How to Be an Account Representative for Rising Stock, Inc.
Basically our services have two parts: a monthly Profit and Loss Report, and a monthly coaching call. Consequently, your job has two major parts: assembling that P&L report, and scheduling that coaching call.
Contents
Part I: Basic Setup
Independent Contractor Agreement 2
Confidentiality Commitment 4
Instructions for a Single Client 6
The P&L Report 7
Part II: Step-by-Step
Instructions for Bank Expenses 8
Instructions for Categorizing Expenses with a Client 12
Instructions for Vector Connect, for Managers 15
Instructions for Tabs, for Managers 19
Instructions for Sending Reports 22
Part III: Final Reference Guides
Rising Stock Cheat Sheet 23
Account Rep Expectations 24
Items to pre-categorize before talking to clients 25
Processes 26
BM Summer Program 28
FSM training guide 30
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT
By signing this agreement, I understand that I am self-employed and responsible for my own income tax and self-employment taxes. Therefore, no money is being withheld from earnings that I receive by check upon completion of work. I have received a signed copy of this agreement.
SIGNED DATE
Witness DATE
L. Adam Stock
Rising Stock, Inc.
65 Salem Lane
Evanston, IL 60203
Phone: 773-617-0904
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT
By signing this agreement, I understand that I am self-employed and responsible for my own income tax and self-employment taxes. Therefore, no money is being withheld from earnings that I receive by check upon completion of work. I have received a signed copy of this agreement.
SIGNED DATE
Witness DATE
L. Adam Stock
Rising Stock, Inc.
65 Salem Lane
Evanston, IL 60203
Phone: 773-617-0904
Confidentiality Commitment
By signing this, I hereby commit to the following:
1. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with one client that was received from another client.
2. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with a Rising Stock, Inc. team member that was received from another client.
3. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with a client that was received from another Rising Stock, Inc. team member.
4. I understand that I am a guardian of our clients’ trust.
5. I understand that Trust takes a long time to earn and only seconds to break.
6. I understand that any breach of confidentiality is a major violation of professional ethics.
7. I understand that any breach of confidentiality may have severe consequences on the trust we have with our clients and the viability of our company.
8. I also understand that any breach of confidentiality may be cause for termination.
______
Print Name
______
Signature Date
Confidentiality Commitment
By signing this, I hereby commit to the following:
1. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with one client that was received from another client.
2. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with a Rising Stock, Inc. team member that was received from another client.
3. I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever share information: financial, personal, or otherwise, with a client that was received from another Rising Stock, Inc. team member.
4. I understand that I am a guardian of our clients’ trust.
5. I understand that Trust takes a long time to earn and only seconds to break.
6. I understand that any breach of confidentiality is a major violation of professional ethics.
7. I understand that any breach of confidentiality may have severe consequences on the trust we have with our clients and the viability of our company.
8. I also understand that any breach of confidentiality may be cause for termination.
______
Print Name
______
Signature Date
Instructions (for a single client)
1. Beginning of the month. Log in to http://risingstock.amlibtech.com. Select a client, click “Accounts” and log in to their bank websites to download expenses into an Excel spreadsheet.
2. Using Excel, reformat to our 5-column format, and then copy-and-paste that into our categorization template.
3. Pre-categorize known expenses, e.g. newspapers, rent, et c.
4. Call the client, whatever it takes to get in touch. This call has two purposes:
- Finish categorizing the client’s expenses with him/her
- Schedule a coaching call using calendar.yahoo.com
5. Retrieve the client’s last report from http://gmail.google.com. “Save as…” for the client and month to be completed.
6. Enter Vector Connect information for the month.
7. Enter TABS information for the month.
8. Sort the Client Expenses for the month, and copy-and-paste into the P&L report. The report is now complete.
9. Email the report as follows (format is important)
To:
CC: ;
Subj: Smith – May P&L / Coaching Call: Sunday, June 5 @ 4 PM
· Be sure to use the client’s time zone in this subject line.
