Virtual Advisor

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Virtual Advisor
Tim Fitzpatrick
416-587-3901 contact_at_covirt.com VirtGate at Your
Service
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Slides at covirt.com
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I am not an Advisor
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Why do I Care?

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The surplus society has a surplus of similar
companies, employing similar people, with similar
educational backgrounds, coming up with similar
ideas, producing similar things, with similar
prices and similar quality.Kjell Nordström
and Jonas Ridderstråle, Funky Business
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Customers will try low cost providers
because the Majors have not given them any clear
reason not to.Leading Insurance Industry
Analyst
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Read It Closely We dont sell insurance
anymore. We sell speed Peter Lewis,
Progressive
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Jeff Immelt 75 of admin, back room, finance
digitalized in 3 years.Source BW (01.28.02)
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ForgetgtLearnThe problem is never how to get
new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how
to get the old ones out.Dee Hock
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If you dont like change, youre going to like
irrelevance even less. General Eric Shinseki,
Chief of Staff,U. S. Army
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Why do I Care?

• Money
• LifeStyle
• Family
• Fun Tips and Tricks

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Extreme Version
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Forrest Gump, that great unsung management guru,
anticipated the advent of the disembodied
enterprise
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Don't own nothing if you can help it. If you
can, even rent your shoes
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New VirtualHomeless
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A Virtual operation has no employees or
location, and outsources projects as needs and
scale requires.
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Cottage - Gone 1996Whistler - Gone 1998Office -
Gone 2000Home - Gone 2001
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To Adjust Suite Hotel for 3 months
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No tax 30 days
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Key is TravelPay only for living costs at one
place at a time
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The New WayOur Clients when they see how we
operate, ask how can they do the same? How can
they reduce costs? How can they expand? How can
they work from Florida?
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Whats at the center of all this?
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A laptop But you dont need to spend more than
2,000Get 512K Ram
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Have it all on the road. An office without walls.
To be completely free with all the tools at hand.
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Centrino LaptopsGood for Advisors as they are
light, long battery life, built-in wireless, good
display
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One nice feature is the 6 in 1 Card Reader for
the memory cards from digital cameras.
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Start to think about everything but your
relationships as disposable.
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Laptops break and are stolen
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Software is more expensive than laptop and needs
to be stored somewhere where you can get at it
easily and quickly say by overnight FedEx.
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If you buy software online, then the install
files have to be backed up with the rest of the
data.
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Organize files by year 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001
etc. so that the data from each year fits on one
CD.
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Still, no one has the patience to burn a CD every
night.
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If you have a life partner who travels with
you, they have a laptop, and you can mirror the
data files.
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I do this once per night and use the corporate
version of Save-N-Sync from Peer Software (about
US75)http//www.peersoftware.com
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It takes a few minutes to set up the folders to
sync, and then I just push one button at the end
of the day and it takes five minutes.
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You can also sync from laptop to a home desktop.
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As long as I am working with a Work in Progress
(e.g 2004) folder, I need to burn only one CD.
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I keep a set of data CDs with me, and also mail
a set to our mailbox.
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Other options for backing up are DVDs (6 times
the data of a CD) and a network server.
Advantage of a network server is that it is off
site.
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Rent inexpensive space on a server in a data
center use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to do
the same thing over the Internet. Prefer CuteFTP
for FTP softwarehttp//www.cuteftp.com
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PasswordsHave trouble remembering? What if
your laptop or desktop is stolen?
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Erase e-mails etc. with Passwords. Create a Word
Document with a Password, and then store the ones
you need to remember in Word Document. Same
with credit card info.
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Networking FirewallsWas a pain breaking down
and setting up network at every location
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No more thanks to Wireless.
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We travel with a Linksys wireless router model
WRT54G (119) , and one short cable
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Just plug Router into the hotel jack, or cable
modem, or ADSL modem, and presto, instant
wireless network
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There are b systems and g wireless
frequencies but g is five times faster.
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Centrino is excellent technology and the
advantage of Centrino is that the notebooks are
lighter with more battery life, but they have the
slower b protocol. You just know there is a
Centrino g around the corner.
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Wireless SecurityToo large a topic for
here.Communications are encrypted and one option
we use is that the router is configured only to
allow the MAC Address of the PCMIA cards in our
machines.
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Wireless Security Practices Linkhttp//www.ars
technica.com/paedia/w/wireless-security-howto/home
-802.11b-1.html
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Finding high speed is becoming less of a problem
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Marriott Says100,000 rooms now wired with
free high speed Internet.
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March 26, 2004 President Bush sets National
Priority for universal High-Speed Internet Access
for everyone by 2007
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Hot Spots? A Starbucks, McDonalds, or hotel
puts in a wireless router, your computer detects
it and you login.
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Companies are now springing up to link hot spots
together. One says they are going to put a
receiver in every phone booth in New York City
blanketing the city.
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Some Hot Spot Linkshttp//www.ezgoal.com/hotspot
s/wireless/http//www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/
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With no Home or Office, where do we get
mail?MailBox Etc.
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As we travel, we need someone to pick up the mail
every so often, deposit cheques, and if
important, fax certain items such as invoices.
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Inbound Faxes www.J2.com US 15 a month
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Personalized local telephone number in your
area.Receive faxes by email in TIF format
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J2 provides excellent free software to read faxes
and play the messages.
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J2 also sends Voice Mail by e-mail, you record
message.Then, with your document manager, you
can file the voice message.
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Outbound Faxes Rare these days.Used to use
the fax software through the modem, but it was a
pain organizing everything into one PDF.
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J2 offers Fax compose software where you can
attach multiple documents in different formats --
Word, PDF etc. and push the button and it goes by
Internet. You then get an e-mail back with the
confirmation. It costs US.10 a page, which
includes long distance, but it saves so much time.
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WritingandSigning Letters
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We dont have printed stationery. Graphic
artist designed a header for the logo and footer
which we use in Word template.
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Graphic artist also scanned a signature and I
have that in blue as a graphic file.
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After composing in Word, I then print to
Acrobat PDF. Getting the software for an
Acrobat PDF writer is a must.
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Can then fax or e-mail that letter or contract.
Normally e-mail in PDF and client prints and
signs, and faxes back which I receive paperless
again by J2.
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I then confirm by sending them back a copy of
their fax by e-mail.
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PhonesCell Phones of course, with North America
Long Distance package.
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TipObtain 800 numbers at 9 cents a minute, with
no fixed charge. Forwarded to cell, and one to
the J2 fax number.
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I travel with a cheap 900 Mhz phone with me with
a headset. If I have a direct line, I forward my
cell there and so the 800 number forwards to the
cell, the cell to the land line. All three are
with different companies.
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If in a cell dead zone, I forward to the J2
number and receive by e-mail.
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Blackberrys Etc.
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Face to Face Meetings
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We have never met most of our clients in person,
and yet we have sold, installed and support an
administration system. Clients love our service.
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Objections are overcome just with a 15 minute
online web camera meeting at the outset of the
relationship, even if it is just one way and they
can only see me.
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WebEx charges a flat monthly fee for the number
of simultaneous connections you can have at any
one time, and then anyone in the company can use
it.http//www.webex.com
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There are scheduled meetings and instant meetings.
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I can share any application such as Power Point,
Excel, Web Browser, carrier software etc. or my
Desktop.
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I can make the other party the presenter, and
they can show me in their application what they
are doing and I can guide them.
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Web Cams
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Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks Pro
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SightSpeed

