The ability to decode investors’ behavioral biases to determine what may get in the way of their financial success can be one of the most valuable tools advisors can use to keep clients investing for the long-term, Rodney Jones, a senior investments leaning consultant at the Franklin Templeton Academy, said today.

Almost all investors have behavioral biases “and if we’re being honest, so do we,” Jones said during a webinar on investor barriers sponsored by the Association of African American Financial Advisors and JPMorgan.

Jones said investors have six investor biases, according to Franklin Templeton research. The most prevalent are availability bias, herding, loss aversion, present bias, anchoring and home country bias.

You owe it to yourself and clients “to meet them where they are,” which means understanding the roadblocks that may get in the way of their success, Jennifer Williams, a portfolio of manager at JPMorgan Chase, said during the webinar.

Availability bias limits investors’ decision-making to what they know. “Our thinking is strongly influenced by what is personally most relevant, recent or traumatic,” Jones said.

Franklin Templeton found that two-thirds of investors believed that the 27% decline in the stock market during the 2008 financial crisis was repeated in 2009. “If all they looked at was the S&P 500 in 2008, they were likely to get out of the market and leave money on the table,” Jones said.

By getting to know clients, you should be able to answer objections from clients even before they bring them up, said Jones, who encouraged advisors to use a story of their own bias, as well as graphs showing historic S&P 500 returns through 2008-2009, to help investors relate to what can go wrong when you use limited information to make a decision.

Addressing biases with investors early helps an advisor “take every objection off the table before they bring them up,” Jones said.

In the age of social media, the bias of herding can also be particularly harmful, as investors are enticed to invest or sell based on what everyone else is doing—like investing in the short-lived Gamestop boom and bust--rather than following their long-term financial plan, the former advisor said.

Overall, present bias may be the most pernicious of investor impulses, cutting across most demograhics because of the immediacy of information people have access to, often without following up to see if facts have changed or evolved, according to Jones.

“You’ll know a client is a victim of present bias when you open up an account with them and they’re on the phone with you the next week asking why the account is down. They become enamored with immediate gratification and the allure of quick gains, sacrificing the benefits of sustainable growth,” he said.

According to Franklin Templeton data, investors are plagued by present bias even more as they get closer to retirement, when statistics show they back off of saving and investing by as much as six percent.

“It’s a constant war, vacation home or vacation now? So, what can we do about it? We tend to want to sidestep the uncomfortable conversations, but one thing you can do as financial physicians is uphold your fiduciary responsibility and show them how what they do today can impact them financially next year and next decade,” Jones said.