In This Issue -

• Welcome New Readers Your Passwords Are Here
• Tell A Friend
• Subscribe
• Branding Is More About "Why" Than "How"
• What Is Your Story? - Duncan Robinson
• My Story - Glennis Deslippe BSN

  Personal Reflections

I can sum up my Personal Reflections Section by pointing you to some of the best Blog articles that I have published over the past 30 days. Click the following links and they will take you right through to the articles:

April 18, 2006 - Easter Is A Reminder Of Forgiveness

April 21, 2006 - A 10 Year Blast From The Past

April 25, 2006 - Attention to Intention

April 27, 2006 - Affinity

For good measure, here is a May Blog article that is well worth the read:

  May 02, 2006 - Ten "R's" Versus Thinking

Enjoy the read.

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No doubt you have seen the latest edition of TD Mutual Funds – The Advisor's Guide To Business Building – Volume 4.

I have included a link at the bottom of this article to enable you to receive and print off your own copy.  You can also pick up Volumes 1, 2 & 3.

TD Mutual Funds – The Advisor's Guide To Business Building are well worth the read and I look forward to each edition.  No I am not funded by TD Mutual Funds to say this.

The topics of Volume 4 include;

• Defining Your Brand
• Motivating Your Staff to Promote Your Brand
• Communicating Your Brand to Clients
• Going Public with Your Brand

The Advisors Guide To Business Building – Volume 4 is an excellent guide to help you to lay the foundation for your brand and talks about both the “How” & the “Why”.

To entice you to getting into this valuable read, here is the table of contents;

INTRODUCTION page 4

CHAPTER 10: DEFINING YOUR BRAND page 5

• Who Are You and What Makes You Different? page 6

• Write a Specialization Statement page 10

• How Can You Measure Your Branding Success? page 11

• Client experience page 12

CHAPTER 11: YOUR INSIDE EDGE page 15

• Get Staff Involved page 15

• Fine-tune Your Processes page 16

• Hire the Right People page 17

• Create a Client Service Agreement That Differentiates You page 18

• Develop Reward Structures page 20

CHAPTER 12: COMMUNICATING YOUR BRAND TO CLIENTS page 21

• What Do Your Clients Experience? page 21

• Standardize and Personalize page 23

• Be True to Your “Story” page 23

• Ask Clients to Help You Shape Your Brand page 24

• Colour in the White Spaces page 25

• Good Etiquette Is Never Out of Style page 26

CHAPTER 13: GOING PUBLIC page 27

• Be Consistent page 27

• Be Media-savvy page 27

• Be an Expert page 28

• Build Your Brand on Clarity, Consistency and Authenticity page 28

• Be Charitable page 29

Here are some of my thoughts on enhancing the “Why” on building your Brand.

To set the stage you will need the following excerpts from The Advisors Guide To Business Building – Volume 4.

Page 4

Branding yourself by behaving in a consistent manner, providing consistent added value and delivering consistent messages, will help you build trust over time.

The first step towards personal branding is to define your unique value proposition.
 

Page 5

Personal branding is all about you. It's your personality and communication style wrapped up with your business practices and service offerings.

The key to building a successful personal brand is to identify those existing impressions and then to take active steps to shape them until they match the image you want to convey.

“Creating your own personal brand will set you apart from your competitors, reflect your values, personality, talent and skill set, increase your credibility, establish your expertise, authority and value [and] attract your ideal clients effortlessly.”
 

Page 7

A business philosophy is a set of beliefs, values and attitudes about how you intend to run your practice. It may include your commitment to deliver exceptional service to clients and your attitude towards rewarding staff members for a job well done. It should also feature a code of ethics, because no one can afford to allow even a whisper of unethical behavior to taint a financial advisory practice.

Now that some interest has been created, here is shameless plug as to “Why” you would want to clarify your Values & Behaviors to enable you to clarify your Values Based Brand versus a brand based upon Unmet Needs, Limiting Beliefs and Limiting Emotions. 

With unresolved Unmet Needs, Limiting Beliefs and Limiting Emotions it is impossible to clarify your Values which are the foundation for your Brand.

Here are a few PowerPoint Slides from “Removing The Mental Road Blocks To High Productivity”.

Our Scientific Approach to Coaching is based upon Values & Behaviors Assessments. Through Values & Behaviors Assessments, the Leading Advisor Coaching Program helps our clients to understand and implement the Values & Behaviors that are required to renew and maintain sustainable and consistent success.

Through the Assessments we identify two important facets:

• "Values" are WHY, what motivates or what puts the thought in your mind to impel you to take action towards your goals. Through our research we have identified the Six Key "Values" of today's most successful business people.

• "Behaviors" is the method of "How" a person carries out that action.

Most people do not know:

• What their Values are

• What their Behaviors are

• They have conflicting Values and Behaviors

• The Values & Behaviors that are required for sustainable success

• The difference between a Value & an Unmet Need

• That Unmet Needs are the source of all Limiting Beliefs & Emotions

Values:

• Your values are worth discovering.

