Updates Posted for Tailwind Web Site and Applications

Tailwind is pleased to announce a number of enhancements designed to make Tailwind more useful than ever to you and your clients.

Changes to www.tailwindfs.com

• A Video section has been added to the web site. This page will contain product and feature videos, tutorials, and recordings of events such as webinars. There are a small number of videos available on this page now, and the collection will be growing shortly. To view Tailwind videos, go to http://www.tailwindfs.com/video.

Changes to the Advisor and Client Applications

• The Guided Interview feature, released in January, has made the client’s task of filling out the confidential financial questionnaire much easier. Since its initial release, the Guided Interview has undergone some minor upgrades designed to make the questionnaire even easier to fill out. Changes include bug fixes and procedural changes designed to make the interview questions easier to understand.
• The advisor can now delete cases from the Tailwind main screen by simply moving the mouse over the client’s name on the Tailwind main screen and clicking “Delete Case” on the popup menu. Exercise caution when deleting cases – once deleted they cannot be recovered.
• For branding purposes, the advisor can now change the logo shown on the Tailwind advisor and client applications. Simply click the “Customize Tailwind” link on the Tailwind main screen, and select the company logo you want to display on the advisor and client screens.

Continuous Improvement – A Part of the Tailwind Experience

These updates are a part of our commitment to continuously improving your experience with Tailwind products and services. We are planning and working more changes. We appreciate all the feedback we receive from our customers; it helps us to decide what improvements we need to make.

More Information

For more information on Tailwind and its products and services, contact us at:

• On the Web: http://www.tailwindfs.com/contact
• By Phone: (877) 871-1414

Tailwind Web Site Receives Significant Updates

The Tailwind Financial Solutions web site (www.tailwindfs.com) has undergone a significant update. It now features a video introduction on the home page and easy-to-access links and buttons to get to key product and service information. The information web site visitors is now easier than ever to find.

Stay tuned for a major product announcement coming soon.

We’ve Moved!

Tailwind is proud to announce that it has moved to a new location in order to better serve our clients’ needs. Our new address, which is reflected on the web site, is:

800 Bellevue Way NE, Suite 400
Bellevue, WA 98004

Our phone number is still the same: (877) 871-1414.

Financial Advisors: Become More Valuable To Your Clients. Try Tailwind for Free

The greatest value you provide for your clients is your ability to put together a course of action for them to reach their financial goals. The things you do to get there - collecting your clients’ financial information, running calculations, communicating effectively with your client – are critical to earning your clients’ trust.

Tailwind Financial Solutions is in the business of equipping you to earn your clients’ trust more consistently and efficiently. Tailwind will help you:

• Collect The Data You Need: Tailwind’s secure online financial questionnaire allows your client to provide their financial data to you over the internet. And when it’s time for your client’s follow-up meeting, all your client will need to do is update their financial data rather than give it all to you again.
• Eliminate Double-Entry: Perhaps nothing is more aggravating than having to enter the same data into several different systems. To eliminate this problem, Tailwind is integrated with the MoneyTrax Spending Game™, allowing you to instantly import your clients’ financial data straight into the Spending Game™ with just a few mouse clicks. Tailwind also lets you download and save your clients’ contact information into your email program, contact manager, or CRM.
• Stay On Message: Tailwind is integrated with the MoneyTrax Circle of Wealth® process. Without going to another program you have instant access to a wealth of instructional content made by MoneyTrax, including video and audio of Don teaching the Circle of Wealth®.
• Know What’s Next: Tailwind’s workflow features keep you and your client informed on the status of their case. And Tailwind instantly gives you instructions on what do to next as you open your client’s case.
• One-Page Summary: Once your client’s financial data has been entered you can open the Advisor Summary Report – a one-page report containing key financial information and calculations reflecting your client’s current financial condition. This report can save you hours by doing calculations you would normally have to do manually.
• Know Your Client’s Communication Style: You want to make sure you’re communicating effectively with your client and their spouse. The Insights Profiles – a personality assessment system – is integrated directly into Tailwind.

 

Get Started Now!

If you’re looking for a way to build your clients’ trust more consistently and efficiently, then you need to get Tailwind. We’re so confident that we can help you become more valuable to your clients that we’re currently offering a 30-day free trial. Simply contact us by clicking now on the Request Demo button below or by calling us at (877) 871-1414. There has never been a better time to get started.

Tailwind Imports Data Directly to the Spending Game

We are very pleased to announce that Tailwind data imports directly into the MoneyTrax Spending Game^®. Please join us for a Special Webinar to show you what’s new:

Date:        Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time:        9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Pacific (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern)

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/671583819

System Requirements:
Windows^® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Mac OS^® X 10.4 (Tiger^®) or newer

We have received lots of excellent feedback and suggestions from our Charter Subscribers on how we can improve Tailwind.  And we know you all have been waiting to see the Spending Game^® direct import feature.  We are grateful for your patience while we’ve worked with Jeff Hopper to get it right. 

We are very pleased to announce that the Spending Game^® / Tailwind direct import feature has been completed and is now available to all Tailwind subscribers.  

