TECHNOLOGY HACKS. Financial Professionals Should Be Using

Transcription

1 TECHNOLOGY HACKS Financial Professionals Should Be Using

2 7 TECHNOLOGY TRICKS FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS SHOULD BE USING By Brad Johnson Today, we can call our clients as we drive down the road and them documents, all while using the same device. If you ve been in business for more than 10 or 15 years, chances are you still remember what I call the Technology Dark Ages. Do you remember when almost all business communication was done by fax? Or how about when you had to pull over and find a pay phone to contact a client you were about to meet? While those technologies improved our lives and made it easier to do business, they are antiquated compared to the technology at our fingertips today. Of course, technology is always marching forward and giving us new and better ways to do things. With this in mind, I want to share seven technology hacks and tricks that every financial professional should know about.

3 TECHNOLOGY HACK #1: BOMBBOMB.COM In a world where we are all constantly flooded by s and trying to figure out how to keep our inboxes at manageable levels, BombBomb.com is one of the coolest communication mediums I ve seen in a long time. Imagine the ability to break through the clutter by connecting with someone through a personal video message rather than another boring . BombBomb allows you to shoot a personal video from your phone or laptop and have it in a client s inbox (or in hundreds of clients inboxes) five minutes later. Not only that, BombBomb lets you track exactly when each client or prospect opens your and views your video. If you happen to put a link in the body of the , it will tell you when they click on that, too. This is a must-use tool for all financial professionals. TECHNOLOGY HACK #2: MOBILE ASSISTANT My good friend Corey Westphal was definitely ahead of the curve when he created Mobile Assistant, the tool that records your dictation then uses real people to transcribe it. In fact, I wrote this entire article by dictating it to Mobile Assistant, then having the transcription ed directly to me.

4 Mobile Assistant gives you the ability to sit down with clients for an hour, scribble a bunch of notes and then have them transcribed. You can dictate your notes into a voice recorder minutes after the meeting ends, then have them ed to you and your office staff all within about a four-hour window. In addition to archiving your notes, you can also use the app to delegate follow-up tasks to your team so that once you ve completed a meeting, the wheels are in motion to accomplish all the required tasks. This alone saves me hours a week. One more thing: From a compliance and suitability standpoint, another advantage of this tool is its ability to have every single one of your notes transcribed and archived in your CRM without having to type a single word. I hope you re starting to see why Mobile Assistant is an incredible service that I couldn t live without. TECHNOLOGY HACK #3: GOOGLE VOICE This tool is amazing. It provides you with a second phone number that includes call forwarding, voic transcription, caller ID and all kinds of other time-saving abilities. Surprisingly, Google Voice is still free. If you aren t using it to create your own client

5 concierge hotline (See article: Client concierge frees up advisors 1 ), you re missing an incredible opportunity for your business. Also, for financial professionals out there who have multiple marketing funnels like radio or public seminars, it s a great way to track the specific return on investment of your marketing funnels, as you now have a dedicated 24-hour hotline specific to that marketing activity. TECHNOLOGY HACK #4: JOIN.ME In the world of screen shares and conference calls, Join.me is at the top of its class. After trying just about every service in the book, the ease of use and simplicity of sharing screens via Join.me is the reason it beats competitors. It has both free and paid-for options depending on the functionality you need. You don t have to download software. There s no clunky phone number or entry just a simple interface with a link and the ability to record conference calls with video. If you re using screen shares and you aren t using Join.me, you re not using the easiest service out there, in my opinion. 1 Liz Skinner. Investment News. April 6, Client concierge frees up advisors /client-concierge-frees-up-advisers. Accessed June 8, 2015.

6 TECHNOLOGY HACK #5: ACECAD DIGIMEMO PEN This is a real-time notepad that captures everything digitally on your screen so you can do yellow pad presentations on your computer. I use it all the time during screen shares as well as during my strategy sessions. Not only can I save and edit these files, it also allows me to convert them to a PDF so that I can easily share my handwritten notes with my clients. I couldn t conduct business the way I do today without this incredible gadget. It turns a virtual appointment into a personal experience. TECHNOLOGY HACK #6: TIMETRADE Imagine the power of being able to schedule all your appointments without an assistant. This is the power of TimeTrade. It plugs into your existing calendar and allows recipients to pick and book their own times based on which time blocks you choose to allow them to access. This saves a ton of time and alleviates much of the busy work that might normally fill your assistant s day.

7 TECHNOLOGY HACK #7: GOOGLE HANGOUTS Who else has sat through a boring webinar? How many minutes go by before you re checking your on the other screen, playing your favorite time-wasting game on your iphone or doing something else to pass the time? Well, imagine if you could keep 100 percent of your audience s attention throughout your entire presentation. In a Google Hangout, you have free, live video conferencing options that make it feel like you re sitting around a boardroom table having a live conversation with up to 10 attendees at one time. We ve used this service to host small mastermind groups among our existing clients and are still learning new and fun ways to utilize this service. Added bonus: You can use a service called Webinars OnAir that allows you to stream a Google Hangout via YouTube and archive it via recording. Check it out if you want to try Google Hangouts in a larger format of more than 10 attendees. Every year, new developments in technology are released. Many of them can help you streamline your business, saving you both time and money. It s important for you to invest in your technology education so that you remain on the cutting edge. I hope these technology hacks allow you to squeeze more productive hours out of each and every week!

8 Neither Brad Johnson nor Advisors Excel is affiliated with the products or services mentioned in this article, nor do they guarantee the accuracy or quality of their services. Financial professionals are ultimately responsible for the use of any materials or services and agree to comply with the compliance requirements of their broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisor, (if applicable) and the insurance carriers they represent. Brad Johnson is a Vice President of Marketing at Advisors Excel. Follow him on or connect with his team at info@bradj.net. AE For financial professional use only SW MCCLURE RD TOPEKA, KS 66614