M A R K E T I N GS O L U T I O N SDigital, integrated, automated content to help you regularly communicate with clients and prospects and grow your business.

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Joe Rep Presents:

WEEKLY ECONOMIC UPDATE

WEEKLY QUOTE“Rules too soft are seldomly followed; rules too harsh are seldomly executed.”- Ben Franklin

WEEKLY TIPIn retirement, one of your goals should be to grow your assets faster than inflation devalues them. You must sustain your purchasing power.

WEEKLY RIDDLERobert will paint unit numbers on 100 storage units today. In the course of painting a number from 1 to 100 on the door of each unit, how many times will he have to paint the numeral 3 today?

Last week’s riddle:Until it is measured it is not accurately known, yet you may miss it when it has flown. What is it?

Last week’s answer:Time.

January 1, 2017

EXISTING HOME SALES ACCELERATE The National Association of Realtors measured a 4.7% gain in residential resales for September, and the annualized sales pace of 5.55 million units was the second best seen since February 2007. Over the past 12 months, existing home sales are up 8.8% with the average sale price up 6.1% (September’s median sale price was $221,900).1

MORE HOUSING STARTS IN SEPTEMBERLast month saw a 6.5% increase in groundbreaking according to the Census Bureau.That brought the 12-month increase in housing starts to 17.5%. The rate of building permits issued fell by 5.0% in September, but that still left a 4.7% yearly gain.2

OIL & GOLD RETREATOn the COMEX, gold settled at $1,162.80 Friday, marking a 1.7% weekly loss. WTI crude dropped 5.6% last week, settling Friday at $44.60 on the NYMEX.3

S&P TURNS POSITIVE YTD; NASDAQ BACK ABOVE 5,000More easing by China’s central bank and strong earnings from tech giants helped equities. The Nasdaq rose 2.97% for the week to a Friday close of 5,031.86. The Dow rose 2.50% on the week to 17,646.70, the S&P 500 2.07% to 2,075.15.3,4

THIS WEEK: September new home sales figures arrive Monday, plus earnings from Cheesecake Factory, MGM Resorts and Xerox. Tuesday brings September’s durable goods report, August’s Case-Shiller home price index, the latest Conference Board consumer confidence index and earnings from Airgas, Anadarko Petroleum, Alibaba, Apple, Big 5, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coach, Comcast, Corning, Cummins,Express Scripts, Ford Motor Co., Edison International, JetBlue, Lexmark, Macerich, Magellan Health, Merck, NCR, Panera, Pfizer, Revlon, Spirit Airlines, T-Mobile, Twitter and Waste Management. A new Federal Reserve policy statement appears Wednesday plus earnings from Amgen, Anthem, AutoNation, Buffalo Wild Wings, Ferrari, General Dynamics, Garmin, GoPro, IMAX, Hanesbrands, HealthSouth, Hershey, Hilton Worldwide, LifeLock, Marriott, PG&E, Norfolk Southern, O’Reilly, Public Storage, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Tesoro, Valero, Western Digital and Yelp. Thursday offers the first estimate of Q3 GDP, a new initial claims report, and earnings from Aetna, Altria, Baidu, Coca-Cola, ConocoPhillips, Electronic Arts, Expedia, Fluor, LinkedIn, Live Nation, MasterCard, Starbucks, Sherwin-Williams, Time Warner Cable, Virgin America and Western Union. Friday, new personal spending figures and October’s final University of Michigan consumer sentiment index are out, plus earnings from Chevron, Colgate-Palmolive, CVS Health, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, Seagate and Weyerhaeuser.

% CHANGE Y-T-D 1-YR CHG 5-YR AVG 10-YR AVG

DJIA -0.99 +5.81 +11.70 +6.99

NASDAQ +6.25 +13.00 +20.59 +13.78

S&P 500 +0.79 +6.37 +15.08 +7.30

REAL YIELD 10/23 RATE 1 YR AGO 5 YRS AGO 10 YRS AGO

10 YR TIPS 0.58% 0.38% 0.50% 1.93%Sources: wsj.com, bigcharts.com, treasury.gov - 10/23/155,6,7,8

Indices are unmanaged, do not incur fees or expenses, and cannot be invested into directly. These returns do not include dividends. 10-year TIPS real yield = projected return at maturity given expected inflation.

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R E T I R E M E N T I N S I G H T Presented by Joe Rep

MONTHLY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE RETIREES

JANUARY 2017

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.”

- Charles F. Kettering

GOLF TIP Figure out where to bail out On approach shots, think about where you want to be if you miss. Most greens slope back to front, so finishing short of the flag usually means an uphill chip or putt with at least a decent shot at a par. On older courses with relatively flat greens, it may pay to be long on the approach, as the traps and water on these layouts tend to be situated southeast or southwest of the pin.

