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Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referrable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing. On this episode, we talk about the importance of gathering client feedback, even now, while things are in turmoil and the markets can be volatile.

During these times it’s easy to put aside projects like getting client feedback because you are busy following up with clients, or because you’re busy taking care of some of their special needs, but we want to emphasize that it is more important than ever, to be getting client feedback and guidance, maybe even especially, when there are times like these.

Julie and I talk about what kinds of differences there are and what clients are worrying about and how that would affect your level of service. And we talk about the different kinds of needs that they have. We revisit our interview with Peter Atwater, who talks about how your communication with clients needs to change when things get a little wild and people start suffering a lack of confidence.

We talk about the important difference between input and feedback and which one of those you should really be aiming for, in times like these. We talk about what you need to be sensitive to and how to ask what kind of questions, so that you don’t come across as tone-deaf and come across as caring, even while you are asking for that kind of feedback.

And at the end, we talk about what kinds of things you should do today, in the way of client feedback, even during these crazy times. We hope that this episode has some helpful tips and guidance for you. And so here is my conversation with Julie about why client feedback is more important than ever.

Julie Littlechild:
So Steve, I always love these times when we get to talk, just you and I-

Steve Wershing:
I do too.

Julie Littlechild:
… the way we do.

Steve Wershing:
Exactly.

Julie Littlechild:
And it’s kind of an interesting time, I think, because our worlds, like so many others, have been turned upside down over the last few months. And because we’re both in the business of helping advisors to understand what their clients are thinking and gather feedback, I thought it would be an interesting time if we just hit pause right now and just asked, is feedback something we should even be talking about right now? Is it relevant in the current environment? I’d love to get your take on that.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, and I’m interested in hearing your perspective on it too. It’s interesting because I think as all of these things lately have popped up, I think a lot of advisors think about collecting client feedback as sort of a normal thing to do on a fairly regular basis, during normal times. And these are not normal times, so I suspect a lot of those projects have been put aside.

But I think it’s great for us to be talking about this now, because I think it’s more important than ever to collect client feedback because we’re in a time when complacency is broken. We may not ask the same kinds of things. We may not ask about, how do you like the experience of working with us, but it’s more important than ever to find out what’s on people’s minds. Because I think during times like this, clients have an increased need for contact, they have an increased need for assurance and what they expect from their advisor and their demands of service are probably changing.

Julie Littlechild:
You used the term complacency is broken. What do you mean by that?

Steve Wershing:
Well, what I mean is that before all of this started, back a few months ago, things were a little bit more predictable and you could map out… And the things that clients would go through, one client’s experience would be similar to another because even though it was at a different time, it was the same kind of transition that you were ushering, that you were guiding people through. And now everybody’s expectations are a little bit different because we’re all now dealing with the pandemic and unrest and a volatile market and all kinds of things that were not true before when things seemed a little bit more stable and a little more consistent.

Julie Littlechild:
So it’s kind of an interesting, I don’t know, conundrum almost to say we need to reach out to clients more than ever, but if I were to play the role of advisor, I imagine I’d be saying, because I’ve heard this, things like, but I don’t have time, clients are busy, they’re distracted. What do you think about all of that in the context of needing to speak to them in a different way?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Well, I think clients still have expectations and I think it’s more important to reach out and talk with them because those expectations have probably changed.

I’m thinking back to the interview that we had on the podcast of Peter Atwater and talking about being in the state of under confidence and that it narrows your cognitive capabilities and that you need to change your messaging when that happens. As you and I talked today, Julie, things are a little bit more calm, relatively calm, but that’s going to be going up and down over time. And when things get more stressful, people’s cognitive viewpoint narrows a little bit, and so they’re less able to process more abstract thoughts.

So where before you could say, “Hey, envision your retirement. What kinds of things do you see coming?” And what Atwater said was, it needs to move to the here and me and now. And so what clients need to hear from us, is changing in a qualitative way. And so I think it’s even more important that we reach out to folks and at least, in our experience and a lot of the advisors that you and I have spoken to on this podcast, people are not too busy to talk with us. In fact, they really welcome the opportunity to talk with us.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. And I would say that our views on this have changed quite dramatically, even over the last few months. But one of the things that you raise and I think is a really important point here, is that during times of uncertainty, so many advisors I talk to, almost lean toward, “Well, I’ve got to get in front of my clients. I’ve got to reassure them. I’ve got to share my advice.”

