These days, advisors need all the communication tools they can find.

Long-time planner Kyra Hollowell Morris has started holding regular group bagel breakfasts for clients-a Saturday morning get together that allows both planner and investors to shoot from the hip when it comes to opportunities and concerns.

"We started out with five people the weekend after 9/11 and just had about 40 attend a few weeks ago. They appreciate the opportunity to support each other," Morris says. "They really want to know that we're doing all we can, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, even if it's not immediate, and that they're not missing anything. My message is, I want them to keep doing what they should do, but we explore all the other possibilities," says the planner, president of Morris Financial Concepts in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.

As more planners nationwide are learning, knowing what to say to clients and how to say it at this crucial time is no easy matter. With three years of negative returns eating away at investors' portfolios and the war in Iraq happening in vivid real time, the stock market's continued volatility and the lack of clear-cut alternatives has been frightening. What to buy, what to hold and when to fold has been every advisor's most pressing strategic challenge. Turning their response to the challenge into a steady, consistent and heartening message for clients is every bit as critical.

Ask yourself this: Do your clients really know you're doing everything you can to preserve their wealth? Do they know where and how you're adding value to their financial and investment plans? Do they know that the stock market will turn around, just as surely as it crashed, even if no one can say exactly when?

As you'll see, some of our advisors use common sense and straightforward dialogue to illustrate these points. Others use historical market performance and relevant data. Still others take their cue from clients themselves. And some advisors use everything they can get their hands on to ensure that clients know the firm they employ is working hard for them. Here are the methods and messages advisors across the country are delivering to their worn and weary clients.

Put It In Context

Allowing clients to try to figure out what's happening to their portfolio without the context of stock market history is unfair at this time. How bad are things really? Are they as bad as they might get? Are they better than you, the planner, told clients, they might get?

It's a great time to remind clients that stock market history is actually on their side when it comes to booms and busts. "We're using data that shows that there has been only one time in the last 100 years where we had negative returns four years in a row (during the Great Depression the market was down 1929-1932)," says Bellevue, Wash.-based advisor Michael W. Boone, president of M. W. Boone & Associates. "It lets people know that this is an extremely rare occurrence for markets to be down this amount of time."

The advisor also uses charts and graphs, for instance, to show that if Nasdaq regains its high of 5000, investors will earn average annual returns of near double digits-even if it takes well over a decade to fully rebound. "I think it's important to get clients' focus off today's news and back onto the fact that their investment horizon is 10, 20 or even 30 years," says Boone. "I'm also pointing out that they're actually buying at 1997 prices."

Still, Boone admits that it is a constant uphill battle to keep clients focused on the future. When he asks them which is a riskier proposition, buying stocks in 1999 (before the bust) or now, they invariably tell him: "Now." "It's crucial," he adds, "that we continue to explain that it's much better to buy in a valley than at the peak, so it doesn't take them a decade or more to recoup potential losses. We definitely have investors trying to do the worst thing at the worst time. It's as true today as it was in 1999."

If You Add Value, Shout It From The Rooftops

There's enough bad news to go around. Don't be afraid to tout the good news, too. Especially when your firm is responsible.

Boone for example, is generating 2% to 3% returns for clients on a net-of-fees basis. "We're doing really well in a hard market. We're not only paying for ourselves, but we're adding value. If we couldn't add bottom-line value, our clients would essentially be paying for birthday cards and flowers for Christmas, and they'd be paying too much," Boone says.

William Michael Guthrie, a planner in Pittsburgh, outperformed the markets on the growth and growth-and-value sides, underperforming just slightly on the value side. "My goal is controlling risk and volatility. I'm not trying to hit home runs," Guthrie explains. "We add value by coupling low volatility with consistent returns and tax efficiency, and that's what I tell clients."

It really is critical that you tell clients what it is you're doing for them. Communicate news about new products and services to your clients. Whether you're offering tax preparation, real estate analysis, a hedge fund or insurance, make sure to get the word out to clients.