BRAIN TEASER O Brothers, Where Art Thou? Mr. and Mrs. Kelso have six daughters. Each daughter has a brother. So what is the minimum amount of people in the Kelso family?*

DID YOU KNOW? Election Day was made for farmers Ever wonder why elections are held on Tuesdays? Congress made that decision in 1845, when the nation was largely agrarian. Farmers commonly went to church on Sunday and to market on Wednesday; they needed a travel day to get to the polling place in town in between, so Tuesday was chosen as Election Day.4

DOES MORE MONEY MEAN A BETTER RETIREMENT? Is there a correlation between wealth and retirement well-being? Some recent research indicates that greater income does promote greater happiness – but only up to a point, with other factors just as vital. CivicScience, a market research and opinion-gathering firm, has been polling Americans on their level of happiness for the past two years. It finds that retirees are among the happiest Americans, and that affluence is but one element in that happiness. It notes that satisfaction with life seems to peak when people have incomes of between $100,000-$125,000; people at that income level are 12 times more likely to say they are happy than unhappy, but people earning more don’t report being any happier. CivicScience notes that Americans aged 65 and up are 14 times as likely to say they are happy about their lives compared to those in younger age groups. Those describing themselves as “healthy” are 11 times as likely to say they are happy than those who feel they are unhealthy. Those who say they are “very happy” in their job are 21 times as likely to report being happy as those who dislike their job, perhaps an encouragement for pre-retirees who are considering working for a few more years.1

BRACE YOURSELF FOR A POSSIBLE MEDICARE PREMIUM INCREASE Medicare Part B premiums may rise 52% next year for new Medicare enrollees, upper-income Medicare beneficiaries and those who receive Medicare without collecting Social Security benefits. Why? With inflation being so minimal, Social Security is unlikely to receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2016. In years without a Social Security COLA, about 70% of Medicare beneficiaries are protected against Part B premiums rising. That leaves the other 30% to shoulder the burden of any rise in premiums. Those signing up for Medicare in 2016 and current Medicare recipients with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) of more than $85,000 (or more than $170,000, in the case of couples filing jointly) should prepare for a 2016 premium hike, under which monthly Part B premiums will rise to $159.30 from the present $104.90. Medicare recipients with very high MAGIs may end up making even larger Part B payments.2

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey does not count Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from retirement plans as retiree income. As Forbes notes, U.S. retirees may receive up to $266 billion more in income per year than previously thought.3

Michael Costa may be reached at 813-880-5337 or Michael.costa@investfinancial.com

Registered Representative of INVEST Financial Corporation, member FINRA/SIPC. INVEST and its affiliated insurance agencies offer securities, advisory services and certain insurance products and is not affiliated with T Squared Financial.

INVEST has a team of marketing professionals and Relationship Managers who support our advisor and program marketing. Working in tandem with MarketingPro, new materials are developed and deployed on a regular basis. MarketingPro offers an extensive marketing library of over 3,000 professionally written pieces, designed to assist you in retaining and growing your business. These pieces are ready to personalize or private-label.

MarketingPro is much more powerful than a static library. This innovative, fully-automated marketing suite provides Redtail integration,

advanced contact management features, and automated marketing campaigns. Customize and send emails, cards, postcards, letters and more, directly from the system. Leverage email “open” data to make informed decisions so you send the communications that drive the best results. There’s even an add-on feature to automate your social media posts to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

With MarketingPro, you will maximize your efficiency so that you can focus more of your valuable time on your clients.

DIGITAL, INTEGRATED, AUTOMATED

MARKETING

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Marketing Basics1

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Marketing Basics is a library of fillable PDF and Word templates, located on the Marketing tab of the INVEST website. The pieces are free for any INVEST rep to personalize. Reps can drop in their logo and enter their info into fillable form fields. They can then save the PDF to their computer, send to compliance for review, and print on their own or use electronically.

a Business carda Letterheada Envelopea Account review postcarda Invitation postcards and flyersa Bio brochurea Rollover flyera Financial planning brochurea 4 and 8 page financial frofilesa About INVEST flyera Required signagea and more

MarketingLibrary provides around-the-clock access to thousands of professionally pre-written pieces – articles, economic updates, letters, invitations, social media content and more. The system integrates seamlessly with INVEST compliance, making submission and approvals easy.

a Weekly, monthly, quarterly economic updatesa Library of emails and lettersa Retirement newslettersa Financial articlesa and much more!