During this webinar, we will be doing a live demonstration of the Spending Game^® / Tailwind direct import feature in action.  You’ll get to see how quick and easy it is to setup your Spending Game^® cases using Tailwind.

We look forward to having you attend this event.

Sincerely,
The Tailwind Team
P: 877-871-1414
info@tailwindfs.com
www.tailwindfs.com

Tailwind Update Posted

In response to user feedback, an update to the Tailwind advisor and client applications has just been posted. The main changes in this release are as follows:

Advisor Application (https://advisors.tailwindfs.com)

• The popup menu next to each client listed on the main menu now has two options for opening the client’s case:
  Open Case, which opens the instruction page for the next step to be completed in the case; and Open Case to Last Viewed Screen.
• The default action (when you click on the client’s name on the main window) has been changed to open the case to the instruction page for the next step.
• The application now supports US and Canadian addresses.
• The application now supports Canadian customers.

Client Application (https://clients.tailwindfs.com)

The application now supports US and Canadian addresses.

If you have questions about Tailwind Financial Solutions or our products, don’t hesitate to contact us by going to http://www.tailwindfs.com/Contact.htm

The Tailwind Dashboard

Internet Explorer 8 brings a variety of innovative features to your browsing experience. One of the most innovative features is the new and improved Favorites bar, which allows you to add “Web Slices” to it. A Web Slice is in summary a piece of a web page. This piece, or “slice,” can be added to the Favorites bar. And a web slice can inform the user when the content of that slice has been updated.

 

Why is This Useful?

An example for how web slices would be useful is if you were watching an item on an auction site. If the web site supports it, you can add that item to the Favorites Bar, and when its status changes Internet Explorer will show you that it’s changed by highlighting it in the Favorites Bar. Web Slices, in summary, help you keep an eye on the data you care about when you’re not viewing the web site the slice monitors. It does the monitoring for you.

 

Tailwind Web Slice

If you’re running Internet Explorer 8, after you log into Tailwind (making sure to click the “Remember Me” checkbox – more on this later), the left sidebar on the main screen is available as a web slice. Simply move your mouse over the left sidebar on the main screen, and you will see the green Web Slice button appear in the upper left hand corner of the sidebar (see the picture on the left). Click the button, and a dialog will open that asks you whether or not you want to add the web slice. Click the Add button, and a new item called “Tailwind Dashboard” will be added to your Favorites Bar.

Once the Tailwind Dashboard is on your Favorites Bar, you can open it anytime by simply clicking on it. It doesn’t matter what web site you’re currently visiting; when you click on the Tailwind Dashboard, a small popup window will open up over your browser displaying the Dashboard data. The web site you’re on doesn’t go away. If you want to see, for example, which clients have filled out their financial questionnaires, simply click on the ”Questionnaire Filled Out” link in the Dashboard. The browser will open the Tailwind main screen and show you the clients who have completed this step.

 

Highlighted when Case Status Changes

The Tailwind Dashboard will automatically be highlighted whenever the status of cases changes. If, for example, a case moves from “Questionnaire Sent To Client” to “Questionnaire Filled Out”, the Tailwind Dashboard will be highlighted, alerting you that some changes have occurred on your cases.

 

Remember Me Needs to Be Checked

In order for the Tailwind Dashboard to work properly, make sure that you check the “Remember Me” checkbox when logging into Tailwind. That way the Tailwind Dashboard has the necessary information to function properly.

 

Only Available on Internet Explorer 8

This feature is currently only available on Internet Explorer 8, so if you want to take advantage of this feature, please install Internet Explorer 8 if you haven’t already done so. Hopefully we will see other browsers implement this very useful feature as well.

Tailwind 1.1 – Refinement and Expansion

Everyone,

Tailwind 1.1 has been available for about a month now, and based on the feedback we’ve received so far the upgrades we have included have been beneficial to you. We have been listening to your feedback and we have put many of your suggestions into version 1.1. Our goal is to provide the best tools to assist you in collecting and using financial data from your clients, and we appreciate all of the suggestions we have received. We hope that this release demonstrates our commitment to continuous improvement of our products – The tool we provide today is better than the tool you used just a short while ago. And we will improve them yet again in the near future. But for now, let’s talk about what’s new in version 1.1!

You can view version 1.1 in two ways: First, we refined what we debuted at COW College 2009. Secondly, we have expanded the role of Tailwind’s products. We started life as a data collection tool: Now we are a data collection and distribution platform. Because there are lots of changes worth discussing, I will start with discussing one of the major changes in this article and then talk about the other changes in subsequent articles.

The first thing I’d like to talk about is the integration of Tailwind with the Circle of Wealth process. In version 1.0 we included some steps into the product, but in version 1.1 we’ve included all Ten Steps into the Tailwind workflow plus a rich set of instructional materials from MoneyTrax, including tips, videos, audio recordings and supplemental documents.

