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Magazine
Articles
Make Like Madonna
Registered Rep Magazine
- November 2008
"Market share shifts in periods of
crisis — just ask Jamie Dimon. You have to
make bold moves to get a maximum share of
the opportunity. If you are in a rut, there
is no better time to consider transforming
yourself. No one can attest to the power of
reinvention better than Madonna. Her 30-year
career has cemented her position as the
top-selling female recording artist of all
time and (thus far) earned her $400 million
dollars. At the age of 50, she shows no
signs of retiring and is currently on yet
another worldwide tour. How does Madonna do
it? Change!"
More >>
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Slaying Your
Inner Dragons
Registered Rep Magazine
- June 2008
"At one
time or another all of us have said or done
something that was contrary to our own best
interest, damaging to an important
relationship or just plain wrong. We kind of
knew it at the time, but we went ahead and
did it anyway. The question is, why?
I
learned
about
the
Seven
Dragons
from
Laurie
Skreslet,
the
first
Canadian
citizen
to reach
the
summit
of Mount
Everest." More >>
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Seven
Financial Sins of Millionaire Households
Registered Rep Magazine
- April 2008
"Raising five kids in
any U.S. metro area means big bucks if you
want the best in education — a challenge
well known to one affluent family who faced
a total bill of about $2 million spread
around among private schools, private
colleges, books, living expenses and other
costs. After laying down that chunk of
change to help their children get a leg up
in a competitive world, they were unprepared
to shell out another $1 million in a single
year to keep their kid's name clean."
More >>
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Looking
Out for Numero Uno
Registered Rep Magazine
- March 2008
Top advisors know that there
is an uneasy balance between helping their
clients and protecting themselves. The
reality is that providing a high level of
personal service and advice to other people
is very difficult and demanding. My father,
a retired physician, finds it amusing when
financial advisors, admonishing clients to
follow a recommendation, compare themselves
to doctors: “If your doctor told you to do
something, you'd do it — I'm like your
financial doctor.”
More >>
Sink or Swim
Registered Rep Magazine -
February 2008
by Steve Gresham
I was watching a TV
documentary recently
about a middle-aged
man who was
preparing to swim
the English Channel.
A reporter asked him
why he had chosen to
undertake this
particular challenge
— especially since
the man, a popular
TV comedian, was not
known to be a
swimmer or even much
of an athlete. The
man said that when
he was a boy, he saw
a television program
about a man who swam
the Channel, and
decided then and
there that it was
something he too
would like to do.
“It became a goal of
mine,” the man
explained. “Now
seems to be the
perfect time,
because I don't have
much else going on
at the moment.”
More >>
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The Words Not Spoken
Registered Rep Magazine -
December 2007
by Steve Gresham
If you are like most
advisors, you
usually approach
client meetings in
one of two ways: If
the market is up,
you underscore the
recent growth in the
client's assets, and
the progress made
toward the
achievement of his
or her financial
goals. If the market
is down, you
emphasize how a
diversified
portfolio shielded
the client from
significant losses.
Either way, you have
demonstrated your
value by giving the
client a greater
sense of financial
security. Or have
you? A recent survey
by Prince &
Associates found
that 89 percent of
millionaire
households feel that
they are vulnerable
to a financial
reversal, yet only
15 percent of
advisors were aware
that their clients
harbored such fears.
That is a staggering
disconnect — but an
understandable one.
More >>
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Beating Recession
Depression
Registered Rep Magazine -
February 2008
by Steve Gresham
Now, what are you doing
about it? Have you called your clients?
If you haven't, you're
not alone. At an investment advisor seminar
about a month after the 2001 terrorist
attacks, the speaker asked members of the
audience to raise their hands if they had
reached out to clients in the weeks that had
passed since that horrible day. Only about
one in four of the seminar attendees raised
their hands. The speaker pointed to a man in
the audience who hadn't raised his hand and
asked, “Why haven't you called your
clients?” The man sheepishly replied,
“Because I wouldn't know what to tell them.”
