Coping With Grief
Caring about clients has certainly been key to the career of Laraine Dickerson of Canvas Advisors in Englewood, Colo. “If you are trusted with someone’s assets and goals, you are given a great responsibility to care not just about their money but also about them as human beings,” she said.
For her, caring often entails coping with a client’s grief, she said. Whether they are dealing with divorce or inheritance, there is a lot of planning around loss.
“I was largely unprepared to handle the emotional toll of helping so many people who were in stages of grief,” she said. She has learned, however, to treat clients with abundant compassion, she said, which is not adequately addressed in training programs.
Think Like Your Clients
To Ken Van Leeuwen at Princeton, N.J.-based Van Leeuwen & Co., professional courses tend to focus on the science of financial advising—not the “art” of it, he said.
“The most important aspect of what we do is communicate effectively with clients,” he explained. “So much of what is taught focuses on financial planning and investment theory. … What is less focused on is how to apply that theory to each client’s situation and deliver it in a way that is clearly and easily understood.”
To communicate effectively, he added, you have to “focus on your clients’ wants and needs and understand that their success is your success. To do that, you must think like clients think.”
Don’t Try to Predict The Future
Lori Van Dusen of LVW Advisors in Pittsford, N.Y., put it this way: “Financial decisions are not made in an analytical vacuum.” Rather, they reflect human behavior, she said, and that behavior can “drive markets longer, and higher or lower, than anyone would expect.”
Yet human behavior is impossible to quantify or forecast, noted Mark Van Drunen at MAI Capital Management in Cleveland. “Resist the temptation to pontificate and showcase your intellect through predictions,” he said. “No one can predict the future.”
Don’t Neglect Yourself
Another area that financial-planning courses typically neglect is the work-life balance, said Darla Kashian at RBC Wealth Management in Minneapolis.
“Take your own advice,” she suggested. “Treat your family finances with the best advice you’d give your best clients.”
Advisor self-care is often forgotten, too, said Erin Wood at Carson Group in Omaha, Neb.
Early in her career, she tried to be “what my leaders or clients expected me to be,” she shared, including how to dress and what organizations to join. After several years, though, she realized these efforts were draining her.
“I wish someone had taught me there are a million ways to be successful in this industry,” she said. “Find the way that brings you happiness.”