It's always amazing when professionals working with the wealthy fail to get hired or are fired because they are too erudite. It's not that being smart is the problem. On the contrary, wealthy clients want professionals with brains. The problem is that many professionals can't communicate with prospects and clients without falling into a miasma of technical terms (i.e., jargon).

The wealthy want solutions. As the phrase goes, "They're interested in the accuracy of the watch, not how the mechanism works." Unfortunately, there's a plethora of wealth management professionals who revel in detailing the watch's internal operations. These professionals are very likely making affluent prospects and clients very uncomfortable, often with adverse consequences.

An accounting firm, for example, picked up a new client-a first-round NBA draft pick. After the client was signed, an accountant at the firm explained to him and his parents all the tax work they would be doing for him. Five minutes after the meeting, the firm was fired. The accountant made a lot of references to the tax code, which made the player and his parents nervous because it reminded them of the way police spoke to them in days gone by.

Accountants certainly aren't the only ones who have trouble communicating-the problem is rampant across all financial services professions. Still, in my experience, the worst offenders tend to be lawyers.

An intentionally defective trust, for instance, can be a wonderful planning tool. But clients don't always see it that way. There have been more than a few times I've heard wealthy clients say they don't want a defective trust-they want one that works. The legal language just doesn't compute. So why would a lawyer, or anyone discussing freezing a business, tell a client they're going to use an intentionally defective trust? Wouldn't it be better for everyone to simply say you're putting the business into a trust?

Then we have rabbi trusts and Crummey powers, which are important tools that don't necessarily have to be discussed in detail or by name with clients. One exceptionally wealthy individual, for example, was completely against using a rabbi trust because, as a Southern Baptist, he wanted a good minister trust instead. As it turned out, this issue completely derailed the estate planning and resulted in the firing of the law firm that was handling the client's personal and corporate work.

My best example of jargon run amok is when a multifamily office brought in a trusts and estates lawyer and an insurance agent to talk to one of its wealthy TV-personality clients. The client was single but expected to one day get married and have a family. During the meeting, however, the prospective client became quite upset, resulting in no one getting any of his business. It seems that the client came away from the meeting believing the lawyer recommended he take out a large life insurance policy on the spouse and that the spouse end up floating facedown in the pool. Amazing what someone can conclude by someone suggesting he include a "floating spouse provision" in an estate plan.