So far so good. But making up for already sustained losses has meant some compromises. It's also been a dose of reality for several generations of investors who envisioned early retirement as their God-given right. "A lot of folks are preparing to postpone retirement," he adds. "This week I saw a 57-year-old client who had planned to work until 60. She told me she's prepared now to work until age 62."

Bugen's firm has been busy running a range of investment scenarios for clients. It's a necessary and responsible way of ensuring that they're realistic about their choices and likely outcomes. The options for many are pretty simple: Invest more, spend less, retire later and/or increase your risk exposure. Bugen's firm details both the worst- and best-case scenarios of more aggressive allocations and all other choices the client may want to make. "It's the client's final decision, but it's my job to ask: 'Do you want to retire on less, retire later or give your kids less?'" says Bugen, who maintains that advisors owe it to clients to run all the numbers and analysis necessary to reduce the chances of a surprise going forward.

"The danger," he says, "is for clients to not have a strategy that gives them a reasonable probability for achieving their goals. If their goal is spend $60,000 a year and they have $600,000 in the bank and Social Security to rely on, they have to realize that they may invade principal pretty quickly. Will that really help them sleep better at night? We have to ask."

Save More It sounds like a no-brainer, but many clients need to improve their cash-flow management, if they manage it at all. While any number of planners think convincing clients to think about how they can find more to invest is a task clients should undertake on their own, other advisors are putting a new spin on the chore, even going so far as to use it to bolster their practices.

"I think it's our job to help our clients find the money to invest to meet their goals," says Barbara A. Clark, a principal in Secure Financial Management, Inc. in Ashburn, Va. Client goals and sometimes their investment gaffs were on everyone's mind at the conference, says Roron Wisniewski, Clark's partner.

To ensure all their clients focus on finding more needed investment dollars, Secure Financial is test driving an innovative online cash flow management system called Mvelopes Personal. Instead of being a check register program, Mvelopes helps clients understand the impact their spending has in real time. It also encourages clients by showing them how diligent spending pays off.

"We're thinking about using this for all clients," says Wisniewski. "They'll get to see the rewards of cash management, and it will give them an immediate sense of how their actions impact their goals. At the end of the month, they'll either have missed their mark or be able to see where they've saved money they can invest or earmark for spending goals," he adds.

It's an interesting tool from which one more clients might be able to benefit. Bugen says he just saw the adult children of an existing client who wanted to build a big addition on their house and start saving for retirement and college, but didn't want to cut back on spending.

"I asked them what they were willing to give up, and they agreed to postpone the addition a year, but that was about it," he says.

Prospective clients may show up at your door, hat in hand, but that doesn't mean they'll all be wiser for their travails.