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We all have them… clients whose emotions gyrate with markets, second guess decisions, and create grief and frustration for their advisors.
In the perfect world, you’d part company with all of these clients.
As a practical matter, unless clients are outright abusive or completely erratic, that is easier said than done.
Sometimes those clients bring substantial assets, on other occasions they’re connected to other clients that you value … and when you have bills to pay, it’s unrealistic to tell every client who you occasionally find tough to deal with to take their business elsewhere.
So if you’re stuck with those difficult clients, what can you do to make the situation more palatable?
An advisor facing exactly this issue told me his solution.
A meeting with Joe
On the afternoon of a long day, he had a challenging meeting with a long-time client who was always complaining about something.
When he got home, his wife, who happens to teach psychology at a local university, asked him the automatic question:
“How was your day?”
He responded that he’d had a tough meeting with this client and ended up saying “I have to tell you, Joe drives me crazy.”
To which she paused, thought for a moment and answered:
“No he doesn’t.”
This advisor answered in turn: “Look, I was there, you weren’t. Trust me when I tell you Joe drives me crazy.”
“Joe doesn’t drive you crazy,” his wife said.
“You allow Joe to drive you crazy.”