MarketingPro makes building relationships and staying in front of clients and prospects fast and simple. The system includes everything in MarketingLibrary, plus integration with RedTail or Salesforce, pre-built, automated direct mail and email campaigns (with analytics,) contact management features, custom templates, handwriting fonts, and much more. You can even automate your social media posts.

FREE!

MARKETING SOLUTIONS

THE THREE LEVELS OF INVEST MARKETING SUPPORT

By offering you the latest in marketing tools and resources, we continue to meet our goal of making your life easier, your marketing efforts more successful and your business more profitable.

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We don’t just give you access to a library full of marketing material—we show you how to use it.

INVEST’s exclusive Marketing Action Plan (MAP) delivers a comprehensive, online marketing plan interface that details how to put all that high-impact content to good use. Updated monthly, MAP includes tips, ideas, and strategies, all linked directly to the materials you need for fast, easy access.

• Client communications from MarketingPro like economic updates, newsletters, and emails

• Prospecting activities• Business awareness/promotion• Marketing campaigns• Client appreciation resources• Marketing tips• Referral suggestions

The MAP is located right on the INVEST website for easy access. We’ve done all the preparation for you—just read the suggested activities for the week, click on the links to get further detail, and follow the steps provided.

Think of MAP and MarketingPro as your all-in-one automated marketing system!

MARKETING SOLUTIONS

MAP: MARKETING ACTION PLAN

Clicking the links on the sample MAP to the right will take the viewer directly to the marketing pieces or provide further

instruction for how to implement the suggested marketing initiative.

MAPMARKETING

ACTIONPLAN

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MARKETING SOLUTIONS

How to Use MAP & FAQsThis Month’s MAP

Send out MarketingPro’s weekly Economic Update to your A & B clients and top prospects. If you subscribe to MarketingLibrary, download the communication and send through Redtail. If you have MarketingPro, you can set it to automatically deploy!

Send out MarketingPro’s weekly Economic Update to your A & B clients and top prospects. If you subscribe to MarketingLibrary, download the communication and send through Redtail. If you have MarketingPro, you can set it to automatically deploy!

Send out MarketingPro’s monthly Investment Newsletter to your entire client and prospect list. If you subscribe to MarketingLibrary, download the communication and send through Redtail. If you have MarketingPro, you can set it to automatically deploy!

Send out MarketingPro’s (article/email/letter) on (Education Funding and 529s) to the segment of your clients and prospects (with kids 12 or under). Segment this group using (Advisor Dashboard/Redtail)

Read this list of ideas and tips to help spur conversation with clients on getting referrals. How many on the list are you actively trying to weave into your client meetings?

Speak at a school for American Education Week this week, and click here if you didn’t see our information last month. Don’t forget to send the press release to your local paper announcing your participation!

Want to be at the top of the search results when someone “Googles” you or your business? Learn how here.

When it comes to social media friends and followers, quality is much more important than quantity. Learn why it’s more important and read tips on gaining quality followers.

WEEK 1

WEEK 3

WEEK 2

WEEK 4

for January 2017MAP

CLIENT & PROSPECT COMMUNICATION:ECONOMIC UPDATE

CLIENT & PROSPECT COMMUNICATION:ECONOMIC UPDATE

CLIENT & PROSPECT COMMUNICATION:INVESTMENT NEWSLETTER

CLIENT & PROSPECT COMMUNICATION:TARGETED MAIL/EMAIL BLAST

REFERRAL TIPS

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

PROSPECTING

YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

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YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE

WEBSITESIn today’s electronic world, 97% of people search for a local business on the Internet to learn more before contacting them. Do you have a professional and robust website? INVEST has relationships with third-party services specializing in web solutions for financial advisors. We can help you establish an online presence that will enhance your business and add value for clients and prospects.

SOCIAL MEDIAImplementing social media in your practice can help build awareness of your brand, deliver your value proposition to more potential clients, and exponentially expand your referral base. Through AdvisorPath—our practice management program—we give you the tools you need to successfully launch and execute your social media marketing.

Through MarketingLibrary, you will have access to pre-approved social media posts that are updated weekly. MarketingPro even offers the ability to automate social media campaigns and pre-schedule your social media posts, taking the manual labor out of keeping your pages continuously up to date!

MARKETING SOLUTIONS

MarketingPro’s automated social media posts, including image

posts, will take the manual labor out of maintaining a fresh, updated social media presence.

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Achieve your client retention and business growth initiatives with MAP and MarketingPro.

MAPMARKETING

ACTIONPLAN

MARKETING SOLUTIONS

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www.investfinancial.com | 12750 citRUs PaRK lane, sUite 300 | tamPa, floRiDa 33625 | 800-242-4732 | memBeR finRa, siPc

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