· See the form letter for emailing a P&L for email text guidelines.
The P&L Report
Each client has his/her own report saved as “(LastName)-(Month).(Year)”
For example: Gonzalez-May.2004.
And each report is divided into Summary, Budget and monthly worksheets.
The following is a view of the Summary sheet, and it is divided into the following parts:
Instructions for Bank Expenses
This is by far the longest and most complicated of the three processes. Here are the section titles, in the hopes it will help you internalize the process:
Before We Begin
Getting the Bank Login from our Database
Using Bank Websites to Download Expenses
Cleaning Up Bank Expenses
Preparing the Expenses (Pre-categorizing)
Categorizing with Clients
Final Step
Before We Begin
Open the “Categorizer” Excel file for this type of client. (i.e. DM Categorizer.xls)
From the menu bar, click File > Save as…
Name the file so you can tell what it is. I use year, month, client’s last name:
“200604-Stock” would be Adam’s April expenses.
*Make sure you know where you are saving the file!
Notice that this workbook has three worksheets in it. One has the “five-column format”, one is just blank, and one has a list of expense categories, but cannot be changed. We will be using the first two worksheets.
Getting the Bank Login from our Database
Open your browser and go to http://risingstock.amlibtech.com.
Your username will be [FirstnameInitial][Lastname] e.g. Adam Stock is “astock”
Use the password “evanston”
The main page we call, “the checkbox screen.”
Click on the name of the client you wish to download expenses for.
(This launches the “Selected Client” screen in a new window.)
From the buttons at the bottom of the page, click “Accounts.”
Use these links, usernames and passwords to log in to each account.
Using Bank Websites to Download Expenses
Each bank website is unique, and over time you’ll get to know them. They all have some features in common, which is what is covered here.
Sign in. a.k.a. log in. Do so using the username and password from our database.
METHOD #1: Convenient Download Feature
Look for something called “download” or “download activity” or “download csv”.
*Not all sites will have this. Many have some form of it.
Use this to get an Excel-friendly version of this account’s activity.
Enter the first date of last month and the last date of last month.
e.g. from 4/1/2006 to 4/30/2006
Copy and paste from what the website will generate onto the “Space to Reformat” worksheet in the Categorizer.
Skip to the next section, Cleaning Up Bank Expenses.
METHOD #2: Copy-and-paste method
If there is no account download, look for “view account activity” or similar.
Enter the dates as in method #1 if there is a “search activity” feature.
Highlight the expenses you want to copy.
Copy, either using the mouse or using Ctrl+C
Paste, either using the mouse or Ctrl+V into “Space to Reformat” sheet of Categorizer.
Cleaning Up Bank Expenses
Carrying over expenses will leave two ugly problems.
Problem #1: All sorts of colors, merged cells, wrapped text, and odd fonts.
Solution to #1: Select the cells you want to format, and right-click in that space. Click “Format Cells…” on the new menu.
Familiarize yourself with this tool, you’ll use it often, downloading. Make all the cells uniform. *You might want to use Ctrl+A to select the entire worksheet.
Problem #2: Bank expenses do not come in our 5-column format.
Solution to #2: Right-clicking on a column heading will give you several options, including “Insert”, “Delete”, “Cut”, and (after cutting) “Insert Column”. Use these to put the downloaded expenses into the 5-column format we use.
You’ll have to insert a column for “Source”.
Type the name of the bank account in this column.
Use “copy” and “paste” to use the first cell you typed to fill in the others as needed.
Once the expenses are in 5-column format, “cut” those cells, and “paste” into columns B through F on the “Categorizer” worksheet in the same workbook.
Repeat this for all of the client’s accounts.
Preparing the Expenses (Pre-categorizing)
Most of a client’s expenses will be recurring. Consequently, we take notes on any expenses we can always categorize to a particular category without even having to ask.
Before we call the client then, we use these notes to “pre-categorize” what we can.