Sometimes just the art and science of communicating itself is what is important. Morris says her Saturday morning bagel breakfasts give clients a chance to hash out their concerns. In their February meeting, the group of 40 clients and spouses went step by step through economic news, from gross domestic product to housing starts, looking for answers and new opportunities.

Their final answer? "Diversification," says Morris. "That's where we wound up. It's the old basic of planning. You don't know where you'll end up, so diversify."

Getting Investors To Stay The Course

Michael T. Ryan, a planner with the Professional Planning Group in Westerly, R.I., uses every bit of data he can find to demonstrate to clients why it would be a mistake to get out of the stock market now. His favorite piece is a table showing clients what $10,000 would be worth if they missed the best 10, 20 and 30 days in the stock market from 1991 to 2001. If they missed the best 30 days, their investment would be worth $9,918, or under water.

That contrasts nicely with the fact that their $10,000 would be worth $27,526 if they had simply stayed invested the entire period. Clients often respond by telling Ryan they just want to get out of the market now for a little while and that he can reinvest for them when the time is right. "I tell them pointblank that if I could time the market I wouldn't be in Rhode Island, I'd be in the Caribbean on my yacht," says Ryan.

The planner also uses asset allocation to get them to focus on the big picture, rather than any one piece of their portfolio. "I think the asset allocation approach takes the crystal ball out of the equation for them. I tell them that they're always going to have something in their portfolio that they won't like, but their first question has to be: How is the entire portfolio doing?"

To keep investors from locking in losses and instead watching the horizon, planners also are using the fact that surges in the stock market often take place almost immediately when bear markets end, often with little or no warning. For instance, in past bear-market-ending years, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 20% in 1991, 38% in 1975 and 67% in 1933. Get out now and you could miss the best part of the ride, planners are saying.

Read Between The Lines

Listen, counsel and, finally, acknowledge this simple fact: The client is the boss. Several planners we talked to had either lost clients after counseling them to stay invested in the stock market or had allowed clients who could no longer stand the volatility to bail out. The fact the stock market has tumbled almost 50% since the late 1990s has been a telling test for investors' risk tolerance and their advisors' reading of that endurance. "It's one thing to show clients a chart illustrating potential losses of 15%, but when reality strikes, it's different," says Ryan.

"I met with a client last week who was just bereft," says Ryan. "He was almost confessional about it. He said 'I know it's a wrong time to get out, but I just can't take it any more.' I counseled him to think with his head about what he was doing. Most can say, 'Thanks, I'll stick it out.' This client said, 'I understand what you're saying, but my stomach is in knots. I can live better knowing I got out and incurred the losses,'" Ryan says.

He calls it a "misjudgment" on his part to not sense the client's true risk tolerance earlier. Other planners have had nearly exact experiences. Morris lost two clients last year who had tried to pull out of the market, but were counseled by the advisor to stay at least partially invested. That's her best guess as to their reason for leaving, she says, since neither responded to phone calls. "It was sad, since their portfolios have held up nicely."

The lesson? Not all clients are going to have the fortitude to be rationale in the face of a long-term bear market, no matter how well you preach the gospel of stock market history. Say your piece, appeal to their intellect. Ask them to put emotions aside. But be sure it's them, not you, making the final decision.

Go The Extra Step

Smart planners are using newsletters, phone calls, e-mail and Web sites to soothe clients and help keep them on track. Paula Hogan, president of Hogan Financial Management, Milwaukee, says it's imperative to keep the lines of communication open. Hogan is adding short, handwritten notes to the mailings of her quarterly newsletter for clients. "It makes it easier for them to pick up the phone and tell you what they're really worried about. If we don't hear from them, we pick up the phone," she says.

"We're taking the time to acknowledge that these are harder times than we're used to. I don't have a fire drill. It's designed to let the client open up. Some are concerned about job loss, some about war, some that the stock market will never turn around. I tell them we'll be there for them through thick and thin."

Hogan also uses the meetings as a reality check to help clients who need to start thinking about lifestyle choices and tradeoffs, which for some might mean spending less and saving more. "We started preparing them a while ago by telling them how aberrant the bull market was. If we're doing our job, they were ready for this."