A woman sitting nearby — one of the relative
few who had raised their hands — spoke up
and said, “Have them call me. I know what to
tell them!” More >>
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The Big Shift
Registered Rep Magazine -
September 2007
by Steve Gresham
Don’t get too comfortable with
the way you run your business.
Retiring baby boomer clients
want more services than you
provide.
Is your practice
retirement-ready? As you may have heard, in the
coming years nearly 80 million Americans will bid
farewell to their careers. In so doing, they will
end the wealth accumulation phase of their financial
lives, and begin the wealth distribution phase. Many
of them will seek the help of a financial advisor
for the first time. There seems to be an unspoken
understanding among financial advisors that the
industry will enter a golden age as boomer retirees
turn to them for assistance
...
More >>
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Sticker Shock
Registered Rep Magazine -
March 2007
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D
My father and I had the same reaction
when we looked at our copies of The
New York Times on a Saturday morning
at the end of January. On the front
page, just above the fold, was an
article entitled, “A Contrarian View:
Save Less and Still Retire with Enough.”
Had we read that headline correctly?
After decades of helping retirees cope
with financial and medical issues, our
shock and dismay were the same as if a
parenting magazine had declared “Let
Kids Play in Traffic — It's Fun.”
...
More>>
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Grandma's Got A New Boyfriend
Registered Rep Magazine -
February 2007
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
“Mother, you must be out of your
mind!” Ellen Fulton's eyes
blazed with indignation as she
put down her coffee cup with a
shaking hand. “He's the same age
as your children, for goodness'
sake! Have your little fling, if
you must, but stop talking
nonsense. Marriage, indeed! You
can't be serious!”
...
More>>
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The Price Isn't Right
Registered Rep Magazine -
January 2007
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
If you stop to think about it,
there are a number of surprising
parallels between the medical
and financial-advisory
professions. Both remedy issues
vital to long-term happiness:
health and wealth. Both require
highly technical knowledge,
coupled with personal and
intimate service. Both require
an initial assessment and
diagnosis a look at past and
family records, a talk about
current conditions ...
More>>
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Diagnosing Your
Prospects' Pressure Points
Millionaire Hot Buttons
Registered Rep Magazine -
December 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
The end of each calendar year
provides a natural setting for
serious prospecting. Full-year
performance and other results
are easy to present to potential
clients and their accountants,
who can quickly make comparisons
among competing advisors,
retirement plans, mutual funds
and managed accounts. So how can
you use this moment to capture
additional assets and referrals
...
More>>
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Partners In Care
Registered Rep Magazine -
November 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
It had been a festive family
reunion. Len and Gloria Benton
reclined on the veranda of their
upscale retirement community
condominium and happily rehashed
every detail. “We're so lucky,”
sighed Gloria. “Thanks to your
good planning, we've been able
to retire early, buy this great
place and really enjoy getting
the whole family together — our
kids, grandchildren and our
parents!” ...
More>>
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Caregiver for Life
Registered Rep Magazine -
October 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
After her
traumatically brain-injured
(TBI) son, Jim, had finally
settled down and gone to sleep,
Adelaide Newton sat alone in her
living room to ponder her
current situation. While
her two older children were
married, had children and were
living independent lives of
their own, Adelaide, a widow in
her early 60s, had to decide how
to deal with Jim, 19, once a
very promising college student.
A skiing accident had left him
with permanent mental
limitations. She had barely
recovered from the loss of her
husband from a sudden heart
attack when the call had come
that Jim was being airlifted to
the regional trauma center
...
More>>
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Scaling Old
Peaks
Registered Rep Magazine -
September 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
The longest block
of Kenilworth Road in our town
has so many physicians that it
has been jokingly referred to as
“Pill Hill.” It is a tree-lined
street in affluent suburbia
dotted with large stately houses
— most designed in the Tudor
style — that were built between
the two World Wars. They were
ideal homes for affluent
physicians and their broods in
the 1950s and 1960s. Those
doctors are now senior citizens.
the kids are long gone and the
houses are too large, too much
work to maintain and — for many
— too lonely. This brings a
previously unthinkable agenda:
selling the home and moving to a
smaller place
...
