Learning to Dance in the Rain
The world wide economic storms that have raced through the financial markets over the last several months have left many clients concerned that this time was different, the clouds were darker, the rain was heavier and the conditions were more persistent. While the economic toll continues to be calculated on personal retirement plans, pension plans and corporate bottom lines, now more than ever your clients need your guidance. Join with us as Amanda Lang (BNN, Report on Business) moderates this TASTE of MDRT symposium “Learning to Dance in the Rain”. The diversified list of MDRT speakers will present strategies designed to help you take advantage of economic downturns, to motivate and inspire you to find your way through the storms, to have your clients positioned to prosper in the inevitable recovery.
Registration Deadline September 15, 2009!
> Download the registration form > Register Now through Advocis
Moderator
Amanda Lang
 Amanda Lang is the former co-anchor of SqueezePlay, a national program covering business and politics, which airs nightly on Business News Network (formerly Report on Business Television). She is also a columnist for Canada’s premier business magazine, Report on Business, where she profiles the passions of Canada’s business elite. She is uniquely positioned as a commentator on current business news and trends, and also as an observer of North America’s political scene.
Lang grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Ottawa, Ontario. She studied Architecture at the University of Manitoba, before becoming a journalist. Her first job in journalism was for the Globe and Mail, where at the age of 23 she edited a monthly newspaper called The Classroom Edition. Subsequently Lang joined the Financial Post newspaper, where she was a technology reporter before being named the paper’s New York correspondent. In New York she made the leap to television, where she first was part of the team that launched Business News Network (in 1999) and before long wound up at CNN as a reporter and anchor. As the New York Stock Exchange correspondent for CNN, she interviewed everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to heads of state and rock stars. She returned to Canada in 2002 to re-join Business News Network and CTV.
Lang regularly covers topics as diverse as Israeli politics and music copyright infringement, and is equally at home talking to ambassadors as she is talking to movie actors. She has acquired her Canadian Securities Course certificate, and speaks often about business and economic trends. In addition to her work as a speaker, Lang is also a great MC and loves doing it. Her engaging and witty style can be attributed to many years stick-handling the vagaries of live television!
For more information visit www.speakers.ca/lang_amanda.aspx
Key Note Speakers
Brian Burlacoff M.Acc, MBA, RHU, CLU, CFP and Mark Coutts, MBA, CFP, RHU
 Brian Burlacoff and Mark Coutts have helped thousands of financial advisors increase their sales using conceptual selling. They consistently receive top marks from audiences for their dynamic presentations and powerful ideas.
They are co-authors of the book “Catching Fire with Conceptual Selling”, and are also active advisors themselves, with a thriving full-service practice based in Toronto, Canada that includes individual financial planning and group benefits.
 Mark and Brian have spoken across North America, the Caribbean and in Europe, and conducted workplace seminars for some of Canada’s largest corporations
Cary List, CA, CFP,
Financial Planning Standards Council
 Cary List, CA, CFP, brings almost two decades of relevant experience and proven dedication to the advancement of the financial planning profession to the helm of the leading authority and standard-setter for financial planning in Canada.
Throughout his career, Cary has worked hard to ensure appropriate standards for financial planners. He has led FPSC to a strong strategic vision, and under his guidance FPSC has been established as the premier standards-setter for financial planning in Canada. Cary has also been very active in the international community, helping build strong financial planning programs with his Chinese, Hong Kong and Thai counterparts. Under his leadership, FPSC’s standards of competence for financial planning have been adopted as the standard for 120,000 CFP professionals worldwide.
Prior to his appointment to President and CEO in April 2007, Cary was FPSC's Executive Vice-President - Standards and COO. In this capacity, Cary oversaw major developments in CFP standards and evaluation, including the launch of the CFP Practice Standards in 2004. In 2007, Cary was the first non-American to be elected to the board of the National Association for Competency Assurance (NOCA), an organization dedicated to setting quality standards for credentialing organizations.
Daryl Diamond, CFP, CLU, Ch.F.C.
 Daryl is a Winnipeg-based author, educator and advisor on the subject of using your assets to realize the greatest amount of security and satisfaction during the retirement years. He is well-known among his peers as one of the first financial advisors in Canada to identify the special skills and knowledge required to turn accumulated assets into income, while reconciling the varying needs for income and lifestyle as individuals and couples progress through the stages of retirement. He is in demand across the industry to impart his insights and train other advisors in the new, specialized strategies.
Daryl's book, "Buying Time – Trading Your Savings for Income and Lifestyle In Your Prime Retirement Years" from John Wiley & Sons is now in its second printing. It is a consumer-friendly guide which describes the principals employed in his own practice to help clients structure their personalized income and lifestyle plan. His theme of building relationships of trust with clients and incorporating the personal aspects of retirement planning into the financial aspects of asset management is a timely approach to providing financial services.
