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Seemingly each day, the media hysteria heightens. You’d think nobody would want a steady diet of bad news, but you and I know that it’s not going to stop. Why? Because bad news sells.
Do you ever wonder why bad news sells? Do you ever wonder why we focus on what’s wrong in the world? We do that because we’re concerned about anything that threatens our sense of wellbeing.
Where people feel threatened, varies by country. In this country, the Pew Research Center, published reports saying Americans focus especially on news concerning money and disasters, both manmade and natural. The media obligingly responds with a stream of stories about rising prices, terrorism, political upheaval.
Let us not forget the media’s goal is to make a profit. So, I assure you current events are short-term white noise and should never influence your long-term thinking. It does us no good to focus on what changes every day. It’s better to focus on what never changes.
Two things never change no matter who wins the next presidential election, no matter what happens in China, no matter what happens in the next crazy news cycle: Your clients have to reach their goals. That’s not going to change.
The market changes every day. The reason they invested doesn’t change. So you have to focus on your clients’ goals and make sure they do the same. Educating kids and investing for retirement are not part-time endeavors, not to be pursued only when we feel good about things.
I’ve told you before, in 180 months your three-year old is going to be in college. A 45-year old, who gets paid once a month and wants to retire at 65, only has 240 paychecks left of his or her lifetime. No one is so powerful that he can stop the march of time. Another thing that never changes is you’ve got to run a business, a profitable business, regardless of current events. You’ll go broke, waiting for good news.
You’ll never be out of business as long as you can get and keep clients and to be able to get and keep clients no matter the short-term white noise, as long as you make their goals your number one priority. It’s tough enough in normal times to keep clients focused. It’s especially tough in an election cycle. We’re going to have very little good news for the next several months. Your clients are paying you for advice. This is where you earn your money. Advise them to keep their eyes on the horizon. As doubt creeps in it’s up to you to be the beacon of anti-stress. It’s only natural at the more uncertain times the more certainty people demand from their advisor. It’s just natural. In turbulence every airline passage looks at the flight attend. See what the flight attendant’s going to do.
As your clients look at you for your reaction, I urge you to be optimistic, be passionate about the decisions you have made for them. Be enthusiastic about their chances. Clients simply want to be on stable ground. They want to hear from you that their goals are achievable. They want to be assured they’re doing the right thing. We’re not the media. Ours is a totally different business model. Our business is not a hundred-yard dash. Our business is a marathon. I know you know that; your clients sometimes forget. Keep reminding them. Remind them that politics and investing are polar opposites. With politics – its short term is crystal clear and the long term is murky. And with investing – its short term is murky but the long term is crystal clear
Related: Taking Control of Time: A Guide for Financial Advisors