7. Your client is making financial choices that could get her into tax trouble or even legal trouble.
8. You suspect that your client has an alcohol or drug problem or some other dependency that could affect his ability to provide for himself or his family.
9. Your client is rude, brusque, accusatory, vindictive or otherwise a pain to work with.
10. Your client repeatedly fails to follow your advice.
Advisors were then asked these three questions about each of the ten problems:
1. During the next year, how likely is it that you'll have a client who faces this kind of challenge?
a. Not likely
b. Somewhat likely
c. Very likely
d. Extremely likely
2. Think of the times when you had a client in this situation who refused to change. What was the result for the client?
a. Very little negative impact
b. Little negative impact
c. Moderate negative impact
d. Severe negative impact
e. Very severe negative impact
3. How do you handle this situation with a client-and how does the conversation go?
a. I don't bring it up, but discuss it if they bring it up.
b. I bring it up, but if they don't want to discuss it I back off.
c. I bring it up and share my full concerns-even if they don't want to discuss it. However, they don't typically change and my relationship with them is damaged.
d. I bring it up and share my full concerns-even if they don't want to discuss it. I'm usually able to get them to change and my relationship with them is strengthened.
Andrew Gluck, a longtime writer and journalist, is CEO of Advisor Products Inc. (www.advisorproducts.com), a Westbury, N.Y., marketing company serving 1,800 advisory firms.