• US4.95 a month, but other party needs
  subscription
• Full Screen Mode
• Branded Web Pages for US54 a month, ans the
  other party just sees you live on your web site.
• http//www.sightspeed.com

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MSN Messenger 6.1 is Free. Both Parties can
see each other.http//messenger.msn.com
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Why does it make sense for us as advisors
to do this?
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"Traditional" advisor, who believes he needs an
office and reliable staff has a hard time
breaking away into virtual model.
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You must be the change you wish to see in the
world.Gandhi
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First step is the decision that you want more
time for leisure and your family, and that you
want to lower expensive drastically, and that you
want to be more productive.
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In every industry, companies that do it the old
way will be facing increasing competitive
pressure.
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Tell the staff that in 12 months you are moving
out, and start changing to an office that was
based on notebooks and electronic documents,
devoid of paper. Change the mailing address to
something like Mailbox Etc.
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The goal is to get all documents in electronic
form. File every electronic document you touch in
the client file. If paper with no electronic
source, you can purchase a personal scanner now
with a document feeder, and add to the client
electronic folder.
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Create a routine to scan and shred paper file
incrementally over the year as they are touched,
or find an outside source. Kids might be able
help here over a few weekends. Then shred.
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US Federal Rules of Evidence "A printed
representation of images stored on a video or
digital medium is presumed to be an accurate
representation of the images it purports to
represent."
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If you put in storage, in years you will be just
looking for a safe and secure way to later
destroy.
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Then one day, you pick up your notebooks and you
and your staff begin working at home.
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After a few years you might get rid of your home
as well.
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Keep In Mind Customer Satisfaction versus
Customer Success
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Companies have defined so much best practice
that they are now more or less identical.Jesper
Kunde, Unique Now ... or Never
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Management has a lot to do with answers.
Leadership is a function of questions. And the
first question for a leader always is Not What
are we going to do? Who do we intend to be?
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Create a cause, not a business.
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Thank You
Tim Fitzpatrick
416-587-3901 contact_at_covirt.com VirtGate at Your
Service
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If we have time, we can demonstrate MSN
Messenger with web cams both ways, and take
questions.