More>>
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Retirement Roulette
Help clients prepare to win the
longevity sweepstakes
Registered Rep
Magazine -
July 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
The members of the
Cadeucis Colloquium, a
discussion group of retired and
semi-retired physicians, sat
together in Dr. Kaplan's living
room overlooking the lake one
recent afternoon. Dr. Kaplan
finished serving drinks and
asked: “Who goes first?”
“I noted in the New England
Journal of Medicine [April 20
issue] that overall life
expectancy at birth in the U.S.
has reached 77.2,” Dr. Whiteside
said. “We're catching up with
Canada, Britain and Japan — at
last. Of course, they've always
achieved their superior figures
with less than half of our
per-capita cost for health care.
But, let's take time off from
talking costs and just consider
the impact of this demographic
on our thoughts about aging.”
...
More>>
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The Final Reward
Registered Rep Magazine -
May 2006
by Stephen Gresham and Glen E.
Gresham, M.D.
A patient fidgeted in his chair
in a doctor's waiting room.
Impatient as always, he was torn
between complaining about being
kept waiting and a creeping
anxiety about what the doctor
might tell him. Approaching 60,
he had always been healthy,
hard-charging and successful.
His marriage was still solid,
his kids were launched on
promising careers, he still
excelled at tennis and he had no
“financial worries.” There were,
however, clouds gathering on his
horizon. For several months, he
hadn't felt quite up to par. He
was frequently tired, sometimes
edgy and having “gut problems.”
His initial hope that this would
all just go away was fading and,
when his urine had turned dark,
he caved and called the
doctor ...
More>>
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The Rewards of Risk
Review
Registered Rep Magazine -
April 2006
by Stephen D. Gresham and Glen
E. Gresham, M.D.
Life is full of risks, and the
financial advisor's job is
largely to minimize the
financial perils their clients
face. What the risks are, how
they will be reduced and what it
will cost to do so must all be
taken into account with the
knowledge that the task will
vary from one household to the
next. Nor are the concerns of
every generation the same.
Contrary to what you would
expect from conventional wisdom
and this space, the greatest
fear of baby boomers is not
death or a market collapse.
Instead, according to Age Wave
guru Ken Dychtwald, their chief
worry is the loss of
independence characterized by
contracting a major illness or
being confined to a nursing
home. A Dow debacle didn't even
make the list ...
More>>
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Prime Time Risks
Registered Rep Magazine -
March 2006
by Stephen D. Gresham and Glen
E. Gresham, M.D.
Buttoning his
shirt at the end of the physical
exam, he was the very picture of
a clean bill of health: A
handsome, fit businessman, who,
at 47, was in the prime of his
life. Call him Matt Parsons.
That's not his real name, but
what happened next that day in
the doctor's office is based on
a true — and too common — story:
“Well, what do you think it is,
Doc?” a subdued Parsons said.
Parsons was having problems
walking and his doctor started
by explaining that it was due to
muscle spasm, which probably
meant that some changes were
taking place where his nerves
originate in the spinal cord.
Parsons also had episodes of
blurred vision and his doctor
discussed them with him, too.
They needed to be evaluated and
his doctor would schedule an
appointment with a specialist as
soon as possible ...
More>>
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Reaching Boomers
Registered Rep Magazine -
February 2006
by Stephen
D. Gresham and Glen E. Gresham,
M.D.
The following
letter, based on a real life
situation with a friend and the
friend's financial advisor,
offers a peek at issues
concerning boomer clients (all
names are fictitious): Dear
Roger: Thank you for spending so
much time counseling our niece,
Amanda, about how her recent
inheritance should be invested.
I had told her to listen
carefully to your advice, as I
have been most favorably
impressed by your management of
my wife's portfolio (which, of
course, is similarly based on an
inheritance) ...
More>>
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