The new businesses will market international  law services to intermediaries and final clients.

The Braxton Group is renowned for supplying innovative international services designed to meet the needs of international companies, professional firms and their clients. We have 15 years experience in international distribution.

We are actively looking for business partners with established networks or contacts to assist us in entering new markets internationally. Additionally, all candidates will need to have:

1. A strong services background
2. Excellent interpersonal skills
3. Good negotiating skills
4. Experience of working with intermediaries / final clients
5. Exemplary presentation skills
6. Professional commitment to service, training and support
7. Past sales success and a strong on-going desire to succeed

Please send us your CV with a short description of your network of contacts to legal (ad) braxton-co.com.

Braxton Group is launching online secure services on Braxton Group and Braxton Network for Advisors, the website built for the Braxton network of advisors. The new system will save advisers time by making it quicker and easier for them to work with their customers.

The site – launched on 29 October – has been designed following extensive research among advisers and the improvements Braxton Group has made include:

• Advisers can now see a personalised homepage with direct access to information about their new business pipeline, and saved quotes or new business applications – a first in the market.
• They can navigate more easily to clients’ information and Braxton services.
• An improved “Quote and apply” function makes it easier for advisers to do business online.

Advisers should visit: www.braxton-network.com

John Heis, head of e-business at Braxton Group, said: “Over the last 10 months we’ve been talking and listening to feedback from advisors to understand how they want to interact with us online. We’ve been building our business around advisers and we’ve totally transformed the secure services section of our site so that we’re giving advisers the online services and information they need.”

Un elemento interesante del balance es que los gastos de la empresa en investigación y desarrollo crecieron fuertemente en el trimestre, con 38,4%, quedando en 1,23 mil millones de dólares.

Parte de esta inversión puede ser indudablemente atribuida al servicio Google +, que competirá con Facebook.

Durante el período, Google contrató 2.300 nuevos empleados, con lo que su plantilla actual es de 28.769 personas.

Google + llega a los 10 millones
Larry Page expresó gran satisfacción ante los pronósticos para el nuevo servicio social de Google, confirmando que Google + superó ayer la marca de los 10 millones de usuarios. “Nada mal en dos semanas de pruebas beta con invitación”, comentó Page.

El CEO de Google aprovechó la oportunidad para publicar su discurso en Google + en tiempo real. En total, cada día se publican más de mil millones de comentarios en el servicio, informó Page.

A pesar del crecimiento que ha tenido Facebook a lo largo de estos años –ya tiene 700 millones de usuarios–, y la rivalidad declarada entre la red social y el gigante de Internet, según un estudio del Bank of America Merril Lynch cerca del 40% de los usuarios de Internet acude a Google primero que otro medio para averiguar sobre un producto antes de realizar una compra.

Así mismo, alrededor del 28% de los 418 encuestados del estudio prefiere acudir directamente al sitio web del almacén o del fabricante del producto que quieren adquirir, mientras que el 34% restante opta por consultar los dos gigantes del comercio electrónico, Amazon y eBay.

Recurrir a sus amigos de Facebook es la opción preferida solamente por el 1% de los usuarios encuestados, lo que va en contra de la creencia de que las recomendaciones de los amigos tienen más peso que la información de terceros.

Aunque hace un tiempo el gigante de las búsquedas tuvo que bajar al cabeza y acudir a la popularidad de su rival incluyéndolo en su estrategia publicitaria, según los resultados del estudio parece que Google no tiene nada que temer, pues solo el 3% de los usuarios de Facebook aseguró que utiliza Google con menos frecuencia por culpa de esta red social.

Por ahora, según Business Insider, Facebook tampoco tendría que lamentar estos resultados, pues la red social sigue siendo el sitio preferido para que los usuarios ‘pasen el rato’ y puedan ser influenciados por los anuncios publicitarios presentes en ella.

Covenant:

pacto; garantía; contrato

Covenant not to sue:

pacto or contrato a no demandar

Covenant of quiet enjoyment:

garantía del uso y goce pacífico del inmueble

Creditors’ composition agreement:

concordatopreventivo

Crime:

crimen; delito; contravención

Criminal law:

derecho penal

Cross-examination:

Contrainterrogatorio

Cure:

cura; cuidado; derecho de remediar un viciocontractual

Customs receipts:

recibos de derechos aduaneros

Damages:

daños; indemnización por daños y perjuicios

Debit card:

tarjeta de dé bito

Debtor:

Deudor

Debt securities:

seguridades de deuda

Deceptive advertising:

publicidad engañosa

Deed:

escritura; título; acta translativa de domino

Defamation:

Difamación

Delegation of duties:

delegación de obligaciones

Demand deposit:

depósito a la vista

Depositions:

declaración de un testigo fuera del tribunal

Devise:

legado; deposición testamentaria (bienesinmuebles)

