Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible: The Advisor's Advisor [Hardcover]

Jeffrey H. Rattiner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471220345 | ISBN-13: 978-0471220343 | Publication Date: August 16, 2002 | Edition: 1

"Jeff Rattiner has found another way to help producers. This book is a must-have for financial advisors, especially those that aspire to be Million Dollar Producers."
-Thomas B. Gau, CPA, CFP
President and CEO of Million Dollar Producer

"Jeff Rattiner has done it again! His book displays all the essential tools and techniques necessary for advanced planners to succeed in this business. Rattiner's easy-to-read style provides the best in marketing and practice management ideas. This book will help you if you have hit a dead end in your practice. Rattiner tells it like it is by providing a no-nonsense approach to truly taking your practice to the next level. A must-read for the serious financial advisor."
-Jim Cannon, President, SunAmerica Securities,
Sentra Securities Corporation, and Spelman & Co., Inc.

Financial planners provide a variety of services to an array of clients but lack a uniform system for creating a profitable business. Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible: The Advisor's Advisor collects best practices from the nation's leading financial planners, presenting a prototype turnkey model for achieving financial success for both the client and the practice.

Financial planning expert Jeffrey Rattiner emphasizes an ethical, practical approach to financial advising, placing paramount importance on "doing what's best for the client." Drawing on extensive interviews and his own experience, Rattiner delivers can't-miss tips on marketing a financial planning practice, developing an infrastructure, crafting strategic alliances, assessing a business's profitability, and creating the model twenty-first-century practice. This authoritative guide also covers:
* Forming a planning advisory board
* Establishing a realistic chain of command
* Delegating responsibility
* Making technology work for you
* Charging clients appropriately


Running a financial planning business need not be an exercise in trial and error. Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible delivers a compelling model for advising success.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Are you at a crossroads in your practice? Have you taken it as far as you can go unassisted? Are you looking keenly for advanced direction in marketing and practice management areas that you haven’t tried yet and don’t know where to turn to acquire that kind of information? Is your organizational structure and staff sound? In short, are you looking to take your practice to the next level and need some guidance? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you will want to read Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible: The Advisor’s Advisor.

Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible: The Advisor’s Advisor draws upon Jeffrey Rattiner’s own considerable, celebrated experience in the industry and the hundreds of interviews with the nation’s top planners from the CFP, CPA, brokerage, banking, insurance, and legal communities resulting from his extensive travels and nationwide training programs. In this all-encompassing self-contained stand-alone resource and deskbook, Rattiner presents a superior blueprint for planning success by telling it the way it really is and what you can do to make it work to your advantage.

Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible presents the best practices of financial advisors in all aspects of financial planning, asset management, practice management, and product marketing. The features of this authoritative guide include:

• 50 insightful, yet largely ignored, ways of marketing a practice
• 25 intriguing methods for developing a practice’s infrastructure
• Guidelines to creating external alliances and mutually beneficial relationships
• A detailed self-assessment system to quantify where a practice is today and where it can go tomorrow
• The twenty-first-century practice (organization and structure)
• Worksheets, engagement letters, client checklists, software resources, and other operating tools integral to a successful practice’s day-to-day operation

Above all, Rattiner identifies "doing what’s best for the client" in an ethical, practical manner as a planner’s paramount responsibility, emphasizing its importance over personal image, office accoutrements, and even compensation. By focusing on client honor and advisor integrity, the planner’s profits will coincide with the client’s financial success, creating the ultimate win-win situation. After all, he constantly reminds us that there is enough money in it for all of us.

Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible shows advisors the pitfalls to avoid, the issues to contemplate, the steps to consider, and the hard decisions to make while remaining focused on increasing a practice’s profitability and advancing it to the next level. By implementing Rattiner’s best practices, planners will not only expand their business but also, more importantly, make their clients’ lives better.

From the Back Cover

"Jeff Rattiner has found another way to help producers. This book is a must-have for financial advisors, especially those that aspire to be Million Dollar Producers."
–Thomas B. Gau, CPA, CFP
President and CEO of Million Dollar Producer

"Jeff Rattiner has done it again! His book displays all the essential tools and techniques necessary for advanced planners to succeed in this business. Rattiner’s easy-to-read style provides the best in marketing and practice management ideas. This book will help you if you have hit a dead end in your practice. Rattiner tells it like it is by providing a no-nonsense approach to truly taking your practice to the next level. A must-read for the serious financial advisor."
–Jim Cannon, President, SunAmerica Securities,
Sentra Securities Corporation, and Spelman & Co., Inc.

Financial planners provide a variety of services to an array of clients but lack a uniform system for creating a profitable business. Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible: The Advisor’s Advisor collects best practices from the nation’s leading financial planners, presenting a prototype turnkey model for achieving financial success for both the client and the practice.

Financial planning expert Jeffrey Rattiner emphasizes an ethical, practical approach to financial advising, placing paramount importance on "doing what’s best for the client." Drawing on extensive interviews and his own experience, Rattiner delivers can’t-miss tips on marketing a financial planning practice, developing an infrastructure, crafting strategic alliances, assessing a business’s profitability, and creating the model twenty-first-century practice. This authoritative guide also covers:

• Forming a planning advisory board
• Establishing a realistic chain of command
• Delegating responsibility
• Making technology work for you
• Charging clients appropriately

Running a financial planning business need not be an exercise in trial and error. Rattiner’s Financial Planner’s Bible delivers a compelling model for advising success.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471220345
• ISBN-13: 978-0471220343
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Tools for Experienced Advisors, October 31, 2002

By 

Edwin P. Morrow (Middletown, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible: The Advisor's Advisor (Hardcover)

This is an excellent successor to Jeff's earlier book on getting started in financial planning. There is great material, but because every reader has a substantially different background, a lot of it is not immediately applicable. But the critical issue is that SOME of the very well organized checklists and tools will be precisely what the reader needs, and needs now. Some of the Bible will be very useful later. The firm-wide self-assessment survey is a great tool, as is the model business plan.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More editing needed but has some worthwhile insights, July 9, 2005

By 

H. P. Evans - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible: The Advisor's Advisor (Hardcover)

At 253 pages the material would have better fit 150 though presumably the book would then be too short to market as a "Financial Planner's Bible". Rattiner is repetitious and shamelessly self promoting. The latter, in fairness, is probably common to the genre.

Rattiner, though, is clearly a smart guy. The chapter on using Form 1040 to uncover client financial planning opportunities was meaty and insightful. There were also quite a few other interesting tidbits buried amidst the clutter.

4.0 out of 5 stars pretty good, March 29, 2010

By 

Chris B (dallas,tx) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rattiner's Financial Planner's Bible: The Advisor's Advisor (Hardcover)

this is a decent, well-rounded "bible" for financial planners. would have preferred a little more meat in the marketing section, a little more depth. and the other reviewer is correct about the need for better editing.