A strong marketing plan can be essential to business success, allowing you to capitalize on your strengths, focus on your highest potential clients and relationships, and deliver your message effectively. A successful marketing plan achieves these goals in a manner designed to increase both practice productivity and profitability.

The U.S. Small Cap Growth team of our equity manager The Boston Company outlines seven distinct investment themes for 2013 and tells why they believe these concepts will influence the investing climate over the next several years.

Satisfied With Your Custodian? Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) value independence. Yet some feel like they’re going it alone when it comes to their custodian. How well does your custodian support you and your business? This guide can help you determine whether it’s time for a change as well as what questions to ask a new provider when you’re ready to make a switch. (0413-2652)

The Investment Adviser Association and National Regulatory Services are pleased to present our twelfth annual Evolution Revolution report – a profile of the SEC-registered investment adviser profession. This report identifies significant trends and developments based on information that investment advisers are required to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

For years, clients have paid their financial professionals via commissions for the financial services they provide. However during the last decade, the management of investment services businesses and financial professionals in many financial institutions began to understand the opportunity in the advisory or fee-based business. During this time, registered investment advisory firms were the fastest growing segment of the financial services industry.

Despite this growth, some banks and credit unions have been significantly more successful at transitioning to advisory business than others, and their experience is instructive. This paper examines the reason a financial planner would transition their business to fee-based, some of the barriers moving from commission to fee-based, the optimal product mix for a successful advisory business and much more.