Serving women investors was once considered a boutique business. Today, it is imperative for success. Based on the findings of the 2011 Sullivan Trust Study, the guidebook reveals that women now yield unprecedented economic and financial clout--making up nearly two-thirds of the U.S. work force and frequently out-earning their spouses. Yet many advisors overlook their potential, still speaking to them primarily through their partners or husbands, if at all.

How can you compete for this growing market and serve your own women clients more effectively? Women Are Not a 'Niche' Market offers strategies that you can put to work in your own practice, including:

• Assessing your opportunity with this critical market
• Helping women clients feel valued and respected
• Delivering marketing messages that go beyond stereotypes and assumptions
• Gaining professional certifications that position you as a trusted specialist

Destination RIA: What to Expect and How to Prepare is a new independent study published by Pershing Advisor Solutions and produced by FA Insight. It provides wirehouse advisors with a thorough review of the independent registered investment advisor (RIA) model and sets expectations for the experience of working as an RIA.

The study complements An Advisor's Guide to Establishing an Independent Practice, previously released by Pershing. The new study also helps raise the wirehouse advisor?s comfort level with the decision to move toward the RIA model by providing real world illustrations of successful transition strategies. It aims to provide valuable assistance to help determine whether such a move is right for an advisor and, if so, how to make that transition.

Highlights from Destination RIA: What to Expect and How to Prepare include:

• Benefits of the Independent Model
• What it Takes to Succeed
• Ensuring A Successful Transition
• Planning the Transition

Pricing Strategies to Create Growth: An Independent Advisor's Guide, published by Pershing Advisor Solutions and produced by FA Insight, is a new guidebook that examines the leading pricing practices among top advisory firms and provides best practice guidelines to drive profitability.

The guidebook reports that keeping firm pricing in line with the business environment is a practice that is often overlooked. This oversight can be further compounded by the impact of market downturns, thereby increasing compliance burdens and growing human capital costs.

Additional areas of focus in the guidebook include:

• Minimum Fees Protect Profits
• Combination of Pricing Methods May Serve Best
• Communicating the Value Story
• Value-Based Pricing Increases with Firm Size
• Current Operating Environment Illustrates Limitations of Asset-Based Pricing

Pershing' s guide Understanding the New Cost Basis Reporting Regulations is an overview of the cost basis legislation enacted as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (the Act), which requires U.S. broker-dealers to report detailed cost basis information on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) forms annually. Developed as an educational tool for broker-dealers, investment professionals and registered investment advisors, the guide provides new information on the tax rules and reveals how key participants in the U.S. financial services industry will be impacted. Beginning in 2012 for 2011 reporting, the new tax rules will bring the largest change ever to calculating cost basis in the history of financial services.

Topics covered in the guide include:

• Cost Basis 101—A Brief Description
• The Impact to the Financial Services Industry
• Transaction Types and Implications of the New Regulations
• Need-to-Know Information—Complex Transactions
• Changes to IRS Form 1099-B

As the financial markets continue to equalize and investors gain confidence and interest in new opportunities, this new guidebook, published by Pershing Advisor Solutions and Capco, can help advisors to expand on their offering with this primer on the international investing products available and the environments around them.

Globally, major institutional investors have always allocated a percentage of assets to non-domestic instruments as a means to increase portfolio diversification, decrease risk and improve overall investment performance. In the U.S., some of the most successful institutional investors have recently lowered the proportion of U.S. equities in their overall portfolios while growing their investments in developed and emerging markets. As well as investing in various geographical regions, these investors have also enhanced diversification by investing in instruments other than equities, including expanded opportunities across different industry sectors.

Our guidebook helps hedge funds create plans that can minimize financial loss and the negative effects of downtime by reacting swiftly and methodically when confronted with unexpected business disruptions.

Pershing Prime Services and EzeCastle Integration, Inc. have developed Establishing Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans: A Hedge Fund Manager?s Guide to help you create effective plans that can minimize financial loss and the negative effects of downtime on your firm?s strategic plans, marketing position, operations and reputation.

You stand at the threshold of one of the biggest decisions in your career: to leave the limitations of big company life behind, and head out on your own as an independent advisor. The opportunity to set your own game plan, retain more of the revenue you generate, and build equity in your own future is exciting. The possibilities are endless, and so are the questions: What business model should you choose? How should you structure your firm? How will you keep abreast of perpetually changing legal and regulatory requirements? How do you determine your first hire?

Pershing Advisor Solutions can help. A growing number of your peers have completed this transition successfully. Drawing on their experiences and on the insights of leading business, legal, and technology professionals will help you with your decisions. We tapped into our wide network of industry experts and extensive in-house knowledge to create this guidebook, which offers a broad introduction to a number of critical concepts and provides a framework to help you make key business decisions.