it would take you a few hours or a plane ride to get to the event. Worst yet, is when a business doesn't want to pay for a

If you are a member of a Study Group or a chapter of a financial association or network, Maria would like to provide your group with a free 30 to 45 minute teleseminar or webinar. The topic would be educational and your group can choose from 4 practice management topics. To view Maria's training programs, go to ActNowSeminars.com Contact Maria today and