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In the Financial Advisory Space? Stop Using These 7 Words
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- June 1, 2024
2 CommentsSpace may be the final frontier, but it has no place in your business vocabulary. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve come across references to the “private equity space” or “ultra-high net worth space” in our client’s presentations, guest columns or podcast interviews. PLEASE STOP! The word “space” is a prime example of
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What Constantly Canceling, Rescheduling Says About You
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- May 5, 2024
As a trusted advisor, most of you would never think of canceling or rescheduling meetings with clients at the last minute unless it was an absolute emergency. But when you constantly reschedule with your team, your prospects, your strategic partners, your vendors, your consultants and even your family, you could be doing irreparable harm to
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What March Madness Teaches About Our Biases
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- March 25, 2024
With the first week of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament (aka #MarchMadness) in the books, many of you are lamenting your “busted brackets.” Don’t feel bad. An estimated 30 million people painstakingly fill out their tournament picks every year, and there has never been a verified perfect bracket. The closest to perfection came in 2019, when a
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Why It’s Hard to Edit Our Own Writing?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- March 7, 2024
Simple steps for breaking through Whether you have three books to your credit or agonize over a monthly blog post, there are at least a dozen reasons why it can be challenging to edit our own writing effectively. How many of these traps below sound like you? If you answered, yes to three or more,
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Irregardless, I Could Care Less
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- February 7, 2024
Most of you are armed with grammar apps, spell checkers and AI. But we’re still seeing plenty of grammatical fumbles in your submissions. Take the word “irregardless.” It’s frequently misused because it appears in most dictionaries and sounds more imposing than simply saying “regardless. ” By adding the prefix “ir” (which means “not”) to a
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Don’t Set Resolutions Yet
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- January 5, 2024
Ahh the Holidays. We ate, drank and spent too much. We let too much work slide. We let family relationships fray. It’s natural to want to get back on track and make amends. But our minds and bodies aren’t ready for significant behavioral modification yet. Instead, use this time to test-drive your resolutions so you
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Does Word Count Matter?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- December 14, 2023
Rarely a week goes by when a nervous financial professional doesn’t reach to me for help with a last-minute guest column for the business media. With a deadline bearing down, the thrill of being a guest contributor has been replaced by the anxiety of “what am I going to write about and how will I/we
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When to Use i.e. Instead of e.g.
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- November 18, 2023
Sometimes I regret that I didn’t take Latin in high school. But there was only one Latin teacher to choose from in our small school. Supposedly he was a monster, i.e., he was a brutal grader, with a bad temper and breath to match. Still, it would have been good to know the derivation of
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Where vs. In Which?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- October 18, 2023
A well-known financial professional seemed to be hedging her bets in a recent piece she sent to us for review. Right off the bat, three sentences rubbed me the wrong way (but apparently not her Marcom team): It’s a win-win situation where the firm can provide higher-quality services, and the clients achieve better financial outcomes.
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That or Which?
- by: Hank Berkowitz
- September 29, 2023
A well-known financial advisor recently asked us to update the manuscript for a book she published a few years ago. In the opening acknowledgements, three sentences using the word “which” didn’t seem right to me: “There are still a myriad of products which simply must be purchased through traditional selling methods.” “We can only sell
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