Where Schwab beats Fidelity

More than half of the $75 billion Charles Schwab & Co took in last year came from independent financial advisors reports Financial Advisor Magazine.

The unit provides custodial, trading and support services to independent advisors. These advisors, who sell advice rather than products, house their clients' assets at Schwab, a licensed broker-dealer, and execute their trades through Schwab. Schwab also provides much of the advisors' administrative support.

Schwab Institutional is growing faster than Schwab's two other main businesses: Schwab Investor Services, the company's retail brokerage business, and US Trust, a wealth management firm serving individual and institutional clients.
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The increase in independents reflects advisors who have left large firms or migrated to the advisory business from other industries, Gallant said.

There are several reasons advisors choose to strike out on their own: the opportunity to be their own boss, earn more and create a business they can sell or pass onto their
children. Some advisors were also forced out on their own following layoffs at large firms.

Schwab Institutional's market share in late 2004 was almost 23%, compared with 8% for Fidelity Investments, its next closest competitor, Schwab said, citing data from Cerulli.

Job description for corporate blogger

Stephen Spencer has nailed the job description for a corporate blogger

• identify a wide variety of trusted sources of novel and important news and commentary

• take in an overwhelming amount of information from these sources

• ruminate on this information, analyzing and making a judgment call on its value and relevance to his/her constituents

• cull, aggregate, categorize, prioritize, and comment on the information collected, in an effort to make it more relevant, timely, useful, and actionable

• republish it in a format that can be easily disseminated and further analyzed / commented on by others of his/her kind in disparate parts of the world

Enter Zoomba

I've been wondering how book clubs were going to survive the disruption of the Internet.

If you're a big reader like I am, you used to join book clubs to read about new books coming out on a regular basis and to get the four free books you got for joining. Of course, you had to fill out those reply cards or you got their book of the month on a regular schedule which if you didn't want it was a pain-in-the-neck to return.

Amazon changed everything. Not only could you get books whenever you want delivered to your door, you could find all the information you could ever want about any book whether you ordered it or not, including professional reviews and reviews by other readers. Amazon taught me how mathematics could be a competitive advantage with algorithms that looked at what I read and recommended new books. With its size and scale, Amazon could create the largest inventory and realize the enormous profits that could be made by catering to the long tail.

Netflix catered to the long tail as well. But the reason I joined was "no more late fees ever". I liked too the single price per month no matter how many DVDs I ordered so long as I only had three at a time. Like Amazon, Netflix had information on every movie and an easy way to create a list, a queue which I could add to and reorder any time. Easiest though was the delivery in thin, red envelopes that became the postage-paid return.

Since book clubs can't compete with Amazon, why not model after Netflix? That's what Zoomba does. Create a reading list of booksellers, get one a month for $9.95 - no shipping & handling, no reply cards, no book that you didn't ask for.

That's smart. Now they just need some blogs to get people talking about the new best sellers.

Vital Radiance

Revlon now has a new line of products that middle-aged and older women - you know, the ones with all the money - will embrace.
And if the buzz continues like it has, they are going to have a great success and Revlon stock will be worth something.

Months ago, Crabby Old Lady wrote in Glitter and Gloss

“…Max, Estee, Christian, Elizabeth, Helena, Germaine, Pierre and all the rest who served her so well in her youth have forsaken Crabby in her dotage. Where is the foundation that covers nature's errors but doesn't cake in the lines? Eye shadow in matte colors of brown and gray without sparklies? Blusher and lip gloss that are brighter than Crabby's skin color, but not by much, and certainly not iridescent?

In the Radiant Elder Women , Crabby Old Lady raves about Vital Radiance in words that will make Revlon executives whoop and holler.

For the past week, Crabby Old Lady has been playing with this new line of cosmetics with as much enthusiasm as when she was a teenager experimenting with makeup for the first time. It’s the best girlie fun she’s had in ages.

What did they do right?

They listened. They made apparently great products that meet real needs. They didn't patronize with false promises. They marketed well.

And because of Crabby's endorsement and because I trust her, I'm going to buy me some. I probably would have ignored the magazine ads.

I'm thinking this is just the beginning of whole new ways of marketing to that sweetest of sweet spots, the middle-aged women. This is just Lipsticking good and smart marketing to women online because the women are talking themselves.

It's customers evangelizing what they see as awesome new product.

If Revlon takes the advice of Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba at Church of the Customer they will be tracking blogs so they can take the best advantage of such word of mouth.

Dumbest moments

I confess it. I love lists that let me indulge in schadenfreude.

Take Business 2.0's 101 dumbest moments in business.

The winner for the dumbest moment in outsourcing is JP Morgan Chase who had to apologize for sending a form letter about its credit card services to an Arab American man in California addressed to "Palestinian Bomber."

Read the article for far dumber moments.

The iPod Ecosystem

The iPod Ecosystem, all the accessories that become irresistible once you have an iPod, is now a billion dollar business and shaking up tired old categories like clock radios, headphones and boom boxes.

"You throw an iPod in there and you have a growth category again," said Mr. Baker of NPD. Likewise, the headphone and earphone business also took off last year, growing about 25 percent in volume and 10 percent in average price, said Robert Heiblim, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Altec Lansing, a speaker maker.

No one is predicting that the iPod economy will be slowing soon. Mr. Baker said: "We've barely scratched the surface with the video iPod."

Digital Painting in Italy

Have you ever wanted to be a painter? I certainly have. It is one of the things I can do where I get completely lost in the flow of the work and the color. Sadly, I've not done it for years. Whatever visual art I do has been on powerpoint presentations. Pathetic, isn't it.

That's why I'm so intrigued with digital painting. Chava Hudson, artist and web designer, after hearing me speak about blogs, began her Digital Painting Blog.

Not only does she have wonderful images, she is going to lead a tour this summer in Tuscany at Monticatini.

If you love Italy, are familiar with computers and digital cameras, this would be a great vacation where you can learn to be a digital painter and create something as wonderful as this example from her blog.

Useful Blog Tools

Lee Odden has a very useful compendium of blog marketing tools over at Business Blog Consulting including an RSS Button Maker which I am definitely going to use as plans are afoot for an upgrading of all my blogs.

Chirps, moans and barks

Forget the sirens. The songs of male whales - the chirps, moans and barks - are how female whales select their sexual partners.