Need Help with Fixed Income?

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1 Need Help with Fixed Income? Spire advisors now have access to the marketing, sales and fixed income trading solutions of Fulcrum Point Financial. Fulcrum Point is dedicated to helping financial advisors build their fixed income business. Joining Spire in February 2014, Fulcrum Point provides outsourced fixed income marketing, trading and sales support to independent brokerdealers and large Registered Investment Advisors and clearing companies. Their solution is a highly effective, low cost alternative to building an internal fixed income support solution for firms lacking scale and access to trader talent. Mike Gregson, Founder and CEO, has a proven track-record of building this model at two large financial firms over the past 10 years. "We only offer fixed income securities (including structured products). By focusing on fixed income markets exclusively, our traders and sales staff offer the deepest and most up-to-the-minute view of the bond market," says Gregson. For marketing and sales support feel free to reach out to Mike Gregson at Head Trader Charlie Daniel is available to you fill your client's fixed income needs. Charlie can be reached at

2 Practice Management Corner SpireNet provides a powerful platform that will improve your operations by automating account aggregation, proposal generation, performance reporting and investment management. The newest addition to the program offering is the Liquid Endowment Portfolios. Inspired by university endowment portfolio diversification techniques, Envestnet Research Group developed a portfolio framework with the goal to endure varying market conditions. The model recognizes that, aside from traditional stock and bond markets, there are other sources of return that can compliment an investment policy. Based on that premise, and the need for risk mitigation in down markets, PMC combines a strategic allocation of global asset classes with a tactical component and alternative strategies that strive to guard against rising correlation during market stress. Client's portfolios are 50% strategic, 25% tactical and 25% alternative using five portfolios from conservative to aggressive. To learn more about the Liquid Endowment portfolios go to the research tab in SpireNet and search for Guided Portfolios.

3 Spire Integrates Vonage Business Solutions (1/2) Spire has completed its corporate office introduction of Vonage Business Solutions VoIP Phones. Our new phone system provides both the corporate office team and the Operations Center with advanced call features that make servicing advisors and their clients more convenient. We chose Vonage Business Solutions (Formerly Vocalocity) to bolster our telecom offering by providing tools to our staff and reps that allow them to more effectively handle large call volumes and work remotely. Vonage also brings us new opportunities to build management sciences in to our operations center and large advisory practices with Call Center quality reports, recording, and active call monitoring. We also benefit from advanced scalability and highly competitive pricing. Vonage Business Solutions gives Spire and its reps the ability to rapidly scale up (or down) its phone lines and costs to immediately meet current and future demands. This all comes together to benefit our reps and their clients on all fronts. Spire s executives can now monitor the answer-rates and call volumes in the operations center. Providing us the ability to staff appropriately for the busiest hours and manage to reduce the overall number of missed calls and voic s by tangible levels. The same benefits can be applied to our reps and practices that choose to utilize this system. Determine your busiest days of the week or busiest hour of the day. Study whether your clients are speaking to you, your assistant, or your voic most frequently. Vonage even offers you integrations to rapidly access your clients information the moment they call. Offering you the ability to more conveniently document client conversations in CRM s such as Redtail Technology and Salesforce. We are excited to leverage the tools and new developments that Vonage continues to build on in its new business offering.

4 Spire Integrates Vonage Business Solutions (2/2) Increased disaster recovery and survivability When bad weather strikes our operations team and corporate reps can continue working through thick and thin from the comfort of their own homes. A variety of call forwarding options and virtual receptionists offer flexibility to make sure your calls are answered no matter where you are. If a greater area outage occurs, our phone data center located in Atlanta automatically routes calls to pre-designated backup numbers off of our phone system. Call reporting & statistics Vonage Business Solutions offers Spire a range of analytics to help streamline our operations center call flows. We will be utilizing data on call volumes, busiest call times, missed calls, and repeat calls to more effectively plan coordinate operations team efforts. Quality Assurance and Compliance Call Recording To ensure the best of service and training Spire Operations is utilizing call recording with operations associates and traders. Mobile Apps Are available on the ios Marketplace and the Android Play Store to allow users the ability to take work calls directly on any mobile device with a data connection and manage their voic s, call routing, and call history on the go. PC and Web Integration The desktop application extends all the power and control of the phone system to your computer. Desktop comes with a series of powerful and FREE plugins that boost business productivity and help build relationships. It offers us the ability to track the frequency of callers and can integrate directly in to CRM and web-applications. Our Phone System is available for integration into outside offices as well. Please contact your Spire Relationship Manager to learn more about how we can help you add this to your practice.

