Please Tell This To Prospective Clients Who Are Close To Retiring

During a volatile market time, have you ever had a client or prospective client reach out to ask if they would be better off pulling their assets out of investments and converting to cash?

When this happens to me, especially if it’s a new or prospective client who I don’t have a strong relationship with yet, I have something that I share with them that has really helped when fears come up. I remind them that for every financial decision, there’s really two decisions that factor in. One is the financial component; the other is the emotional component. And as they get closer to a date where they’re going to have to start using the investments and other things that they’ve been focusing on saving for so long, the emotional side is going to get stronger and stronger.

And that’s brought a lot of peace of mind, surprisingly, to people because they don’t think about it that way. They know that years ago, for example, during the financial crisis of 2008, they didn’t do anything because retirement was still 12 or 15 years away. But as they get closer, that fear or worry starts to creep in a little bit more. By reminding clients that there’s two types of decisions to make and that the emotional side is going to get stronger, it really helps them to prepare for that emotional part.

So, think about that next time someone brings up the question of going to all cash or comes up with some other investment idea that seems to be emotionally driven rather than based in good financial sense.