Coping mechanisms for tough times

Your ultimate value is your ability to control emotions. That’s why you were hired. Some clients may understand the concepts and techniques you implement daily, but in a down market, they are afraid, lack your confidence and need reassurance.

You can’t deliver emotional stability to your clients unless you are feeling emotionally stable. So before taking any action, take your own emotional temperature. Are you feeling confident that the world as we know it has not — and will not — come to an end? Do you see the current conditions in a larger historical setting? Can you see opportunities in this market?

Here are seven strategies to help you get into the best mental shape.

1. Ignore the media. While it’s not appropriate to disconnect from relevant information, it’s up to you to determine what facts are helpful versus what has no real value in maintaining the most needed mindset. Immersing yourself in negative input takes away from your focus.

2. Review the history.Take time to put today’s financial market conditions in historical perspective for your clients. Review the environment within the context of the last 75 years, not the last 75 days. Market conditions are cyclical and this is part of a cycle.

3. Get back to business. When you review your book of business, you will discover opportunities. For example, your clients may still need to update their wills or increase their insurance coverage. Now is also a good time to touch base with your centres of influence. After all, people are still inheriting money, businesses are still being bought and sold and retirement savings and distributions continue. Somebody is doing this business and it might as well be you.

4. Identify the top 20%. Instead of waiting for these clients to call you, pick up the phone yourself. Don’t rely on faceless, soulless newsletters and e-mails. These communication methods work well when you’re distributing data, but are much less effective in creating uplifting emotions. Assuming the technology had been available, it’s hard to imagine Franklin Roosevelt e-mailing, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Get some face time with these clients by arranging seminars to educate and inform them about the crisis. Ask your favourite wholesalers to get involved with these events.

5. Take care of yourself. Spend more time with the people you care about most. Have lunch with your best friends or call them on the phone. Take time to enjoy your family in the evenings and on weekends. Treat yourself to a massage.

6. Keep things in perspective. Poor business conditions pale in terms of importance to your health and the health of your loved ones. Take time to appreciate the positive aspects in your life.

7. Grow your business. Poor market conditions create massive dissatisfaction, and you can capitalize on it. While most advisors are hiding, you can conduct public seminars and attract new clients who feel abandoned by their current advisors.

Remember the speeches of Sir Winston Churchill during the darkest days of the Second World War? His words displayed spectacular leadership. Today, the battle is not an external attack on a sovereign nation but an assault on the personal finances and emotions of your clients.

There is no better time to exhibit your own leadership skills than in this current exceptional financial period. These times are not about testing your technical abilities or changing things that are out of your control. They’re about testing your commitment to your clients.

Paul Karasik is the president of The Business Institute, a sales and management training and consulting company.

(11/03/08)