But there’s a point when helping them actually hear that advice is more important. And I think asking the right questions, understanding how clients are feeling, becomes a critical part of helping them to hear the advice that you want to deliver.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
Right?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
And asking those questions. And maybe it’s easier to think about feedback instead of it being all about, well, me. How am I doing? How much do you like me so far, to really flip the switch and say effective feedback is about understanding how clients are doing.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Exactly.

Julie Littlechild:
And that’s an easier context to look at.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, exactly. And like you were just saying, all good advisers have this impulse to want to reach out and reassure clients and those kinds of things, but the question is, what do they need to be reassured about and what do they want to hear about? And if we don’t ask, then we might be saying stuff that the client just totally doesn’t connect with.

But you’ve been working on something that helps sort of measure some of that, because you were saying that you were working on something about a confidence index. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. There was a few things that really started to come together over the last little while, as we went into this crisis. It became quite apparent to us, at least, that we needed to find a way to understand how clients were feeling. That that became the primary goal of this feedback process. And then at the same time, we did our industry research and for me, the results were incredibly compelling, around this idea of what we call self confidence.

So it’s really a not so much confidence in what’s happening out there, but do I feel secure, do I feel in control, do I have a clear plan, am I confident? All of the things that I would argue advisers can actually impact, in a really positive way and I won’t get into a ton of detail, but I’m happy to put a link to the report in the show notes.

What was really interesting to me is when we measured confidence and we created this index. The impact on the business was outstanding. The higher the level of confidence we saw, Net Promoter Score, increasing sometimes 50%. We saw satisfaction increasing, loyalty increasing, like really significant. And that caused us, in a way to say, hmm, okay. Advisors need to understand where their clients are on these-

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
… concepts and we need to help give them a way to measure that, so that they can have better conversations with their clients.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Thinking back to the Atwater interview that we were talking about, it’s like when people’s confidence level changes. We’re talking about changing two or three levels on Maslow’s hierarchy, all at once.

Julie Littlechild:
Right. Yep.

Steve Wershing:
And so yeah, the questions have to change and I could see the sense in what you’re finding is that if you speak about the right things to people, that you can help increase that confidence and that that has a huge effect on how people feel about their relationship with their advisor and the work that they do.

But let me ask you this. We know that things have changed significantly over the past few months and we’re all kind of tired of saying the word unprecedented, but do you think that what we’re looking at reflects just something that’s happening now, like an unusual point in time, or do you think that things are changing longer term?

Julie Littlechild:
Well, I do think they’re changing longer term. We’ve talked a lot about leadership over the last couple of months, but that’s not new, right?

Steve Wershing:
That’s true.

Julie Littlechild:
Advisors have always needed to be leaders.

Steve Wershing:
Sure.

Julie Littlechild:
And I would say that the last few months has accelerated the need to connect to clients, accelerated the need to have a mechanism to understand how they’re feeling. And I know that we’ve been looking at feedback and that experience and saying, we think some things are just going to change. I won’t even say permanently because I’ve lost all sense of what permanence even means-

Steve Wershing:
Sure.

Julie Littlechild:
Or I would have said something different to you in January.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
But I guess what it tells us is that client needs and expectations and emotions are evolving and that we need a way to tap into that on an ongoing basis, otherwise we can just assume that everything’s going to be the same. And in my mind significant, but what may sound really subtle to someone else, is we changed some of the terminology that we’re using.

We talk a lot about feedback and I think this really probably connects to your business as well, but feedback is more of a measurement of how I’ve done, right? So how satisfied are you? What’s the Net Promoter Score? Value.

Steve Wershing:
Sure.

Julie Littlechild:
All of that… But maybe the bigger need now in going forward, is what we would think of as input. And input isn’t a measurement, it’s a deeper understanding of client needs so that you can have different conversations, support them differently, provide different communications. That’s a very different set of questions and a very different process than I think feedback. Do you see that when you’re doing advisory boards, do you make that differentiation as well?

Steve Wershing:
Well, we’ll talk about that in a few minutes, but the whole idea of having an advisory board has changed-

Julie Littlechild:
There’s that.

