What’s Jeff Gundlach Thinking; Keep Clients Engaged; Advising Divorcing Women: October Investment Advisor—Slideshow

Jeff Gundlach has made quite a name for himself. After some trouble at TCW, the “it” manager in the mutual fund industry took his firm, DoubleLine Capital, to $43 billion in assets under management. He shares his rock-star strategy with Editor-in-Chief John Sullivan in the October issue of Investment Advisor.

Referrals have long been a major source of new business for advisors. Julie Littlechild, president of Advisor Impact and two-time honoree in Investment Advisor’s IA 25, shares the results of her annual Economics of Loyalty research to show how advisors can efficiently gain more referrals and improve their relationships with clients.

In the October issue, we also bring you the follow-up to Olivia Mellan’s September Graying of Divorce feature. Older women are more likely to initiate divorce than they ever have been: why? And, now that they’re on their own, what do they need from you? Mellan looks at some of the factors that have changed the way women see marriage and divorce, and explains what advisors need to do to protect their relationship with clients who are ending their own.

What’s Gundlach Thinking?

Sure, Jeff Gundlach is given to loud suits, fast cars and quoting Shakespeare. He also has assets under management and a performance record that are the envy of the money management industry. Call him eccentric if you like, but you’d have to follow it with another accompanying superlative (Hint: It rhymes with “zenius”).

The CEO and CIO of DoubleLine Capital is the “it” manager of the mutual fund space, a title he’s enjoyed since being named 2006 Fixed Income Manager of the Year by Morningstar. He sat down with Editor-in-Chief John Sullivan to talk about what he’s doing right.

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Asked and Answered: How to Engage Clients

There is an assumption that if advisors focus on client satisfaction, they’ll grow their business, but research from Advisor Impact finds that’s not necessarily so. There is a tenuous relationship between satisfaction and referrals, but a very strong relationship between engagement and referrals, according to Julie Littlechild of Advisor Impact. She shares the results of her annual Economics of Loyalty research to challenge some long-held assumptions about the drivers of client engagement and satisfaction. That means that seemingly innocuous assumptions might stop us from focusing on those activities that will truly drive growth.

Read the full article.