The Pandemic and Wealthy Clients' Lives

The pandemic has touched everyone’s lives. It provides opportunities for agents, prospects, advisors and clients to connect, relate, strengthen relationships and even solve problems. You won’t be asking for business, because you are being concerned and compassionate. These virtues should motivate them to do more business.

(Related: When Clients Get Sick, What Should an Advisor Do?)

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” In reality, the people we consider wealthy and good prospects are similar to us. Their problems have different dimensions.

1. Their routines are disrupted.

Your wealthy retired client might take several overseas vacations a year. They might have a winter home in Florida. Some might own property in Europe. Because of the pandemic, they are stuck at home or close to home. Spouses are spending more time in each other’s company. They are frustrated, waiting for the “We can travel again” signal.

You can: Commiserate. Plant the idea 2020 is the year of the road trip. It’s a big country. Hotels and resorts are open. At least some of them.

2. It’s not coronavirus that scares them.

Science suggests a healthy middle aged person should recover over time if they get the virus. Your wealthy client is likely older. They have underlying conditions. If they got sick, the virus might not do them in, but their system would be weakened to the point one of their underlying conditions does the job.

You can: Talk about precautions. You might think you are preaching to the choir, but it can help. TV news tells them younger people are messing it up for everyone. They likely consider you younger. Let them know you are following the rules.

3. TV news depresses them.

We Americans love statistics. Why are we running a daily counter of infections are deaths are we march towards threshold numbers? It’s a grim race. FYI: People jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This might be urban legend. In the early 1990′s they kept a public tally of these suicides. As they approached a threshold number, they stopped publicizing the tally. Why? Because they thought there might be rush to be the one death to hit the big number!

You can: Tell them to turn off the TV news. Explain you only watch for half an hour over breakfast until they get to the weather. Find good news to share. If you had been talking about investing and the market was plummeting, you would be finding positive statistics to share.

4. What will the holidays look like?

As the virus numbers increase, states and cities start to put lockdown procedures back in place. They are wondering how they will do family gatherings in December. In England, the “Rule of Six” says only six can gather. There’s a joke there are certain exceptions, like funerals, which allow 30 people. (The rules change almost daily.) The joke is at Christmas, as the host, you will kill the turkey, then invite 30 people to the funeral!

You can: they might not throw their traditional holiday party, but they can invite a couple a day over for lunch, cocktails or dinner during a several week period in December. It’s a lot of entertaining, but they spend more time with family and friends.