Week 11: My Unfair Advantage

List of 10 resources:
1. Family atmosphere: Many firms say that they have a family atmosphere, but none can really take the amount of time that I will to be more of a friend to the client than anything else. It is really easy to trust your friend to help you with financial situations than it is to hand money to a "businessman".
2. Welcoming office: The office will look like a home versus a traditional business building look to make the clients feel more comfortable.
3. Highly skilled employees: Clients will be able to know that they have very educated and devoted people doing everything they know to reach financial goals with them.
4. "Client comes first" mentality: No other company will take the time to be sure that each person is more than just another client and really take each case seriously.
5. Convenient location: People prefer not traveling long distances, especially for something many would not be excited to do anyways, so if we could make it as convenient for the client as possible over other firms we would have an advantage.
6. Live blog with market updates to educate clients so they know why you may make certain decisions: I cannot think of another firm that would take the time to really educate their clients via blog to keep them up to date easier on what is happening.
7. Often connection to clients: It is very important to keep in contact with you clients so they do not feel forgotten or abandoned. This goes back to the family feel.
8. Events for clients: It is boring always talking about finances with the clients, so I think it would be a good idea to have events to get together and socialize about other things. Again, this ties back into the family feel of my company.
9. Constant education of employees: Education is obviously something very important when dealing with finances, therefore, it is imperative to have continuous education of all employees dealing with clients.
10. Organization Involvement in community: As a family company, it is very important to have the great opportunity to give back to the community. Since advising is to help reach financial goals, why not help the community as a whole reach other types of goals and continue the trend?

My number one resource is my companies family atmosphere. In my other posts, people commented saying how that is not anything different from any other financial advising firm, but I disagree completely. Yes, all firms try to show that they are client first before all, but, it comes down to the root of the actual company culture to really determine if it is a significant difference to sway someone to go to my firm versus another. My values lead me to believe that this resource is what will set me apart in some ways from other firms of the same service. Please feel free in comments to give specific examples of something else that may make my advising service above another.