Pollyanna Time?
Those who panic in this environment will lose, advisors say, and if anything, now's the time for advisors and investors both to sniff out opportunities.

"This is probably the greatest business-generating opportunity I've seen in my career," says CFP licensee Glenda D. Kemple of Kemple Capital, an upstart shop in Dallas. Kemple left an old firm and hung out her own shingle four and a half years ago and has now built her AUM to its current $50 million, a lot of it this year due to clients seeking her help amid the current market woes. "This year so far we've added 12 new fee clients and $8 million in new assets under management," she says. "We will probably add at least another eight by the end of the year."

Kresh, meanwhile, says he got five new clients in three weeks after the September turmoil-almost half of what he typically gets in an entire year. He says that once clients get past the fear about the market plummeting and start to see that things are undervalued, he can get them thinking about opportunity and point to such market stalwarts as Warren Buffett who are also buying cheap and not dear.

Kresh usually gives presentations about the market to corporations and other groups, but where before he had to pitch himself, nowadays people are looking for him. "I'm getting unsolicited speaking engagements, which is rare. Only when people are scared are they going to be reaching for a speaker."

To Kemple, this is the time to aggressively market, and she's been sending out pamphlets and also inviting people to seminars to talk about the slaughter in the markets. Her clients also appreciate the fact that she's calling them first. "With new money, this is an opportunity to absolutely get wealthy," she says, "I believe fortunes will be made in the next few years."

Stephen Barnes, a CFP designee with Barnes Investment Advisory in Phoenix, says that he's sought alternative ways to get his clients information and get them away from the breathless Sturm und Drang they get on television-the "CNBC factor," he calls it, where a myopic look at today's market moves alone can give people ulcers. Even if the clients know not to watch, where are they supposed to go for the right information?

"We've set up a blog to communicate with clients en masse rather than having to make 100 phone calls at the same time," he says. "And our advice is to turn off the TV."

The opportunity for fee-based advisors now is particularly evident, because do-it-yourself investors and clients coming from the wirehouse channel have become exasperated.

According to Brown, it's not just the fact that Wall Street exploded that's got these investors angry. It's the way it exploded. The fall of the investment banks has left them extremely skeptical. (How could an investment bank take care of you, so goes the reasoning, if it couldn't take care of itself?)
"I think it's really changing the mentality of our clients," says Brown, who works with both execs and employees as a manager of retirement plans. "This is the second time in a decade that they've been significantly burned by a bubble and it's causing them to rethink what they've been doing."

The skepticism means clients are more willing to listen to reason, too, he says. "Nobody takes 10%-12% [annual returns] at face value anymore.