Directed verdict:

veredicto según orden del juez y sinparticipación activa del jurado

Direct examination:

interrogatorio directo; primerinterrogatorio

Disaffirmance:

repudiación; renuncia; anulación

Discharge:

descargo; liberación; cumplimiento

Disclosed principal:

mandante revelado

Discovery:

descubrimiento; producción de la prueba

Dissenting opinion:

opinión disidente

Dissolution:

disolución; terminación

Diversity of citizenship:

competencia de los tribunalesfederales para entender en causas cuyas partes

intervinientes son cuidadanos de distintos estados

Divestiture:

extinción premature de derechos reales

Dividend:

Dividendo

The old exemption from registration for advisers with fewer than 15 US investors is eliminated as of July 21, 2011 and is replaced by new exemptions that are limited and therefore not terribly useful.

Consequences of this are to file a SEC registration to passport across the US and avoid the tremendous burden to undertake a review of the securities law on a state by state basis.

Advisers’ registration with the SEC implies the filing of Form ADV to disclose detailed information regarding the adviser’s business.

Registered advisers will face many obligations including compliance procedures, code of ethics, conflicts of interest disclosure, compliance officer designation, extensive books and records maintenance requirements…

Registered investment advisers will be required also to report once a year through the filing of Form PF thus providing significant amounts of detail regarding the private funds they advise – compliance date for filing may be as earlier as 12/15/2011.

Although seemingly in contradiction with Dodd Frank, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA is an over-reaching peace of legislation on tax avoidance that will trigger all financial intermediaries to enter agreement with US tax authorities and enforce tax information reporting and withholding for US persons investing via/in non-US entities.

Investments funds and Collective Investment Schemes are in the scope; therefore mutual/hedge/private equity/FoFs/ETF/managed accounts are all concerned by FATCA with some exclusion that would need to be reviewed and monitored on an ongoing base.

Custody, fund administration, private banking and transfer agency functions are all impacted by FATCA and it is therefore paramount to understand the different duties of FATCA and how they will need to be address on the value chain of your organisation.

Braxton has financial regulation expertise in cross-border provision of asset management services and is able to offer help on the consequences of these provisions to non-US investment advisers and all financial intermediaries and fund structures.

In April 2009, The Nielsen Company conducted a study of the most trusted forms of advertising. Not surprisingly, the study found that most trusted source is recommendations from personal acquaintances. A whopping 90% of people surveyed said they “completely” or “somewhat” trusted recommendations from people they know. This study specifically surveyed internet consumers, but if consumers place such high importance on the recommendations of friends for some widget they buy online, you would have to assume the same must be true offline, at least.

In our opinion, this study further emphasizes the importance of creating a marketing plan focused on relationships. It amazes us when an advisor will spend money on advertising yet has no plan or process for nurturing existing relationships. Clearly it seems like the advisor, in this case, is spending more time and effort on the campaign with the lower ROI.

If you find that you are putting more effort into mass marketing or advertising than you are into your existing relationships, it is time to reexamine and possibly adjust your marketing plan. While I have no objection to advertising or mass marketing, it is something you should implement once you have a plan in place for cultivating your existing relationships. Of course there always are situations when you must focus on mass marketing. For example, an advisor just starting out in the business will not have the existing relationships required to acquire new clients. He or she must start from scratch and cannot rely on personal recommendations and referrals.

The Nielsen study establishes that people trust recommendations from people they know. This doesn’t mean you have to focus solely on your client relationships to provide recommendations. Anyone in your network can provide a recommendation, so the more relationships you have in good standing, the better off you’ll be. When you are sitting down this fall to write your 2010 marketing plan, think of ways in which you can utilize your personal and professional relationships and create campaigns that will enhance these relationships. Here are ten questions to ask to help formulate a marketing plan centered on relationships.

Do you have a plan for communicating with your clients throughout the year (ideally 24 times)?
Do you have a plan for meeting new centers of influence?
Do you have a plan for staying in touch with your centers of influence throughout the year?*
Do you have a plan for becoming/staying involved in the community?
Do you have a plan for staying in touch with your community contacts throughout the year?*
Do you have a plan for staying in touch with your personal contacts?*
Do you have a plan ensuring that you are networking on a regular basis?
Do you have a plan for staying in touch with your networking contacts?*
Do you have a plan to regularly participate on social networking sites (if your compliance department allows for it)?
Do you have a plan to reach out to your social media contacts in person, on the phone or via email (if participating in social media sites)?
(*Note: Social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are good options for this)

If you create a marketing plan that allows you to answer “yes” to all of these questions (or at least questions 1 -8), you’ll be on your way to developing strong word of mouth marketing. Feel free to integrate other forms of marketing and advertising to supplement your relationship-based marketing efforts, but keep in mind that word of mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing you can find.

