If you're in the fee-only or Fee-Based money management business, then you'll need a marketing package to either send to new prospects in the mail before you meet them, and/or to give them to take home after the first appointment.

The Usual Contents of a Financial Advisor's New Prospect Information Kit Are:

• An initial upbeat welcoming letter with good maps and directions to your office, including where to park, and how to get free validation if you have that (you should if you only have pay-parking).

• Sending a meeting agenda before appointments never hurts

• Here's a very old sample marketing piece Discussing the benefits of hiring a fee-only independent financial planner.

• Marketing pieces to send in the mail / give to new prospects to tell them about you and all about the firm's history, philosophy, background, staff, and financial advisers. Download a free sample firm bio.

You'll also get a sample marketing letter when you buy the tri-fold marketing brochure below.

• Color "tri-fold brochure" with basic marketing fluff about you and your firm. Tri-fold means you fold it into thirds so it fits into a regular envelope. Office supply stores carry custom tri-fold printer paper for this purpose.

What you can buy from us is in Microsoft Publisher 2000 format, which is a program you may not have. If you don't have access to it, then you probably shouldn't buy this piece. Publisher is on the professional version of MS Office (and Office 365), so poke around in your old install CDs to see if you have it. It's probably there.

This colorful fluffy marketing piece is in two parts, front and back (so there's two Pub files).

You'll also get two sample firm marketing letters, and a piece for getting referrals.

Use this template as a starting place to make your own custom tri-fold brochure. This will save you many hours of time if you need to make one yourself.

You'd just edit it to fit your practice, and then e-mail it to a Kinko's / Fed-X--like copy place, and they'll print high-quality copies for you cheaply. Or print yourself using HP Tri-fold Brochure paper from most any office supple store. How to buy this piece is at the bottom of this page.

• Client fee-only or Fee-Based contract and legal agreements. You'll get several Word docxs so you can cut and paste from these templates to make your own custom client contract.

This is the main legal agreement between you and the client when it comes to charging fees. It should discuss the details of your management fee schedule, your written financial planning fee schedule, ticket charges and trading costs, arbitration, how you handle discretion, 12b-1 fees, and all of the legal details about how you bill and do everything.

Use our templates as a starting place to make your own, and then run it by compliance and your lawyer to ensure it's all good and to see if you need to have anything else added to it.

This will save you many hours if you have to search the web for freebies, and then make one yourself from scratch. How to buy is at the bottom.

• Something to show prospects what services they'll get, given the amount of investments you'll be managing. Here's a free sample Level of Services chart.

• Something about how you manage money (a very short editable sample is included in the tri-fold brochure). A basic freebie is in this old sample newsletter. Several more are scattered around the free downloads pages.

• Past performance is always a plus, especially if you have a good track record. Studies show that it's the #1 thing clients look for in an investment manager. #2 is trust and #3 is the personal relationship, or how well you get along. Make a table of returns, like the one on this page, which will fit on one page.

• Part II of your SEC Form ADV (disclosure brochure). There's no sample here as you'll have to make it all on your own (you'll have this done already if you're this far along).

• A "Who the Players Are" piece to help prospects understand the complex relationships between you, the BD, the RIA, the Custodian, etc. Here's a free example to give you the basic concept so you can make your own. This may seem old hat and useless to you, but your clients will find it very helpful (and will ask questions once they see it until they understand it all).

• The last issue of your investment newsletter, which some advisors send to their clients monthly as part of normal ongoing marketing and referral generation.

• How to better understand (old Pershing) investment portfolio account statements. Whatever your custodian is providing to help in this area should be part of the binder. This is because we've never seen a client that can make sense out of them, and it shows you're the first to care about helping them understand complex pieces of the overall puzzle.

• Your Broker-Dealer will usually require you to use their new account form.

• Maybe some mutual fund prospecti or other reports from mutual funds you're sure you'll be using soon.

• Homework assignment - how to prepare for the next meetings.

• A visual aid showing how the financial planner is the quarterback at the center of the other kinds of professionals (TIFF file - open with a graphics editor).

FYI: Have your Sample Financial Plan sitting on the table next to the couch in your waiting room helps (along with the usual calming magazines). Make sure it's stocked full of referral getting tools because you'll always want to be in their minds that you'll be asking as "part of your compensation."

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