Should I Fire Clients Who Give Off “Negative Energy”?

Dear J.E.,

I thought I had seen it all given the number of years I’ve been doing this work and the thousands of advisors I have worked with, but I’ve not seen this before anywhere! Sometimes when I talk with advisors about an “ideal client,” we talk about the softer elements – the types of personality, communication approaches and so on they prefer. But I’ve not seen an advisor talk about whether the energy is positive or negative.

I appreciate the desire to work only with clients you feel fueled by because you enjoy the relationship. But I wonder about the ethics of pushing people out because you don’t like their karma.

There may be other considerations – these clients could be unprofitable, could be stealing time from your team members because they cause unnecessary problems, or they might not respect what you do for them. If there are other extenuating circumstances, approach this from a segmentation perspective. Consider what level of offering is right for each of the clients in their segment, and you could certainly increase fees or move them into a different level of service. In many cases it does make sense to move unprofitable clients who are too small or don’t fit your business model to another advisor.

However, before you do anything, consider the underlying dynamics that are happening. How do you view this negative energy? Most of the time when I talk about difficult clients with advisors, they share stories of people who are belligerent, angry, disrespectful, threatening, combative, disagreeable and similar adjectives. The advisor gets bullied or simply tired of working with someone who is constantly approaching them in a negative way. When this is the case, I ask advisors to think about dealing with difficult clients differently in order to change the fundamental dynamics in the relationship.

Consider looking at these as difficult relationships requiring a new approach. Before you make a move to push people out, and potentially incur a backlash (which can happen on social media too), consider a few things perhaps you’ve not thought about before.

1. Clients who behave in negative ways often have one underlying emotion driving their negative behavior – fear. Fear is a powerful motivator and it manifests in bad behavior directed at someone or something they believe could harm them or bring about bad consequences. Think about the nature of the client-advisor relationship. Your client is likely worried about losing money, prestige or connections and you are their connection to winning or losing in the financial game. If fear is a driver, the natural target is you.

2. You are an excellent, ethical advisor. When a client treats you badly, no matter what motivates them to do so, you are not going to react with open arms and welcome their bad behavior. Rather you (as a human being) are going to get defensive or determined to prove them wrong. Take a minute to digest this dynamic – they are afraid but don’t tell you about fear. They just act out their belligerence, and you believe you are doing the right thing by them so you can’t wait to show them the error of their ways. Meeting emotion with logic and facts doesn’t often work.

3. You are in the difficult dance. A client calls, and you don’t want to answer the phone. You dismiss some of their issues or questions because you have heard it all before. The client senses they are not getting the best attention from you and they become more fearful and more negative.

4. Rather than pushing them out, see whether you can be more interested in their concern. It isn’t about you. I know it seems directed at you, but you are an outlet. You are a target. You are not the source of the problem. If you can step back and see this, you have more power in dealing with someone who is pushing your buttons.

5. Once you step back, adopt an air of curiosity. I know I write and talk about this a lot, but being curious rather than defensive or determined can help to open up dialogue. What’s driving this client? What has made them even more upset lately? What are they reading/hearing/learning that distresses them? What do they not understand about your process and approach? Rather than defend and defeat, open up and listen to what’s underneath their negative behavior.

6. Show them outcomes of their behavior. Rather than deciding they are just all about negative karma, ask them to consider what they want to accomplish. It is reasonable to push back appropriately on a client who might be coming on strong. If you have a good relationship, ask them what they are hoping to accomplish when they call and yell at your team. Again, do your best not to get defensive but more to be inquisitive. Ask them if they can see how they are coming across and if there is any other avenue that might be more effective.

If you can learn more about these clients, or understand what drives them and makes them do what they are doing, you can shift their negative energy. Few people want to be negative. They reach a point of concern, or frustration, or upset and they don’t know how to appropriately diffuse it. So they take it out on the service provider whom they perceive as not tending to their needs. Many of us have been there; we have yelled at the service center when we really are worried about the leak in our roof not getting fixed in time and causing a bigger problem (okay, yes, that is a personal story from many years ago!).

With hindsight, most clients see that acting negatively doesn’t serve them, but the more you respond to emotion with logic and defensiveness, the longer you will stay locked in the difficult dance. Take some new steps to shift these relationships before you decide to send them on their way.

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

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