From Reactive to Resilient: Mastering Client Conversations Early in Your Career

One of the biggest challenges new advisors face is learning how to guide client conversations, especially when emotions run high. Markets are unpredictable, provocative headlines are constant, and clients bring their own biases, fears and expectations into every meeting.

Early in your career, it can feel like you’re always on the defensive: answering rapid-fire questions about performance, trying to explain economic news, or calming fears about volatility. But the most successful advisors don’t just react—they lead. They listen carefully, acknowledge concerns and educate their client. Then, they gradually steer the conversation back to the client’s long-term financial plan, reinforcing the need to stay focused and disciplined amid all the short-term noise.

That intentional blend of reassurance and education doesn’t just build trust—it positions you as their financial leader, creating clarity in the moment and confidence for the future. As you gain experience and encounter more stressful situations, your approach will transform from reactive to resilient. You’ll be a steady, calming influence on clients when the economy and markets are anything but.

The most challenging client conversations fall into one of five categories:

1. Fear
   Markets are volatile, headlines are negative and clients panic about losing everything. They’re tempted to sell their investments or rotate to cash and wait it out. Basically, they want to time the market—and believe that they can.
   
   
2. Greed
   Conversely, when the news is positive and markets are strong, clients want to chase higher returns. Or perhaps they’ve heard a friend or family member make significant gains from a speculative investment. This is the euphoric part of the market cycle when investors believe nothing can go wrong, so they throw caution to the wind.
   
   
3. Temperament
   Some clients are naturally too conservative, worrying they’ll never have enough saved for retirement, or they’re too aggressive, constantly wanting to invest in the latest hot stock or fund idea, regardless of the investment’s volatility. Their behaviour doesn’t always align with external events—it’s simply how they’re wired.
   
   
4. Education
   Low financial literacy can lead to confusion, skepticism and pushback, as clients may struggle to grasp the rationale behind strategies, or fear making mistakes. Education reduces friction and builds a smoother, more productive advisory relationship.
   
   
5. Trust
   Trust is the foundation of a strong advisor-client relationship. Without trust, even good advice can be met with hesitation, repeated questions or outright resistance—slowing progress and straining the relationship.

Each of these factors may derail a meeting if you’re not properly prepared. But all of them can be managed with the two overarching strategies below.

1. Cultivate winning traits in your clients

Specifically, when it comes to successful long-term investors, they tend to be:

• Knowledgeable. They understand the cyclical nature of markets and that volatility is an expected feature, not a bug, of healthy markets.
• Risk managers. They recognize the relationship between volatility and returns. They understand that volatility is often the price paid for long-term investing success.
• Motivated. They have clear financial objectives and are driven to achieve them.
• Disciplined. They are comfortable with being uncomfortable. This trait is particularly important when markets are volatile and headlines are constantly negative. The PAUSE model below can help you instill discipline in each of your clients.
• Patient. They understands that wealth and financial objectives are achieved over the long term, which means staying invested through market highs and lows. This is perhaps the most important of all traits.

You can nurture these positive investor traits through investment education and behavioural coaching. For example, you can show a client historical data on how market downturns are typically short and temporary, while market upside is longer term and more enduring. Or, demonstrate how the market’s best days often happen the day(s) following the market’s worst-performing day.

By cultivating long-term investor traits in your clients, you’re not only addressing their fears—you’re challenging short-term speculation and reframing their beliefs. In doing so, you help shape more disciplined investors who are aligned with your advice and committed to their plan. That’s how trust is built and maintained.

2. Use the PAUSE model to keep things under control

P:  Pay attention

• Recognize the client’s emotional state without casting judgment. 
• This step is about tuning in, as clients need to feel seen before they’ll listen.
• “I can hear how concerned you are right now.” 

A:  Acknowledge

• Show empathy and validate their feelings. 
• This builds trust and lowers defensiveness.
• “It’s completely understandable to feel uneasy when markets drop like this.”

U:  Understand

• Help clients self-discover to reveal their underlying concern.
• Ask open-ended questions to identify what’s driving the urgency. 
• “Can you tell me more about what’s worrying you most right now?” 

S:  Seek alternatives 

• Help clients consider both possible and probable scenarios. 
• This is where education and reassurance come in.
• “While it’s possible that the market will continue to go down, it’s more probable that the market will eventually rise and reach new heights.”  

E:  Expand

• Zoom out and help clients consider the bigger picture.
• Bring the conversation back to the client’s financial plan and long-term goals. 
• “Long-term financial success requires discipline and patience. We’re on track to meet the goals we’ve set out in your financial plan, such as retiring early, and that’s what really matters. Let’s stick to the plan that is already working for you.”

As you cultivate the five traits and use the PAUSE model accordingly, always bring the focus back to the long-term financial plan. Remind clients of their life goals and how you designed the financial plan together with those life goals in mind.

Final thoughts

The reality is that pressure will always exist for advisors—pressure to predict the next downturn, pressure to explain the latest headline, pressure to deliver the best returns. But your real value isn’t in outguessing the market. It’s in keeping clients focused, disciplined and committed to the plan you’ve built together.

This sensible approach can help ease whatever pressure you might face during client conversations, and it’s also what will transform a one-time investor into a lifelong successful and loyal client.

For more resources on cultivating the five key investor traits, the PAUSE model and other behavioural coaching ideas, please contact your CI Sales Team.