• Are the only sustainable basis for goal-setting.

• You are your values.

• Bring fulfillment.

• Are the source of all Positive Beliefs and Positive Feelings.

Unmet Needs:

• Unmet Needs dominate one’s life if not met.
• A need must be met, it’s not optional.
• When needs are satisfied, we can be ourselves.
• Needs are completely satisfiable.
• Are the source of all Limiting Beliefs and Limiting Emotions.

Most people in business are not aware of the "Values" that are required to be successful in today's business world. They may not fully understand the source of what motivates them. Therefore, they may have inconsistent "behaviors" in taking action towards their goals. At the end of the day they experience conflict, inconsistency, lack of motivation and even worse, unfulfilled business and personal lives.

In summary this is “Why” it is so difficult for them to choose a Brand, a Niche, a Vision … staying stuck in the flavor of the month club.

Click here to read
“The Advisor’s Guide to Business Building, Volume 4”

Chapter 10 of The Advisors Guide To Business Building – Volume 4 includes the importance of “Your Story”.

Here are two Blogs that include the Stories of two amazing Financial Advisors that are doing amazing work.

• I've got this great new product

• I would like to ask you a few questions

• I'm wondering if you would be interested in _________

Glennis Deslippe sent me a copy of her empowering and heartfelt story and I asked Glennis if I could share it with you.

A powerful and excellent example of using life’s experience to add value to other people’s lives.

Hi Simon,

This is very interesting. I hadn't read your blogs for a few weeks and didn't realize you had talked about My Story and how to do this. Great timing. Thanks for putting this in your blog. You're right, it makes a big difference in how people see you.

Take care,
Glennis
 

Hi Glennis,

Thanks for your insight ... you are right and it makes a difference about how we see ourselves.

Simon

April 19, 2006 - My Story - Glennis Deslippe BSN

I have always had a passion for helping people. During my career as a Registered Nurse, I worked for fourteen years at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. There I nursed many children with chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, diabetes, cancer and Crohn’s disease. I witnessed many families struggle with the emotional and financial impact of their child’s illness on their family. Many marriages fell apart and others became stronger. Many mothers had to quit their jobs to stay at home and care for their sick child. Many fathers worked more than one job to make ends meet for the family. Often these families lived miles away and many medications and treatments went unfunded. I knew too well how rising medical costs could cripple families because I had seen it in my own family. My only brother Alvin was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and the countless hours of chest therapy and hospitalizations for pneumonia put a lot of emotional and financial stress on my parents who eventually divorced. My mother was left raising 8 children on her own, taking on three jobs to make ends meet. Later on, two of my sisters were diagnosed with lung cancer and neither of them had any disability insurance to help fund their expenses, so much of the financial burden once again rested on the backs of my other family members.

It was after their deaths that I decided to change focus and move into medical sales. I wanted a new challenge while still making a difference for others. I worked with Nestle Nutrition for two years, providing medical nutrition products to hospitals, home care and nursing homes. I saw how extremely expensive my products were for most clients. Several cancer patients would go on tube feeds during their chemotherapy at a cost of over $400.00/month. One of our specialty nutrition products cost over $900.00/month and not everyone who needed it qualified for funding, if funding was even available. I realized the extreme injustice of unaffordable medical expenses had followed me here too, but it wasn’t until my husband Nelson’s business partner, Jim Wardlaw age 53, was diagnosed with Cancer, that I was given the opportunity to do something about it. His experimental chemotherapy cost $4500.00/month and was not covered by Pharmacare. This worked for a year then he had to go onto a more expensive drug that cost over $6000.00/month for the last 6 months of his life. The key to Jim’s extra months of survival were his extended benefits that picked up most of the cost.

Jim’s experience opened my husband’s eyes to the importance of Critical Illness insurance, an insurance plan that can pay for treatment and medication at that pivotal moment when people are diagnosed with a life threatening illness and must begin the fight for survival. As owner and President of Integral Financial Services Inc. he realized he could make a difference. Because I have witnessed the financial impact a critical illness can have on a person’s finances and family first hand, and I have a wide range of experience in the medical field, Nelson recruited me to join his company as the Living Benefits Specialist to educate his clients about Critical Illness, Disability and Long Term Care insurance. Having worked as a nurse for 25 years and seeing the emotional and financial impact a serious illness or disability can have on a person and their family, I feel that I am finally in a position to make a real difference in the lives of others. Everyday as I pick up the phone to arrange an appointment or meet with a client, I am helping to prevent a potential financial disaster. It is my mission to sell products that not only provide financial support, but also a window to high quality medical care that many people may not be able to afford without them.

Glennis Deslippe BSN
Living Benefits Specialist
Integral Financial Services Inc.
Phone direct 604-538-8971
email glennis @ integral-financial.com
Web www.integral-financial.com