In this month’s edition of Professional Planner Peter Switzer explains (on page 31) why self promotion is such a valuable activity for financial planning firms. On the basis that Peter knows what he’s talking about, and in the belief that it’s also a valuable activity for a magazine, allow me to take a leaf from Peter’s book.
From time to time, independent research firms carry out surveys of financial planners to gauge your opinions of and reactions to the various publications you read. This publication is still only eight editions old – the inaugural edition was published in October last year – but we seem to be making some reasonable headway.
We now find Professional Planner being rated strongly for reader recognition and for how useful it is in the day-to-day running of your business. It’s clearly early days yet, but the indication seems to be that we’re on the right track.
A key reason for this is the engagement we have achieved with readers – that is, if e-mails, responses to our own surveys and spontaneous feedback are anything to go by. But as Peter also writes this month, there are always – always – things that every business can do better, and we’re no exception.
For some time now we’ve been developing a website to support the print version of the magazine. Simply reproducing the print version online is of little practical use to anyone (except, perhaps, for an archive of past articles), so we’re focusing on features and content to extend the range and scope of what we do for you.
A key to the usefulness of the website will be interaction and support from planners such as yourself and, consequently, how relevant the information on the website is to you and your business. We aim to build on the engagement and rapport the print edition is already developing, so we’ll be asking for your input on several fronts. Some time in the next few weeks, I’ll be in touch by e-mail to describe further the plans we have, and outline how you can get involved. I urge you to take the opportunity – the better the input, the better the result will be.
Speaking of reader input, this month we feature a new section, which we’ve called Practitioner perspective. This is designed to give you, as an individual at the coalface of the industry a chance to write about your business, your industry, your colleagues, regulators – in fact, any subject that tickles your fancy.
The first article has been penned by Ross Cardillo, who initially contacted Professional Planner in response to something he’d read and disagreed with. After some discussion, we decided to give Ross the space to air his view. If you, likewise, have got something to say, drop us a line. Details of how to do so are at the bottom of Ross’s article, on page 8.