The integration of the Ten Steps starts on the main screen, where you can see all ten steps available as views on the left sidebar. To the left is a screenshot of part of the main screen sidebar. Notice that each COW step is listed in the sidebar, including a number indicating how many of your clients have last completed that step. To see the cases that just completed that step, simply click on that line in the sidebar, and then click on a case to open that case.

 

 

The case screen in version 1.1 is designed to give you more information instantly. We added a workflow bar which shows you at a glance which phase (Collect, Verify, Leverage, or Implement) your case is in. If a phase is green and checked, that phase is complete. The Workflow bar also shows you whether the case is Open, Completed, Suspended or Canceled; and the number of follow-up flags (items the client flagged for discussion with you).

 

When you move your mouse over one of the phases, a popup menu will open, showing you which steps in that phase have been completed. The Collect phase menu is shown on the left. You can check or uncheck any step to indicate whether or not it’s complete. You can also click on the text of the step to view instructions on what to do to complete that step.

There are other functions also available under the Collect menu. You can send the questionnaire to the client, control client notifications (if you’re filling out the questionnaire on behalf of the client you may want to disable client notifications), and control whether or not to include Insights profiles in this case.

This menu also shows whether or not the Insights Profile reports are available, and when was the last time the client logged in, which is useful to determine whether or not your client is doing their part.

 

Final Thoughts

This is the first of many changes in version 1.1 we’ll be discussing on this blog. Many of you have probably also noticed that some features have been added to Tailwind 1.1 since the release. An example is the Last Client Login indicator, which was added about two weeks ago because a client asked us to put it in. Continuous improvement is a core value at Tailwind, and if we get a great suggestion from you, we will definitely put it on the list of planned improvements.

Tune in very soon for more articles on what’s new in Tailwind 1.1. And if you have a special topic of interest, please feel free to comment on the blog, or contact us as iwish@tailwindfs.com.

Insights Profile Training – March 18th

Tailwind is pleased to announce that Rodney Cox, President of Insights International, will be doing a live training session on how to incorporate the Insights Profiles into your planning practice.

Don Blanton, President of MoneyTrax, will introduce Rodney and offer his views on the value of the Insights Profiles as well.

DATE:                              Wednesday, March 18
TIME:                               10:00am Pacific (1:00pm Eastern)

REGISTER HERE:        https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/596652910

(SPECIAL NOTE TO TAILWIND CLIENTS: In preparation for the Insights Profile training, please have a copy of your personal Insights Profile available during the training session.  If you have not taken the assessment for yourself yet, please login to the Tailwind system and do so prior to the training.  If you have questions on how to do this, please contact us.  You will get more out of the session if you are able to look at your own profile as Rodney walks us through what to look for in the profile and how to communicate it to our clients.)

The objective of the Insights Profile is to allow you as the advisor to quickly and accurately identify your client’s unique approach to four specific areas:

• Decision making
• Processing information
• Embracing change
• Managing risk

With a better understanding of how your client approaches these four areas,  you will establish a deeper relationship and build an environment for effective communication and decision making.

Approximately 45 minutes will be devoted to training, with 15 minutes of Q&A to follow.

This event is open to all MoneyTrax subscribers.

Coming Soon (Integration, Integration, Integration)

While there are a bunch of things in the works, I wanted to let you know about some things that will be ready very soon: Integrating Tailwind with the Spending Game, integrating all Ten Steps of the Circle of Wealth, and the Found Money Report. We believe that focusing on integrating with MoneyTrax products right now is the best thing we can do to make your financial services practice more efficient and effective.

Spending Game Integration
I am very excited about the integration of Tailwind and the Spending Game. Right now if you want to put the Tailwind questionnaire data into the Spending Game, you have to re-enter it by hand – not a lot of fun! But soon you will be able to import Tailwind questionnaire data right into the Spending Game with just a few clicks!

We are currently working with MoneyTrax on this integration, so look for an announcement soon. In the meantime, keep in mind that any questionnaires your clients fill out now can be brought into the Spending Game once this feature is available, so even if you can’t wait for this integration for your current cases, you will be able to use this feature when you follow up with this client at a later date.

Ten Steps Integration
The MoneyTrax Ten Steps is an excellent process for working with your clients. We are currently working to bring all of these steps right into Tailwind. Currently we have implemented steps One (Open-Ended Questions), Three (Client Questionnaire), and Six (Planner Questionnaire). When all Ten Steps are included, Tailwind customers will be able to drive the entire ten-step process right from Tailwind.

As with the Spending Game Integration, look for an announcement on this soon.

Found Money Report
When I talked to people at the MoneyTrax conference, almost everybody I spoke to said that they only use 4 or 5 of the 64 ways to find money. The reason: It takes a lot of time to calculate all of the different ways to find the money. We agree wholeheartedly, and we intend to solve this problem with the Found Money report, which will calculate all of the ways you can find money that can be calculated using the information available in the questionnaire. We won’t be able to calculate all 64 ways, but we will be able to calculate quite a lot of them. I believe this will revolutionize your practice by making information on transferred money instantly available to you once a questionnaire is filled out.

Our expectation is this report will be completed shortly after the Ten Steps Integration and Spending Game integration are complete.