Daryl is the Retirement Income Specialist for The Knowledge Bureau, a provider of education and intellectual content to the financial services industry, and a consultant to financial institutions across Canada.
D. Scott Brennan
Court of the Table and Top of the Table - MDRT
 D. Scott Brennan, of South Bend, Indiana is a graduate of Indiana University. He has been a speaker at eight MDRT meetings. He is a member of The Quarter Century Club with past qualifications for Court of the Table and Top of the Table. Brennan twice served as MDRT Divisional Vice President and five times as a Committee Chair. He was named Hoosier Life Underwriter of the year in 1998 by the Indiana Association. Brennan is a member of the Association of Advanced Life Underwriting, and is a past President of The International Forum.
He has served his community as a past president of the following organizations: St. Anthony’s Parish Council (three times) and chaired the 1995 capital campaign for the school, and the 1998 capital campaign for the Church; The Downtown South Bend Rotary Club; The Scholarship Foundation of St. Joseph County; Morris Park Country Club; the Indiana University Alumni Club of St. Joseph County; and Beta Alpha Delt Scholars Foundation.
Brennan currently serves on the Board of Directors of The South Bend Symphony Orchestra, and Our Lady of Peace Hospital.
Scotty has been married to his wonderful wife, Robin, for 24 years. They are the proud parents of two adult daughters.
Solomon Hicks
 If you are familiar at all with the life insurance business you know the name Solomon Hicks. He is an internationally sought-after speaker, career coach, and consultant. Most recently he founded Solomon Hicks Financial Services, Inc. and added “author” to his resume. Even after almost 40 years, Sol continues to add exciting and inspiring chapters to his already remarkable life.
For more than three and a half decades, Sol Hicks was an agent with Prudential Financial. He is one of only two agents in Prudential’s 130-year history to have won the President’s Trophy Award—that company’s highest honor—a staggering seven times. (To put that deed into perspective, it should be noted that it took more than 25 years for the other seven-time trophy winner to accomplish his feat, while Sol’s effort took him just 10 years.) He has received the President’s Citation Award 21 times. In addition to that, Sol Hicks is a life and qualifying member of the Million Dollar Round Table, a three-time COT member, and a ten-time TOT member. He was the General Agents and Managers Association’s Agent of the Year in 1998, 1997, 1996, and 1995.
Sol Hicks is the author of two books. In “The Secret Life of a #1 Salesman,” he shares the mindset, values and daily disciplines that lead to success. His other book, “Wise Guys Finish First,” is an autobiographical portrait of overcoming. Sol has been married to his wife Carol for 45 years. He proposed to her the day he met her. She turned him down that day and every day for 84 days after that. She finally accepted on the 86th day and they were wed just four days later. “I consider Carol my first successful sale, and the toughest one. I’m not intimidated by a ‘no.’”
Believing that success is not only attainable but transferable, Sol spends much of his time mentoring more than 130 agents worldwide, including his two daughters, Cynthia and Catina, who recently joined him at SHFS. An astounding 80% of Sol Hicks mentees become top producers.
With nearly four decades of success behind him, Sol says he’s just getting started. “My goal is to finish on ‘E’ for Empty. I want to do everything there is for me to do, and when I’m done, I want people to say, ‘Sol Hicks never gave up, and he always gave back.’”
Julian N. Wise
 Julian entered the financial services industry in 1976 – after producing current affairs television shows and working at the Financial Post. His predecessor firm was Wise Riddell Financial Group and transformed into Wise Advisory Group in 2007. His philosophy of creating value for his clients since 1976 serves as the foundation upon which the firm is based.
Julian interacts with the estate planning and wealth accumulation team in a manner that is intuitive, visionary, and highly original. He has a knack for finding alternatives and discovering unique ways to get things done.
Julian is a former Chair of the Million Dollar Round Table Charitable Foundation in Canada. He served as committee member of the Cultural Advisory Committee of the Town of Oakville, Ontario - and was Chair of The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts.
He is a charter member of the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting – a 300-member group formed to influence the actions of government in relation to issues that affect Canadians’ retirement, estate and protection objectives. He belongs to Advocis - the Financial Advisors Association of Canada - and subscribes to their respective codes of ethics and standards of conduct.
Julian has an undergraduate degree from Emerson College in Boston and graduated from Lower Canada College in Montreal and Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville, Quebec.
He is a registered member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners – whose head office is in London, England.
Julian lives in Oakville with his dogs Lucie and Bentley, and his old cat Masi.
Promises Made. Promises Kept. Since 1976.™
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