Steve Wershing:
… at least for now. Yeah. So we’ll get back to that. But I think it’s a really good point. Even if we take something as superficial as how you meet with clients, because we’ve all sort of been forced to do a lot more virtually and I think it’s interesting about how that affects the kinds of questions that we ask, because before, we might’ve asked, how interested would you be, or what would you think about having a relationship? What would you think of a meeting virtually as opposed to in person and at least for the baby boomers who were retiring, it was overwhelmingly, oh yeah, well, we might be able to do a virtual thing once in a while, but it’s never going to take the place of an in person meeting.

And now of course, that’s the only way you can. Well, up until recently, it was the only way you could meet with your advisor. And now that they’ve done it, we’re finding that a lot of people are a lot more open to it than they used to be, when now that they’ve done it once or twice, they say, “Oh, well, this isn’t so bad. This is pretty good.” And so, even, right up and alongside the word unprecedented, we’re hearing all about the new normal.

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Steve Wershing:
And of course, I think the point that we’re making is that the normal is always changing. I mean, even that whole term, the new normal, which didn’t Bill Gross coin that, like 10 or 15 years ago?

Julie Littlechild:
That’s right. It was new then.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, exactly. Right. So I think that it’s a really interesting point that you make about, there’s a difference between asking how am I doing and asking how should we do it?

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. You could argue that it’s not always a good idea to ask for feedback.

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Julie Littlechild:
In the third week of March or the last week in March-

Steve Wershing:
Yeah right. How are we doing? Yeah right. Exactly.

Julie Littlechild:
But isn’t it always a good idea to ask for input? I mean, how can that be a bad thing?

Steve Wershing:
Well, that’s it. And so, during that, at the end of March, beginning of April, obviously, we were not asking about, well, how satisfied are you with the relationship you have with your advisor? But we were out there saying, “What’s on your mind? What’s keeping you up at night? What’s the biggest concern you have?” And that’s input. That’s not feedback.

Julie Littlechild:
That’s exactly right.

Steve Wershing:
So I think it’s a really good point about being sophisticated in how you’re asking stuff. And especially because, there is that risk of if you don’t pay attention to what’s going on, if you’re not sensitive to what the clients are concerned about, then if you ask for feedback at a time when you should be asking for input, you come across as tone-deaf. I mean, you come across as really disengaged, right?

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.

Steve Wershing:
And not in touch with what’s going on. So for example, right now, you would not want to ask, “What’s your relative satisfaction about the relationship that we have?” But you would want to ask about, “We’ve been interacting in a different way over the past couple of months and what about that, has been helpful to you and what about that do you still struggle with,” and getting that kind of input as opposed to feedback so that you can let people know you’re still in touch with what they’re concerned about and get useful data that you can use to constantly adapt your client experience.

Julie Littlechild:
And I’d say it’s changed a lot. I mean, I think we evolve weekly in our view. And there was a time I came out, the hardest day of my life, and said, don’t gather feedback right now. And because I honestly considered it the wrong thing to do, and then it evolved more into, but here are some questions.

And what’s interesting now, as we’re sort of heading into the summer, I’d say the comfort level has increased dramatically in terms of, I mean, still asking questions that are different, still acknowledging a difference. But even with saying, well, “How am I doing in meeting your needs?”

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
Because it is different now. And we’ve got to keep our finger on that change.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. So I’m really interested. Can you tell us a little bit about, when it comes to a client survey, what kinds of things are good ideas to be putting on those now, that might be different from how we did it last year?

Julie Littlechild:
There’s some subtle changes and some not so subtle changes. One of the really subtle changes I think, is and maybe this is beyond feedback, but I think that the language that we use to position things has changed. I think conversation’s a little less formal, a little more open, a little more vulnerable. And I think that’s making its way, certainly into the way we communicate, so just positioning… It’s not, “I’ve retained a firm to help me understand how you feel about the relationship,” and it’s more, “I want to know what you need and I want to help.”

So there’s some changes in language. I’d say the two areas though that have changed the most is certainly the kinds of questions that we ask. So focusing on things like client confidence. Focusing on the things that will help to have a more engaging conversation with the client, really understand where they’re at and where they need support.

I would say particularly now, questions that really understand how the experience is going to evolve. Like you said, we’ve had a chance to look at web meetings now, so is that something that they foresee going forward? Are they more comfortable or in fact, looking for more digital connection? We’re asking more about social media because I think everybody’s connecting differently now. So I think we want to get a really good handle. Not assume things are just going to go back normal.