5 Operations Corner Utilizing Fidelity Wealth Central; Spire is introducing remote check deposit capability that allows advisors to deposit checks while out in the field. Wealth Central has also updated reporting for client RMD's allowing advisors to find RMD reports with greater ease. Wealth Central, as well as National Financial's Streetscape have both introduced an alternative to faxing documents with their new Document Submission option. This can be found on both platforms by selecting the Service Tab. Pershing has recently updated their system's client access for mobile devices. The launch of NetXInvestor and the sunset of NetExchange Client will improve not only your client's online experience, but their mobile experience as well. This app is already available on Itunes and Android offering clients safe and secure access to their accounts.

6 Compliance Corner Proxy Voting It is a matter of policy that Spire does not vote client proxies. It is extremely important that you carefully mark your schwab, fidelity, and pershing applications clearly asking that all proxy materials be delivered to the client (Except in cases where an unaffiliated money manager/sma is overseeing the account). Check Deposit We want to remind everyone of our procedures for the receipt and deposit of client checks on the behalf of our custodians. This does not apply to checks received from clients for Fee or Financial Planning fees (which should be made payable to Spire). Fee and Planning checks can simply be mailed to Spire's Reston office. 1. Complete the Check Blotter with all information for all deposits received that day. These two documents can be found on the Spire Intranet site. 2. The blotter, along with the copies of the front and back of all checks/ securities and the UPS transmittal receipt should be scanned into _ items for Review > Acct Type = Platform > Reg Type = N/A > Doc type = Check/Securities blotter > Last Name = Branch State > First Name = Branch City Once reviewed and Approved a copy will be returned to your approved folder where you must then move it to the check blotter folder and maintained.

7 Compliance Corner Some things to keep in mind: 1. All checks must be processed for deposit on the day received - but in no case, any later than noon of the next business day. 2. Checks must be in acceptable format (I.e. made payable to the account holder or the custodian, not payable to Spire or the Rep/Advisor, etc). If the check is made payable to the account holder it should be endorsed. If the endorsement is missing notification must go to the client advising that future deposits should be endorsed. 3. For those of you that may be scanning your checks directly to the custodian bank - original checks must be maintained in a secure location for 30 days - After which they should be shredded. Keep in mind that those checks may contain enough information for thieves to hack in to a client's account. 4. All checks must be delivered to either Spire's Reston office, the Custodians, or Sponsor companies through traceable means (UPS, Fedex).

8 Welcome New Team Members! Michael Deemer Assistant Manager, Operations Mike began his career at T. Rowe Price in Since then Mike has worked on the retail side of the operations business and lead institutional trading operations at two different investment banks. He has worked with introducing broker dealers and self-clearing firms. Before joining Spire, he recently worked on the RIA side of the business at FOLIO Investing. Mike grew up in Westchester, NY. and attended Wesley College in Dover, DE. His oldest son shares his middle name with his Alma Mater. At Wesley, he received his BS in marketing and played NCAA DIII golf. He currently lives in Arlington, VA. Brian Moser Assistant Vice President, Compliance Manager Brian, a native of California, recently relocated to the Washington DC Metro area from Palm Springs, CA. He started his career in the Brokerage industry in 2001 with AG Edwards (Acquired by Wachovia and then Wells Fargo Advisors) as a receptionist and worked his way up the branch as a Wire Operator/Cashier, Client Associate, Ops Manager, Assistant Branch Manager, and Branch Manager before becoming Complex Administration Manager. Brian enjoys Domestic and International travel with his spouse, playing computer strategy games, reading and being a foodie.