Helping Your Clients Through Transitional Times

Mitch Anthony

Where can you provide the most value for your clients? While the answer to this question will be as varied as the number of clients you have, typically you can provide the most value by helping them get through a period of unexpected and often unwelcome change. During times of economic crisis, like the recession we’re currently experiencing, your guidance in helping clients anticipate or deal with the changes they are facing is critical. 

Looking for the Warning Signs

A life-change event is a very personal transition––and there is usually a financial element associated with it. This element is the one that opens the door and gives you the opportunity to provide counsel to your clients at a time when they really need it. Because your client may not necessarily realize they need your advice, it is essential that you know your clients well enough to be able to identify the warning signs.

If you are aware of the basic changes that your clients are going through and have raised your antennae to the predictable changes, you can increase the value of your relationship with clients by “being there” as partner, guide, and educator as they navigate through turbulent waters.

One of the biggest reasons advisors need to keep in touch with their clients is to stay top-of-mind by having their antennae attuned to each client’s problem space. The reason that you want to be in that position is because your clients really need your services on their schedule––not on yours. You need to be able to identify the warning signs because your clients may not seek out your help on their own.

When the unexpected occurs in your clients’ lives, they are going to want all of the advice they can access, whether they realize it or not. For those advisors who believe that they only need to update their client information once or twice a year, who will their clients turn to when something unforeseen––like the loss of a job––happens in the interim? This doesn’t mean that you have to be on the phone every month like an ambulance chaser looking for accidents, but you should have a regular communication schedule to help you keep in touch with your clients in both good times and bad. Your clients need to know you are there for them.

Helping Your Clients Through Unexpected Transitions

Most of you are experienced when it comes to discussing the financial consequences of an unexpected life change. Advisors are often called upon to deal with divorce, unemployment, and financial catastrophes like the ups and downs of the current market. You are asked by your client to do something because a life change has required a financial transaction of some sort. During these times of transition and uncertainty, your clients see you as the voice of reason. 

Transitioning from one life stage to another can be an incredibly emotional passage. When moving from one phase of our life to another, we experience movement and change. Our ability to leave the past stage behind and embrace a new stage is often a function of acceptance, rationalization, planning, and goal setting.

Financial life planning is, in part, the process of anticipating and understanding both the normal and exceptional transitions that clients are likely to experience. We can help our clients through this journey by showing our sincere interest in their lives and by providing sound financial advice that connects directly to the transition issue(s) they are experiencing.

There are financial implications accompanying almost all of our life changes. The opportunity for you as a financial advisor to reposition yourself as a financial life planner comes in making your clients aware of the specific financial implications of every potential life transition relative to their lives. This allows you to open up the discussion on life transitions and financial life planning. After all, as a financial planner, it is your job to acquaint your clients with the potential fiscal problems that changes create––whether it’s the predictable transitions we all go through or the ones we least expect.

Approaching each life transition as a financial issue gives you the right to carry the discussion further and puts you in a position to also provide your clients with sage advice to help them get through trying times.

Adapted from Your Clients for Life by Mitch Anthony (© 2008 Mitch Anthony). Available at http://www.mitchanthony.com/BOOK_Clients_4_Life.html.

Mitch Anthony is the founder and president of Advisor Insights Inc. and The Financial Life Planning Institute, training companies serving advisors and the financial services industry. He is the author of several books for advisors including StorySelling for Financial Advisors. Mitch’s newest book, The Cash in the Hat is available from Insights Press (http://mitchanthony.com/BOOK_Cash_in_the_Hat.html). Mitch Anthony is a contributing editor for Research magazine and his column “Financial Life Planning” appears in Financial Advisor magazine. He has been named a “Mover & Shaker” by Financial Planning magazine and is frequently quoted by the media as an expert on financial life planning.

Contact him at mitch@mitchanthony.com.

© 2008 Mitch Anthony