It’s common for advisors’ clients to become widowed, but that doesn’t mean advisors always know the best way to approach someone dealing with loss and adjusting to a new life, said Susan Bradley, the founder of the Financial Transitionist Institute, to a room full of advisors at Financial Advisor’s 9th Annual Inside Retirement conference in Las Vegas Wednesday.
When clients remarry or find a new significant other, advisors can often find themselves in trouble. “Even the very best firms who never lose clients will lose them when clients repartner,” said Bradley, a veteran CFP who gave up her practice 18 years ago to begin working with investors and advisors facing life-altering financial transitions.
To work more effectively with clients in transition, Bradley uses research from the fields of neurology, psychology, sociology and adaptive training theory, and she’s built a suite of tools and protocols advisors can tap to work more effectively with widowed clients. To help address advisors’ need for such information and training, she created the Certified Financial Transitionist designation, which is now being offered on five continents (www.financialtransitionist.com).
If clients have lost a spouse, Bradley says advisors should not overwhelm them with reams of flow charts, copious reports and long meetings.
Instead, if the clients have adequate cash flow, their advisors should give them a time out from nonessential decision-making, offer simple cash flow reviews and ask the clients what their communications preferences are.
A simple, one-page chart Bradley recommends using with widows shows just three blocks of client wealth: assets, income sources and family ownership of assets. “This simple way of presenting information is more than 600 percent more effective than long, elaborate financial reports, and I’ve gone back to check that research many times,” she said.
Clients in the throes of grief may tend to disengage and hesitate to make decisions; any pressure you put on them to act can be disconcerting. The stress they’re likely feeling can cause short-term cognitive impairment, which may make it difficult for them to make decisions, she said.
“There are two sides to money—technical and personal,” she said. “Both sides are equally important, but advisors forget that it’s the personal side that drives client decision-making.”
One thing advisors can do, even if clients seem paralyzed, is make regular phone calls just to check in. “But if you say you’re going to do it, really schedule it and do it,” she said.
If you never know what to say to clients in mourning, Bradley says it’s important to be authentic, but to not ask sweeping, open-ended questions that may trigger clients’ emotions unnecessarily. “Instead of asking widowed clients: “How are you?” Bradley suggested that advisors ask: “How are you today?”