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Julie Littlechild:
The word normal.

Steve Wershing:
The old normal. Yeah right.

Julie Littlechild:
Such as… not the new normal, and really try to say, “What’s changed and what’s going to change going forward?” So that does impact a lot.

The other area I’d say is, I mean, this is part and parcel, but really going beyond the financial. I mean, we saw in our research the importance of, or the interest in non-financial topics and education and communication. So we’re definitely recommending assessing interest in learning about things that are more… Whether it’s health and wellness, or stress, or second careers, or what have you, but gathering better information on what clients really need right now, so that you can support them in a more meaningful way. And it turns out that the nonfinancial topics right now are really the most critical parts.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. And so when you put something on a survey about client confidence, I’m assuming that you can’t just put a question on there, how confident do you feel?

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Steve Wershing:
I’m assuming, is that like a few different questions that you put together into an assessment or-

Julie Littlechild:
It is. Yeah.

Steve Wershing:
How do you approach that?

Julie Littlechild:
So we created an index based on four statements-

Steve Wershing:
Okay.

Julie Littlechild:
… that we drew from the research. So those areas of security control, confidence and clarity, and it’s basically a simple, equally weighted index based on how they respond to those questions. And it gives you a sense of if somebody’s really low, or if they’re moderate, or if they’re high and in wherever they are, the goal is to close the gap. And that’s where we see the difference so-

Steve Wershing:
Interesting. And then what kinds of things might you ask of a non-financial nature on a survey?

Julie Littlechild:
Well, I think a lot of that’s coming into just more the kinds of communications that are going to resonate or the kinds of content, if an advisor has a content strategy. So what are the topics they want to know about? How do they want to learn about those things? Are there other services perhaps. I mean, that only relates to some advisors, but I’m sure we both know firms that have become really creative in trying to extend their offer. So assessing interest in those sorts of things.

I mean, that’s where we see the nonfinancial coming in, and it’s not to say that the advisor is suddenly going to become an expert in all of those things. It’s really just trying to understand what’s on their mind and if they can facilitate or curate some great content or education, then all the better.

Steve Wershing:
Yep. Well, that makes a lot of sense.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. I mean, you’ve been doing advisory boards for a long time. Are you finding similar changes or what do you see as the big differences?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah, well, of course, I mean, the biggest difference of course, is that we can’t gather together in groups.

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
So, we’ve got Delta calling us, “Hey, where are all these facilitators you used to fly all over the country all the time?” So I mean, in the spring, pretty much all of our in-person advisory boards got canceled because we physically could not get people together.

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Steve Wershing:
So that’s the biggest change and we’ve been doing way more virtual meetings and the nature of the questions is changing in a way that’s similar to how you describe, the way that you handle it on surveys. But also from our standpoint, the other big thing that’s changing is how we put the logistics together, because there are differences between having a live meeting and a virtual meeting. And so we’ve given our facilitators… We’ve worked through the differences in how you conduct a meeting virtually, as opposed to in person.

So for example, there are things like, you can’t have them as long.

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
Being on Zoom is great. You and I are talking now and it’s nice to see you-

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah.

Steve Wershing:
It works great, but it’s a more draining experience than sitting down over a meal with a group of people. And so we’ve got to get rid of the meal. We’ve tried doing meals on Zoom. It’s awkward. Done work.

Julie Littlechild:
Doesn’t work?

Steve Wershing:
Does not work. But it’s also trying to stay engaged when you’re looking at the Brady Bunch in front of you, with all the other people in the meeting. That gets to be really taxing. So we’ve got to narrow it down. We’ve got to get to the heart of it a little bit more quickly.

And when we do advisory boards, it’s not just talk. We do specific kinds of exercises, to help avoid some of the potential pitfalls of group dynamics. And so we’ve had to adapt those to an electronic environment.

Julie Littlechild:
Can you give me an example of that?

Steve Wershing:
Sure. So one of the things that we always ask in a first advisory board meeting is, of all the things your advisor does for you, what do you find most valuable? And that can be either a service they provide, or it can be how they do it or whatever you consider to be valuable, what would it be?

Well, in typical meeting dynamics, there is a challenge that the first and the loudest tend to direct the conversation.

