For financial advisors, an ongoing client service model often means finding ways to keep clients engaged and progressing toward their goals outside of the 1 or 2 typical client review meetings each year. For clients, more frequent communication can be a source of behavioral coaching and helpful information that can better equip them to stay the course through rocky markets. Which means that by engaging clients more frequently, advisors can strengthen the client-advisor relationship while providing clients with timely behavioral coaching and valuable information, ultimately leading to deeper trust, fewer worried phone calls or 'emergency' meetings, and potentially even more client referrals. What's challenging, however, is figuring out how to reach each client consistently while delivering insights on subjects that they care about and making it easy for them to engage further.

In this guest post, Ashby Daniels, a financial advisor with Shorebridge Wealth Management and creator of Money Visuals, discusses how a 'private' email newsletter can help reinforce the value that advisors provide in a way that can be scaled across an entire client base.

Although newsletters are made to be sent to many people at once, from a client's perspective, they can be seen as a much more intimate form of communication. That's because people tend to be selective about whom they let into their inbox: They often filter out those who aren't friends or family and those who don't otherwise bring value into their lives. And because (at least from the client's perspective) it feels as though the message is being sent to them directly, an email newsletter can feel like a much more direct and personal mode of communication than other content channels such as blogs, podcasts, and videos that are openly accessible to everyone. Because a client who receives a newsletter from their advisor needs only to hit the "Reply" button to respond and engage with the advisor, any email newsletter really is just 1 step away from a more direct, 1-to-1 conversation.

In terms of choosing what to include in the newsletter, it can make sense to break the content down into several sections that can be repeated in each edition for consistency and repeatability. Topics can vary from market insights to financial planning-related topics to recommended reading to personal and business updates (and many other potential topics), but the most important thing to get across is the advisor's own perspective on what's going on (since that perspective often is what allows clients to feel the most confident about their own situation). Which can even be done when outsourcing newsletter content, so long as the philosophy and communication style of the writer aligns with the advisor's own – a potential option for advisors who lack the time or don't feel as comfortable with writing.

The key point is that newsletters can be a valuable tool even for advisors who aren't naturally inclined to write. This is because clients don't generally value perfection or exact certainty as much as they value consistency and authenticity. On the one hand, this means that advisors can choose any cadence for sending a newsletter (weekly, monthly, etc.) that they feel comfortable with – so long as they are able to consistently stay with that schedule. On the other hand, a personal note that offers a glimpse of the advisor as a human can often be more interesting and engaging for the client than a technical article on a complex financial topic. In the end, while creating a client newsletter does take time, that time spent can have a high impact on the quality of the advisor's client relationships – and can even bring in more clients in the process – by regularly reinforcing the value that the advisor brings to the relationship!

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In initial discovery meetings, financial advisors face the challenge of eliciting specific goals from new clients – a crucial step for crafting a comprehensive financial plan. Asking direct queries may elicit vague responses like "I want to be on track for retirement", which tends to lack the detail needed to plan effectively and spark the client's motivation to actually accomplish those goals. Moreover, probing into a client's financial aspirations might inadvertently lead to negative emotions if past failures are brought to light, potentially eliciting feelings like anxiety, guilt, and shame that could ultimately hinder the client's ability to discuss their goals openly.

If a client struggles to discuss their goals, one way for a financial advisor to redirect the conversation in a more productive direction could be to reframe the question with a positive focus; rather than being reminded of their previous emotional baggage around money, the advisor encourages the client to imagine a more hopeful financial future. For example, they can ask the client: "Imagine you had a magic wand that could let you change anything about your current financial situation – what would you change, and why?"

Techniques like the 'Magic Wand' question are effective because they are solution-focused; they emphasize envisioning positive changes rather than recalling the anxiety or frustration that the client may be experiencing because of the issue. This approach encourages the client to separate their goal from any emotional pain associated with that goal, helping them to focus on the actions they are able to take without the emotional burden of past setbacks. Not only can Magic Wand questions be used as an effective way to recover a conversation veering into negative emotional territory by shifting the mood more positively, but they can also be used to proactively initiate positive brainstorming sessions about financial goals and needs. And for client couples, the Magic Wand question is a gentle way to help partners reveal their individual financial concerns with each other by keeping the conversation light-hearted and solution-focused, steering clear of blame and other negative emotions.

The key point is that in a society where financial status often reflects on personal character, financial difficulties can provoke feelings of guilt and shame – and it may be easy for people to focus on those negative feelings instead of actionable improvements. For financial advisors, having tools like the 'Magic Wand' question can be invaluable for steering clients away from the emotional turmoil of their current financial issues and towards clear, solution-focused strategies for achieving their goals!

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