It’s no secret that in today’s information-based economy, technology is essential in competing for and winning business. But based on comments made on my Web site
(www.advisortechsolutions.com) and from the results of Investment Executive Report Cards, many advisors are either technologically challenged or aren’t taking full advantage of technology.

Kip Gregory is the principal of the Gregory Group in Washington D.C., whose mission is to help financial services professionals leverage technology to get more business in less time. He is also the author of Winning Clients in a Wired World (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2004).

Gregory believes computers can be frustrating, especially for advisors.
Technology promises to improve life, but still frequently comes up short. When your business success hinges on the ability to turn information into an advantage, however, your survival depends on smarter use of technology and the Web. Once you accept this, your risk of falling behind disappears.

Don’t expect to become a technological guru by reading this book — that’s not what Gregory is trying to accomplish — but it will help you take the tools you already have on your desktop and harness the power they offer.

Winning Clients in a Wired World should be required reading; it’s the first book I’ve seen aimed solely at technology and Web solutions for financial advisors, sales assistants, wholesalers, branch managers or senior executives.

Based on the e-mails I receive, many advisors feel it is hard keeping up with technological change. Gregory agrees, but notes the problem is the “culture” of technology. Developers focus on, for example, what a program can do because users ask for more and more functions, when in most cases all the bells and whistles end up either undiscovered or unused.

Gregory says the first thing to do is get a handle on what you have right now on your desktop. Start with the programs you use most often — probably Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, to name a few. Take a few minutes each day to open up a program and poke around. Keep a list of useful features you discover.

You may believe that you must have the latest technology to succeed. Forget the idea that speed is critical — vendors like to make you believe their solutions can do everything and faster. As Gregory points out, this is a big part of why people are generally cynical about technology. The truth is most people probably already own most of what they need; they simply need to learn to use it more effectively. Gregory’s book covers both the must-have and the nice-to-have equipment, as well as which resources to tap into to keep up to date and where to go for help to solve technical troubles.

A nice feature is how Gregory explains his tips, either by way of a a sidebar or by mapping out the key sequences needed to perform a task.

One of the biggest challenges for advisors is keeping in contact with clients. Surveys show clients like to hear regularly (at least monthly; ideally, more often) from their advisors. Gregory outlines how you can use technology to create regular, meaningful conversations with clients, prospects and others.

In Winning Clients in a Wired World, Gregory has found a way to make technology easy to understand for advisors and easier for them to be efficient and profitable. The book is available from www.amazon.com or you can visit Gregory’s Web site:
www.winningclientsinawiredworld.com.

Gregory will be a keynote speaker at the first Advisor Tech Expo on June 9 at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre, sponsored by Univeris Corp. and Microsoft Corp. This one-day advisor technology conference, which offers a full-year tech solution program, is presented by Investment Executive.

The conference is a unique opportunity to learn the nuts and bolts of running a practice with the most efficient technology. See www.investmentexecutive.com/atx for more details. IE