The ongoing competition to attract and retain an executive clientele requires financial advisors to have a clear and concise value proposition. There are many ways to assist executives including retirement or estate planning and asset allocation, but according to many reports, employee stock options rank at the top of their list of financial concerns. This is because stock options are potentially an executive's most valuable asset and certainly their most complex.

Most advisors are capable of providing an executive with a wide variety of services, but establishing "variety" as your value proposition is not an effective means of differentiating yourself or securing the client. Try focusing your initial value proposition solely on helping them to better understand their stock option position. There is evidence that if you can address an executive's stock option concerns, they are likely to trust you with their other financial issues.

Every option-holders is concerned with determining the best time to exercise their grants and this can be addressed with a minimal amount of time and effort by creating a Personal Option Profile© with StockOpter^® Insight. Value proposition: "simply provide me with your grant summary statement and a couple of assumptions and I will create a risk/reward analysis that will enable us to determine the optimal time for you to exercise and sell your options."

Since the Personal Option Profile© is only a snapshot in time and most executives have grants expiring over many years, conclude your analysis by offering to provide them with periodic updates of this report. Value proposition: "clients of our firm receive an updated Personal Option Profile© on a quarterly basis to help them make timely and prudent decisions over time."

What do the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ Composite all have in common? They are all currently below there levels from the 1st quarter of this year. This means that if you have clients or prospects who exercised and held ISO shares, particularly in February, this is an excellent opportunity to contact them and discuss ISO planning tactics that could save them thousands in unnecessary AMT liabilities.

Whenever the stock price has declined since the exercise of an ISO, it is a good idea to re-evaluate the merits of holding it for ISO capital gains treatment. Watch those equity values over the next couple months and be prepared to advise your clients to make a disqualifying disposition (selling the held shares) prior to the end of the year.

If you would like a refresher on ISOs and AMT or need assistance to evaluate your client's situation contact Greg Fowler at gfowler@networthstrategies.com. If there is demand, we will offer a low cost educational update on ISO planning strategies this fall.