Editor's Note: Getting It Right

There’s often talk in the advisory space about the need to “fire clients” for strategic and practical reasons. But for many advisors, the focus of their success is on finding more ways to keep clients in order to grow their businesses.

This month’s cover story, “How Can Advisors Bridge the Emotional, Cultural and Generational Divides?” aims to sort out some of the noise related to the latest thinking on advisor-client relations and to help our readers better understand their clients’ behavior and what it means for the future of their practices.

As Nicholas Arreola of CLS Investments explains, with technology widening its influence in financial services, advisors are discovering that managing client behavior can be their magic wand. In fact, though difficult, embracing the role as a psychologist, or at least as a behavioral coach, can be incredibly valuable for advisors and clients alike.

The aim of this research, and our coverage of it, is to help clients overcome cognitive biases and to better serve them by understanding the benefits and limitations of their particular personality traits and generational characteristics. This work may seem overwhelming, but it seems to offer powerful ways to interact with clients as never before.

In terms of my own communications with financial-services firms, I’ve been mourning the loss of my mother and making lots of phone calls to lots of institutions. I have to say that it’s been disappointing not to hear customer-service reps say “condolences” at the start of many of these conversations.

Both this publication and our website ThinkAdvisor have shared the insights of grief expert Amy Florian, who offers helpful (and easy) ways advisors can support those experiencing loss or other painful transitions. As I go through this process, I’ve come to appreciate an extra touch of kindness and a nice dose of sympathy, empathy and support.