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
And we want to avoid that as best we can. So when we ask a question like that, we do it with Post-it Notes. And so we say, here’s the question we’d like you to answer, put it on a Post-it Note. You can give us as many Post-it Notes as you want. The one rule is it can be one idea per Post-it. And then we collect all those, and we put them up on the wall and we organize them by theme. So if it’s service-related, it goes into one cluster of Post-its and if it’s the technical services they provide, it goes into different cluster.

And then we back away from them. We take a look at it and we see what’s got the most energy around it, based on how many of the Post-its are gathered into that theme. So, there are ways that we can do that electronically. It’s just different because you don’t have the physical notes and if you want to maintain that same kind of dynamic, which is to say, you’re not sharing it in front of everybody from the get go, but you’re collecting them and then you’re showing them in a group, it’s got to be done a little different way. So a lot of that kind of thing.

And then, developing relationships between the participants is a little different too, because usually people get together and they mill around for a little bit before the meeting starts.

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
And so they get to meet a couple other people and so an advisory board, the members of an advisory board, develop relationships with each other. And that’s actually one of the really cool outcomes of advisory boards long term. So we have to figure out a different way to do that if we do it in the virtual environment.

Julie Littlechild:
And are you asking similar types of questions or is that changed?

Steve Wershing:
Well, some of that has changed too, right? Just like with the surveys. We’re asking a lot more of kinds of things of what’s on your mind and as different things have popped up, what has your advisor done with you that has been most useful and what has been most reassuring and what kinds of things do you still worry about, and ask those kinds of questions to get… As you said, they get input on how do we customize our service moving forward, as circumstances change, as opposed to the, how are we doing kind of questions.

Julie Littlechild:
Right. Yeah. I’ve always thought there are… I mean, as we know, that the surveys and advisory boards are very complementary often, because one is individual and one is group, and usually have very different objectives for both of those things. I imagine… So when we’re doing surveys, for example, we’re getting pretty deep and we’re uncovering some personal information. That’s being used in a one on one conversation. But presumably in a group, you can only go so far. So are there particular topics that you think are really well suited for that group environment?

Steve Wershing:
What’s really interesting about advisory boards is in how people pick up and respond to the suggestions of other board members. And we’re frequently surprised about how open people are willing to be.

So a lot of these, they are really personal topics, but once you’ve got a group dynamic going, it’s interesting about how much people will share. And they won’t get into the specifics of course, of their own financials and whatnot, but people bring up… Like when we talk about estate planning, one of the big questions is, how do you tell the next generation about your estate plan?

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
And how do you prepare them for that? And how do you transmit your values? And, people suggest different… There’s some people, say, we want to talk about what we’re concerned about and how we think they should handle it, but we shouldn’t have any numbers in there. We don’t want our kids to know how much we have.

And then there are other people that said, no, it’s all on the table. We put the statements right out there and show them all. And it gets to be some really interesting conversations and it’s okay. We make sure that it’s okay in the group, to say that you all can differ on how you approach this.

Julie Littlechild:
Right.

Steve Wershing:
We’re not here to tell you how you should do it. We’re just interested in hearing what you’re most concerned about, if we get into that kind of an area. So I’m consistently… I mean, I’m not surprised anymore because I’ve been doing it long enough, but it’s really interesting what people are willing to share in a group, especially if it’s not your first meeting, but that you have developed relationships with other people on the board and-

Julie Littlechild:
Right. I guess the fundamental difference being that when you’re surveying it is one-on-one-

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Julie Littlechild:
… so you’re able to personalize the conversation and the response. In a group, you’re getting a sense of what people need, but it’s always limited to that group, right?

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Julie Littlechild:
I always love group conversations and I think you’ve done this in a couple where they might’ve gathered feedback before, and then the group is about, sort of teasing out the color, go deeper and you’re able to have that more iterative kind of conversation.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Well, the way you and I work together, I think that an advisory firm should do a survey and then we should have an advisory board to dig into any answers that you consider to be surprising.

Julie Littlechild:
Yes.

Steve Wershing:
If you get some results from a survey that are right in line with what you expect, okay, we’ve confirmed it, but then, if you get things that sort of make you tilt your head and say, well, that’s interesting, that’s the stuff we should really start by digging into.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, yeah. For sure. It’s an interesting time though. We’re walking this line between, like you said, acknowledging this crisis, but also acknowledging that people are getting tired of talking about the crisis.

