Proven In The Trenches

The face of financial services has evolved – and, along with it, the very nature of financial advice. In an increasingly complex world where people are starving for someone they can trust, the time has come for financial advisors to rise to the occasion and reinvent the value they provide to better serve their clients. Of course, to make this evolutionary leap, advisors require a proven, time-tested strategy. A methodology established by one of the most successful advisors in the country and backed by decades of real-world application among thousands of advisors across the country. In Proven in the Trenches: 11 Principles to Maximize Advisor Value and Transform Your Firm’s Future, advisors will receive an actionable game plan touching on the core dimensions of a highly-functioning financial services firm: • Understanding Investor Behavior • Blueprinting Your Life and Your Business • Attracting Talent by Growing Your Own • Putting Process Behind Your People • Building a Brand that Connects and Converts • Wealth Planning and What It Takes to Revive Advisor Value • Creating a Compelling Client Experience • Evaluating Partnerships • Attracting New Clients and the Art of Ethical Persuasion • Plotting Your Succession • Making the Shift from Advisor to CEO

The face of financial services has evolved – and, along with it, the very nature of financial advice. In an increasingly complex world where people are starving for someone they can trust, the time has come for financial advisors to rise to the occasion and reinvent the value they provide to better serve their clients. Of course, to make this evolutionary leap, advisors require a proven, time-tested strategy. A methodology established by one of the most successful advisors in the country and backed by decades of real-world application among thousands of advisors across the country. In Proven in the Trenches: 11 Principles to Maximize Advisor Value and Transform Your Firm’s Future, advisors will receive an actionable game plan touching on the core dimensions of a highly-functioning financial services firm: • Understanding Investor Behavior • Blueprinting Your Life and Your Business • Attracting Talent by Growing Your Own • Putting Process Behind Your People • Building a Brand that Connects and Converts • Wealth Planning and What It Takes to Revive Advisor Value • Creating a Compelling Client Experience • Evaluating Partnerships • Attracting New Clients and the Art of Ethical Persuasion • Plotting Your Succession • Making the Shift from Advisor to CEO

Tested-in-the-trenches competitive intelligence techniques used at today's top companies This book brings together the best thinking and practices in competitive intelligence (CI) currently being used at many of today's most successful companies. Featuring contributions from leading industry executives, it covers CI strategies across a wide range of business functions, including marketing and sales, market research and forecasting, product development, and teams. The only book on the subject offering a comprehensive view of CI, from the CEO down to the tactical CI team Numerous case studies vividly illustrating cutting-edge CI techniques in action

The IT management profession is not for the faint of heart. Anyone who has worked in this field is familiar with the unique (and borderline impossible) challenges of keeping pace with technological innovation while maintaining legacy systems, reskilling existing staff members and operating on shrinking budgets. Truth from the Trenches passes on the hard-won leadership lessons that six-time CIO Mark Settle gained over years of working in IT management. Settle describes the key constituencies that an IT leader needs to influence, seduce, leverage, and manage to be successful. His practical recommendations will allow readers to improve their organizational impact and accelerate their career advancement. In a sector where competency stems not from formal certification but on-the-job learning, Truth from the Trenches is a valuable and unique resource that is based on Settle’s deep experience working in a wide variety of industries. By applying Settle’s strategies, IT leaders will be able to avoid common pitfalls, save themselves from wasting time and on hopeless initiatives, and successfully do battle with the people issues, financial challenges, customer problems and technology opportunities they confront on a daily basis.

You know the Agile and Lean development buzzwords, you've read the books. But when systems need a serious overhaul, you need to see how it works in real life, with real situations and people. Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice. Every key point is illustrated with a photo or diagram, and anecdotes bring you inside the project as you discover why and how one organization modernized its workplace in record time. Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice. Find out how the Swedish police combined XP, Scrum, and Kanban in a 60-person project. From start to finish, you'll see how to deliver a successful product using Lean principles. We start with an organization in desperate need of a new way of doing things and finish with a group of sixty, all working in sync to develop a scalable, complex system. You'll walk through the project step by step, from customer engagement, to the daily "cocktail party," version control, bug tracking, and release. In this honest look at what works--and what doesn't--you'll find out how to: Make quality everyone's business, not just the testers. Keep everyone moving in the same direction without micromanagement. Use simple and powerful metrics to aid in planning and process improvement. Balance between low-level feature focus and high-level system focus. You'll be ready to jump into the trenches and streamline your own development process.

In this comprehensive, practical guide, award-winning photojournalist Stacy Pearsall offers the techniques, guidance, and inspiration needed to succeed in the dynamic and exciting field of photojournalism. Starting with an overview of photojournalism and her experience as both a combat and domestic photographer, Stacy covers the basics of preparing for assignments, discussing such key topics as selecting suitable attire for different environments, assembling essential camera gear, developing the right approach for a story, and honing your shooting technique. beyond the fundamentals, Stacy then dives into the nitty-gritty details of photojournalism work, providing insights into living and working in harsh conditions, maintaining physical and mental health, and managing relationships with subjects. The book interweaves hundreds of Stacy’s amazing photographs with stories of her experiences in the field, providing context for advice on everything from navigating unfamiliar locations, to properly exposing your images, to building innovative multimedia projects. Follow her into "the trenches" for the fascinating stories behind the shots, which show by example how to get the best photographs you can, even under the most challenging circumstances. Features stunning full-color images from some of the author’s most dramatic moments as a photojournalist Offers insights on preparing for long-term assignments, working in austere environments, and reintegrating into society after a project Interweaves photography techniques with advice on interacting with subjects and creating compelling stories

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! The Sustainable Edge: Fifteen Minutes a Week to a Richer Entrepreneurial Life was written for business owners who are seeking a fuller, more rewarding work-life balance. In this easy-to-reference, practical guide authors and entrepreneurs Ron Carson and Scott Ford share personal anecdotes to their own career successes. Each chapter is designed to inspire entrepreneurs to define and sustain a competitive edge in the complex, fast-changing world of business. Relying on insights and proprietary tools based on decades of experience, the authors teach you how to achieve your goals across four key areas: your business, your teams, your clients, and your personal lives. In this book you will learn the authors’ trademarked Business Implementation Quotient (IQ) Grower process that appears in the form of end-of-chapter exercises. These easy-to-perform exercises can be completed in as little as 15 minutes per week to help your company boost its own Business IQ. This work is an important read for entrepreneurs in search of achieving the sustainable edge in their careers and their lives.

A how to guide to avoiding the mistakes ineffective financial advisors most often make Based on a 15-year consulting program that author Steve Moore has led for financial advisors, Ineffective Habits of Financial Advisors (and the Disciplines to Break Them): A Framework for Avoiding the Mistakes Everyone Else Makes details proven techniques which allow advisors to transform their business into an elite practice: business analysis, strategic vision, exceptional client service, and acquiring high net worth clients. Told through the story of a purely fictional and completely average financial advisor, each chapter begins with an ineffective habit that is then countered with a discipline that improves business results and adds value. The book Details a step-by-step strategy for working through current clients, rather than relying on cold calling to form new relationships Includes anecdotes collected through both personal experience and stories relayed to him by clients and colleagues Provides question and answer segments, examples, and homework assignments Ineffective Habits of Financial Advisors (and the Disciplines to Break Them shows you how to deliver exceptional service while generating higher revenue per client.