Financial advisors should spend the coming months talking and listening to their clients, their staffs and their bosses, according to Julie L. Genjac, managing director for applied insights at Hartford Funds.
Communication is the numbe one key to surviving these challenging times, said Genjac, who is a registered corporate coach who works with advisors to help them build and sustain their businesses. Both investors and advisors’ staff members are nervous about the future, she explained in an interview today.
Because of the emotional rollercoaster everyone has been on lately, Genjac believes advisors need to sharpen up their empathy skills.
“I tell advisors to make the ‘just because’ call to their clients. Check in on them just to see how they are doing. Circumstances for the client can change dramatically in a short amount of time” and the advisor needs to know what the client is experiencing, she said.
When talking about investing, “bring conversation about the global financial world down to things that are specific to the client and his or her plans and goals,” she added. “Concentrate on what it means to the client personally and bring everything down to a manageable level.”
Advisors need to talk about what the advisor and the client can control. “There is so much going on and there is a lot you can’t control. Have a strategy in place for dealing with the situations that exit and decisions that need to be made now, then adjust when we know more about what the pandemic is going to do, especially when it surges and subsides and surges again.”
Advisors can build strong relationships with clients simply by listening, she said.
“Often times what a person is actually saying is a symptom of something altogether different,” she said. The client may be worried about a family member, but may project that fear onto his or her finances. The advisor needs to ask open ended questions and then listen to learn what is really going on, she said.
At the same time that advisors are trying to listen creatively to their clients, firm leaders have to do the same with employees.
“We are not going to return to a work environment that is like the one we had before,” she said. Firm leaders should share what they are considering about work situations and ask employees what they want and expect. Leaders should not keep plans tucked away, but should be open and honest with the team, she said.