Steve Wershing:
That’s right. Yeah. Right.

Julie Littlechild:
And it’s a funny time and I don’t know what else to say, except that we have to continually just keep our finger on the pulse of what feels appropriate. There’s a lot of guts involved right now to say, does it feel right, this message? Is it okay to ask this question? What’s important? More so than I think it’s ever been in the past.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. I think if an advisor did not do this consistently and I don’t mean all the time, I just mean consistently, like, once a year. I think it’s more important than ever to be consistently out there asking stuff, especially because, when things get tumultuous and when people’s confidence begins to wane, the advisors are really talking to a client about their financial situation. And there’s often not room in that individual conversation to back away from it and say, “Now give us the bigger picture. What else is on your mind and what kinds of things are keeping you up at night?” And that’s why it’s so important to do this consistently so that we stay in touch with that because it is changing all the time.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. One of the other things that I’ve noticed, and again, I don’t know that it was created by this environment, it was just highlighted, was not only that clients’ needs were changing, but advisors were as well. I mean, so many of our clients like yours, are in a situation where they’re stretched. I mean, they’re dealing… they didn’t get a pass on the pandemic either.

Steve Wershing:
That’s right.

Julie Littlechild:
Right? They’re still homeschooling and figuring out how to order food online and work at home, as well as reassure clients. I mean, it’s such an incredible period of time and a stressful period of time. And we noticed that one of the big concerns is just like, I don’t even have time to respond to some of the feedback.

So we even went so far as to create different resources and say, all right, if your clients tell you they’re interested in staying healthy at home, here’s some emails you can send with some great articles on staying healthy at home because people just didn’t have the bandwidth-

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. Right. Sure.

Julie Littlechild:
… to figure this out anymore.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
And I don’t know. Maybe it’s always been the case, but it really drove it home for us over the last few months.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. I think that’s true. I think that things have been busier over the past few months and it’s harder than it would have been before, to do some of that customization.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, absolutely. So I guess nothing has changed and everything has changed-

Steve Wershing:
Right.

Julie Littlechild:
… somehow over the last little while. I don’t think anyone can pretend that input and feedback haven’t changed and that we need to be aware of that. But it’s hard for me to point to a period in time where it’s not important to stay more connected with our clients.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah.

Julie Littlechild:
And so, maybe we need to get past some of that fear as well and just say, this is for them. It’s not for us.

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. And I think, when I think back, the last time I can remember something like this happening, meaning you need to keep in touch a lot closer with your clients, is 2008.

Julie Littlechild:
Exactly.

Steve Wershing:
But that was just a bear market. And yes, it was a brutal bear market and it was bad and we’re constantly on the phone with clients about, here’s how your portfolio is doing and let’s update your plan because you can see you’re still on track or you’re a little off track or whatever. But now I mean, people are scared to go outside, and people are scared for their kids and now it’s not just financial. And so it gets to be a lot more complex. It gets to be a lot richer and deeper and more difficult to navigate, unless you’re consistently asking what’s on people’s minds and what kinds of things can you help with?

To go back to that tired, old word, we’ve had times in the past when we’ve had to keep in closer touch with clients, but this time is unprecedented because it’s so much more… It’s not just a down market, not just a down economy, there’s a lot more going on.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah, absolutely. So I know we’re both sort of working on different things right now to help advisors. I know we’re going to put some new tools and links in the show notes, just to help people think about what they should be doing, what they should be asking, where there might be gaps. Is that the same for you?

Steve Wershing:
Yeah. So we’ll add to the show notes. We have something that advisors can download. That’s really just some principles, and if you’re going to do a group meeting virtually, some of the things that you need to adapt to make that effective and make it work well.

Julie Littlechild:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, it’s been great talking as always.

Steve Wershing:
Always nice to talk with you.

Julie Littlechild:
Let’s let’s do this again. All right.

Steve Wershing:
Absolutely. Thanks.

Julie Littlechild:
Hi, it’s Julie again. It was great to have you with us on Becoming Referrable. If you like what you’ve been hearing, please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It really does help. You can get all the links, show notes and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferrable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths That Limit Your Growth and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.