3 advisors on navigating unprecedented times

The first half of 2020 was dominated by a worldwide health crisis, volatile global markets, and upheaval to daily business operations. While a lot has changed, some things remain the same: the importance of communicating with clients, effectively managing your teams, and keeping your business operating smoothly. Some changes RIAs have made were likely temporary reactions to the immediate crises, while others have the potential to be more permanent. We recently spoke with three advisors, who shared stories of how they've had to change some aspects of their businesses and how they're looking ahead to the future.

Crisis management mode

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the most important immediate responses for advisors was to reassure their clients and acknowledge their legitimate fears and concerns. While most advisors have worked through normal fluctuations in the market, the health dynamic added another dimension that meant advisors needed to update their communication styles—and fast.

“Once we understood the gravity of this situation, our first steps were to listen to clients about what they were feeling, what they were experiencing," says Jeff Wheeler, president of The Wealth Collaborative in Westlake Village, California.

Listening was the crucial first step in order to guide clients to a calmer, clearer headspace. “My experience has been that once people are heard, you could talk about ways to deal with the situations that clients fear most, and you can get them to a better place," Wheeler says.

Carl Szasz, CEO of Verde Capital Management in Clarkston, Michigan, applied communication strategies he had learned from the 2008 crisis. “I observed during the last crisis that there were a lot of financial advisors that really weren't communicating clearly with their clients," he says. “We took some of those learnings from that recession and incorporated them with the approach that we did today." This involved sending mass email communications, producing blogs, and running webinars to reassure clients that the firm was prepared to weather the storm. “So the ability for people to radically shift their mindset was really critical," he says.

At Trinity Wealth Management in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Charles Mann used similar tactics, but took a divide-and-conquer approach. “Each person took a group of clients and called them personally to just check in with them to say, 'How are you guys doing? Is everybody healthy in your family? And here's what we're doing and here's how we're adapting to this,'" Mann says. They focused on providing that reassurance clients were looking for. “We were calling just to say, 'Don't worry. We're gonna work remotely. There'll be no interruption in our business, no interruption in the kind of service that we're going to provide to you.'" That early communication helped clients stay at ease and weather some of the most volatile market periods.

New solutions can work

As many states issued stay-at-home orders, RIA firms had to shift to remote work and make sure their systems and relationships could withstand physical distance. While some offices are opening back up, it came as a pleasant surprise that working from home was so successful.

Trinity Wealth Management didn't typically allow remote work prior to the pandemic. “We were pretty much in the office Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 5:00," Mann says. “So we've had to think about how flexible are we going to be going forward with people working remotely. That whole concept changes how we think about work and how we work. And I think businesses, in general, are seeing that their team members can work from home and work remotely and be efficient."

Wheeler was also surprised at how smoothly the transition went, though his team had previously offered a work-from-home on Fridays policy. In addition to finding out that his team could work well from anywhere, there also ended up being a benefit for his clients. “It's very hard to get around in Los Angeles. Normally to go from the west side to our office is a good hour drive, an hour and 15, but with Zoom, it becomes much more workable," Wheeler says. “In fact, everything's gone so well, we're thinking that, eventually, we're probably going to end up doing more Zoom meetings."

Looking forward creatively and courageously

One of the biggest takeaways of the last few months was the opportunity for advisors and firms to get creative and adapt to new circumstances. Szasz even went so far as building an outdoor conference room at his office space with Verde Capital Management to allow a socially distanced meeting space with fresh air, in case a client would prefer a safe option to meet face-to-face. “Those are the types of things that I think that level of creativity is going to inspire," Szasz says. “We're going to need to kind of stretch our minds a little bit to think about what is possible."