But there is more

Do you know which of your clients refer their friends and family to you? Are they your satisfied clients? You’d like to think that all of your clients are satisfied, which is why they continue to do business with you. But you are not receiving referrals from every one of your clients, so satisfaction is clearly not the basis for referrals. A study conducted by Advisor Impact, called the Economics of Loyalty, indicates that while satisfied clients may be loyal, they won’t necessarily refer. The clients who refer their colleagues and loved ones are the clients who are engaged. According to the study, these engaged clients are not only more likely to refer friends and family members, but they are more open to cross selling opportunities and will invest a larger share of their wallet with their advisor.

Now that you know the secret to referrals, how do you go about engaging clients? While service offerings and customer service are important aspects to engaging clients, creating deeper client-advisor relationships has a more significant impact. The most systematic way to deepen relationships is to create a goal of touching your clients X amount of times per year. The magic number of annual contacts seems debatable, but I’ve read in several publications that high-net-worth clients expect to have 12 to 24 contacts per year with their advisor. This can be overwhelming if you multiply the number clients you have by 12, 18 or even 24 annual contacts. You are easily looking at thousands of touches annually. With the right plan and technology in place, touching your clients 24 times per year can be a cinch.

The first thing you need to do in order to start engaging your clients is to create a client communication plan. For purposes of this article, let’s assume you have 200 clients and 20%, or 40, of these clients are A clients. You want to touch your 40 A clients 24 times per year and the remaining 160 clients 12 times per year. The most logical place to start your client communication plan is to set a goal for the frequency of client reviews. The Economics of Loyalty study found that 84% of clients with more than $500,000 in investable assets expect two or more reviews per year and 43% expect four or more reviews annually. Using this information, start you communication calendar by planning for quarterly reviews for your A clients and semi-annual reviews for all of your other clients. That equates to four touches for A clients and two touches for the remaining clients. Now the question is, “How will you contact your clients the rest of the year to reach your goal?” There are dozens of ideas you can consider. I recommend a mix between educational and appreciation events. The Advisor Impact study indicates that financial reviews are the highest rated form of client contact, followed by educational communication and finally appreciation events. We can add birthdays, etc..

The key to implementing such a plan is to have effective systems in place. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a must to track each touch and to alert you of birthdays, anniversaries, special events and financial reviews as they approach. It’s also imperative that you standardize your client events and communication. There will be some up front work to streamline your newsletter, webcasts, client seminars and client appreciation events, but once you have a system, the events will run like clockwork.

Travel by TripIt

TripIt allows you to post your travel schedule to your LinkedIn profile. In addition to allowing visitors to your profile to see your schedule, the application notifies your network when you will be in their area. The application also tells you who will be in the cities you are visiting at the same time you will be there. If you travel on a regular basis, you should definitely add this application to your profile.

Reading List by Amazon

The Amazon application breaks up the monotony of the LinkedIn profile by showing thumbnails of books you have read, are reading or would like to read. If you have published a book that is selling on Amazon, this application is a must! However, if you are like most advisors, you will just use the application to share your favorite books with your network. It may not add a lot of value but at the very least it opens the door for a conversation with your contacts.

Tweets

With the Twitter application you can display your most recent tweets on your LinkedIn profile status bar. Your status bar allows you to quickly and easily stay top-of-mind with your network. If you have a Twitter account, you should add this application so that you can update your LinkedIn status from Twitter. However, while tweeting several times a day is acceptable, updating your LinkedIn status that often is not. For this reason, choose the “Share only tweets that contain #in” option so that you can choose which tweets are posted to LinkedIn.

Not every application is going to be appropriate for you and some applications serve the same purpose. Choose the ones that are most appropriate for you and your business. By adding a couple of these applications, you will soon see your profile transform from an online resume to a full-fledged marketing tool.

There is no argument that the standard LinkedIn profile is pretty boring. If completely filled out, the profile consists almost entirely of text. This might be fine if you are using LinkedIn to find a job but doesn’t work if you are using the site for marketing purposes. Fortunately, LinkedIn has partnered with a dozen application providers to help enhance the LinkedIn experience. I have identified eight that I recommend you consider adding to help turn your profile from a resume to a marketing tool.

SlideShare Presentations

SlideShare allows you to embed PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, documents and spreadsheets into your profile. This is a valuable application because it enables you to incorporate your marketing materials directly into your profile, allowing visitors to find out more about you and your business than the standard profile would normally allow. Since SlideShare shows a thumbnail of the document, you’ll want to use the application for documents that are graphically interesting. I recommend uploading your brochure, firm summary or other marketing piece to this application. You can include multiple files, but only up to three are visible on your profile. You may want to consider only adding one document and choosing the “Show complete presentation in player” option for even more impact.

