Virtual Office Tools for a High Margin Practice: How Client-Centered Financial Advisors Can Cut Paperwork, Overhead, and Wasted Hours [Paperback]

David J. Drucker (Author), Joel P. Bruckenstein (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bloomberg Financial | Publication Date: December 15, 2011

Tired of spending more time with filing cabinets than with clients? Is overhead eating up margins? Now, two leading financial planners and columnists deliver the help advisers have been begging for.

Virtual-Office Tools for a High-Margin Practice is a nontechnical trove of technology, clever workarounds, and procedural efficiencies tailored to help financial advisers move toward a paperless office, while still complying with SEC record-keeping requirements. The authors show planners how to reduce the amount of paperwork in their offices by 99 percent, slash overhead, and find anything they need in one minute or less by adapting innovative software tools and shifting from on-site employees to remote assistants and virtual work partners.

Until now, creative ways of working this smart were hard to come by. With this book, they are available, ready to go, and easy to implement.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Are you so buried in paperwork, nettlesome compliance issues, or personnel problems that you don’t even remember why you got into this business in the first place? David Drucker and Joel Bruckenstein feel your pain. . . .   it’s supposed to save your money—but more importantly, save your sanity.”
—Registered Representative
February 2003

Review

“This book is a godsend for busy professionals. Joel Bruckenstein and David Drucker know what it’s like to be a planner today. Clients want it all, and they want it ASAP. Virtual-Office Tools for a High-Margin Practice will improve your practice and allow you to serve your clients better than ever.”
—Don Phillips
Managing Director, Morningstar Inc.

“I can’t believe I have been trying to run a practice without the incredible information that Dave and Joel have packed into this book. No question, technology is changing our planning world, but do you want to control it or let it control you? Get this book. Then, control, simplify, and profit.”
—Deena Katz, CFP
Partner, Evensky, Brown, & Katz
Author of Deena Katz’s Tools and Templates for Your Practice

“If you buy one business book this year, make it this one. David Drucker has done it again, this time teaming up with Joel Bruckenstein to teach fellow financial advisers how to simplify their lives and make more money at the same time. The book is filled with nuggets of information that turn to wisdom, teaching us all how to use technology to simplify our lives rather than to complicate them.”
—George D. Kinder, CFP
Author, The Seven Stages to Money Maturity

“For financial planners who want to take the plunge into a paperless office, this book is required reading. Virtual-Office Tools for a High-Margin Practice is a gold mine of strategies for working faster, smarter, and better—and your clients will love the ways your streamlined office helps them manage their own time better!”
—John E. Sestina, CFP, ChFC

“This book provides financial planners with an easy-to-use technology handbook for their practice. Combining a perfect mixture of practical tips and high-tech solutions, Bruckenstein and Drucker have given the planning community an invaluable tool—one that every planner should own and use!”
—Bud Elsea
Director of Education, Financial Planning Association

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; 1 edition (December 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576601234
• ISBN-13: 978-1576601235
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #631,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is a MUST READ for All Advisors, October 22, 2002

By 

Ingrid "richard13371" (Danville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Virtual Office Tools for a High Margin Practice: How Client-Centered Financial Advisors Can Cut Paperwork, Overhead, and Wasted Hours (Paperback)

I read this book from cover to cover in one night! There are so many great ideas in it that I had to reread the book to make sure I absorbed them all.

I have been a slave to the old model of adding more and more staff to handle the needs of a growing practice. The authors explain how to use technology to streamline our practices, stop drowning in paper, and how to outsource much or all the work currently being done by employees to contractors that work offsite.

If I implement all the ideas put forth by the authors, I could save many of thousands of dollars each month and increase my bottom line by the same amount.

I highly recommend this book for all practice owners that are interested in reducing their overhead AND increasing client satisfaction and retention.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get This Book!, November 7, 2002

By 

Bob Vance (MiWuk Village, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Virtual Office Tools for a High Margin Practice: How Client-Centered Financial Advisors Can Cut Paperwork, Overhead, and Wasted Hours (Paperback)

Are you stuck in the rut of working more and enjoying it less? Have you found your profits dropping while overhead skyrockets? Looking for a way to live your life the way you want to live? If so, buy this book today. In today's difficult investment climate many of us financial advisors have been trapped into doing more service duties, administrative functions and are making less. The authors are living our dream of enjoying the lifestyle we deserve. They show and demonstrate step-by-step complete with specific recommendations of software, hardware and technologies to improve your practice and help you make more money. This well written and extremely interesting book will give you hope and vision to make changes in your practice to enhance your quality of life. I bought this book because I am planning to spend more time in my condo in Colorado and needed ideas on how to do it. The authors delivered exactly what I need to know. As an extra bonus, Joel has been terrific about responding to my questions and emails. Thanks gentlemen; when's the next book coming out?

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Virtual Office Tools review, April 10, 2005

By 

Steven Wightman "Wightman Financial Network, LLC" (Lexington, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Virtual Office Tools for a High Margin Practice: How Client-Centered Financial Advisors Can Cut Paperwork, Overhead, and Wasted Hours (Paperback)

Dave Drucker and Joel Bruckenstein wrote a superb practical guide on running and growing a virtual office for financial planning practices. If you ever wondered about how to have more time for your family or personal life pursuits, asked how you could serve your clients better, or add increasingly higher profits in declining or flat markets, this practical guide, written by practicing financial advisors can do more for you than any professional designation after your name. For example, the ability of a virtual assistant a 1000 miles away to annote and populate a scanned document such as a brokerage application with only client specific information, obtain signatures, electronically copy and deliver forms to a brokerage within a few days saves financial planners like me time, money and frustration in dealing with paper document management. With the SEC stamp of approval, there is simply no better way to track and manage docuements. It is like moving from the automobile to the airplane. Leave the traffic jams behind and take your practice to a whole new level with this must-read guidebook.