On the “Categorizer” worksheet, select all by pressing Ctrl+A.
From the top menu, click Data > Sort…
In the window that pops up, under “My List Has” make sure “Header Row” is selected.
Under “Sort By”, choose ITEM
This will put similar items together, to make it easier to pre-categorize.
Now, referring to your notes on the client’s expenses, categorize as many expenses as you can using the drop-down menu in Column G. It takes some getting used to, that’s all there is to it.
· Hate the annoying beep of typing in a category but not having it exactly right? We can turn that off, ask me how.
Categorizing with Clients
At this point, you’ve done all you can do, and now you need the client’s input.
We’ll discuss how to do this, in the next section.
Final Step
The last step is to take these expenses from the Categorizer, and put them into the client’s P&L Report.
Before we do, on the top menu, click Tools > Customize…
Under “Categories:” click format, and scroll down in the right side of the window to where you see “Strikethrough.” Click and drag this button onto your toolbar.
· You can use this window to personalize your Excel toolbar later.
Now, select all (Ctrl+A) and Sort By…(Data > Sort…) SORT a.k.a. Column A.
For “then by” select “DATE” a.k.a. Column B. This puts the expenses in the order they appear in our P&L Report.
Copy-and-paste each expense over into the appropriate category. If any expense category has too many for the space we have on the P&L, insert rows by right-clicking and using the “insert” feature.
Once an expense is copied over, click the “Strikethrough” button. This leaves a paper trail of sorts, while letting us know the expense has been put in the report.
That’s it!
fInstructions for Categorizing Expenses with a Client
The following is a script for the FIRST categorization call with a client – but should be instructive as to how this call should go. After a couple months, the client knows the routine, and after a couple of months working together with the client, the call is likely to be more relaxed and comfortable (while still professional, of course).
FIRST CATEGORIZATION CALL:
“Hi, [client] this is [rep] calling from Rising Stock, how are you today?”
“Is right now a good time to talk?”
“Cool. Okay, since I’m your account manager, it will be my job to put together your report each month, and schedule your coaching call with [coach].”
[“Categorize” “Coaching Call” and “P&L Report” may be new vocabulary for them… please be aware of this.]
“I’d like to take a minute to review with you how this process works.
“The first week of the month I’ll call you to go over any expenses we don’t know about, and to schedule your call with [coach].
“Then, I’ll email your report to you the day before your coaching call.
“You and [coach] will have your call, leave that call with any action steps to do, a new month will begin, you’ll hear from me to go over expenses and set up your next coaching call, and so on – so the cycle repeats each month.”
“So you can expect to hear from me in the first week of each month, to go over your expenses and set up your coaching call. Usually this will only take 5 or 10 minutes – we’ve designed this to be quick, so it makes sense for you to do it right away -- so it’s off your to-do list and so you’re on track with your finances.”
[You’re talking a lot – make sure they’re still with you, psychologically]
“What I’d like to do now is review your expenses. This first time is going to take a little longer, as I get to know you -- what I’d like you to do, is to let me know anytime an expense is always going to be a certain category.
“For example, Office Max is always going to be office supplies, right? So that’s an easy one, but if there’s a restaurant that you know is always going to for business, or an expense that’s always going to be office utilities, please let me know that, as we go through these.”
“The more you can tell me about your expenses, the faster and easier this will be each month.”
“Also, if there is something unique about your situation, like someone else pays newspapers, or anything else that relates to your finances, please let me know, as it crosses your mind. The idea here is to capture every income and every expense.”
“Shall we begin?”
[Review expenses with client, making notes in column H.]
[Finished categorizing expenses.]
“Great. And actually that was the last item I needed to ask you about. Like I said, every other month from now on, that will be a real quick phone call.
“Now, if you have your planner, we can schedule your first call with [coach].”
“The call will be a half-hour.”
“[Coach] has time available on [whenever Coach usually has available] … would [time 1] or [time 2] work for you?”