Google Presentations

Google Presentations is similar to SlideShare in that it allows you to embed PowerPoint presentations into your profile. However, unlike SlideShare, it only allows you to upload presentations. You may want to use this application if you have a PowerPoint presentation you would like to share on your profile and are already using SlideShare to highlight your marketing material. You may also want to consider creating an overview presentation about your firm and include it in Google Presentations.

Box.net

Box.net is a file sharing application. You can add any type of file and allow visitors to your profile to download these files. Since all files are displayed with standard PDF, Word or Excel icons, this application is not aesthetically appealing. You should limit the use of this application to share basic text documents such as forms. You won’t want to put your eye catching marketing pieces in the Box.net application.

BlogLink

BlogLink allows you to import your blog or other RSS feed directly into your LinkedIn profile. You can also use BlogLink to showcase your Twitter feed. This application enables you to add valuable content to your profile providing your visitors with further insight into your services.

WordPress

The WordPress application is very similar to BlogLink except that it only works for WordPress blogs. If you have a WordPress blog, I recommend this application over BlogLink since it is more aesthetically pleasing. However, you cannot use the WordPress application to showcase your latest tweets so you may still want to consider BlogLink if this is an important feature for you.

3. Craft your message. Your audience will only hear bits of pieces of your message at a time, so it is critical that you consistently and frequently broadcast a clear message about who you serve and what you offer. Don’t make your audience guess what you do, make it clear to them.

4. Gather and create content. Content is king in new media marketing. Demonstrate your expertise by educating your audience through blogs, articles, videos, or podcasts. Gather or create useful content to aid you in your new media marketing efforts.

5. Build your web presence & social media profiles. As you build out your profiles, you will be building a web presence that will give you a footprint beyond your website. This presence will increase your exposure to potential new clients. As you decide to participate in LinkedIn, Facebook, or other networking sites, it is important that you complete your profiles. A person is likely to only visit your profile once, so make a lasting first impression.

6. Build your network. The more people you connect with on social networking sites, the more people will see your message. Make a conscious effort to continually build your connections on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and other networks you are targeting.

7. Promote your profiles and cross connect. Let people know you are on the various social networking sites by promoting links on your website and email signature. This will help you organically grow your network. The more sites where you connect with someone, the stronger your relationship will become. Where it makes sense, find and connect with contacts across multiple social media sites.

8. Build an inbound strategy. Craft a strategy for your own website and your email/newsletter marketing programs. It is important that when potential new relationships click back to your website that they experience your brand in the right way. Ensure your website is professional and visually branded for your target audience and includes interactive web features like RSS and social bookmarking. Search engine optimization (SEO), landing page lead capture, and lead nurturing should be part of your website strategy.

9. Communicate Persuasively. Ensure your messages are sharp and clear. Are you delivering a persuasive message? Is your logic clear and concise? Are you listening and empathetic to client needs?

10. Actively engage. Use social networking sites and your website as a way to promote your content to your targeted market. This helps educate your audience and keeps your name top-of-mind. Social media is the same as any networking or marketing strategy – the more consistent you are, the better the results. Actively participate in the various social networking sites on a weekly basis to achieve the greatest results.

We work with leading wealth managers and financial advisors who recognize that their clients are using social media and the web to help them evaluate an advisor. The content and professional credentials visible online are an increasingly important part of their decision process. Successful advisors use their online presence to drive new business. They use blogs, Facebook Groups / Fan Pages and Twitter to engage in the online conversation increasing referrals and attracting new clients.

However, new media marketing is not a panacea. Your online presence and activity won’t replace your existing relationship building activities and the quality work you perform with clients. Your approach to new media marketing should be authentic – engaging in meaningful activities around the quality of your work and personal relationships. Tackled the right way, a new media marketing approach will further accelerate your growth.

But where do you begin? Which networks should you join? How do you build an online presence? How do you avoid introducing risk with your current brand? What is involved in using social media and inbound marketing techniques day-to-day? To help you get started, we developed the following checklist. This ten-step plan will guide you in taking positive steps forward in your new media marketing plan. With a thoughtful approach and a committed strategy, you will be rewarded with professional online presence and accelerated growth.

10 Steps to Get Started with Social Media Marketing

1. Define your purpose. Determine in advance why you are engaging in new media. Is it for educational purposes or to market your business? If you don’t have clear intentions, how can you expect to have clear results?

2. Find your target market. Join the social networking sites which are comprised of your target niche market. Remember that the most popular social networking sites might not be the sites where your ideal clients visit. Go to where your potential clients are and don’t just spend time with your peers.

It will continue…