Tuning in to clients’ emotions

It’s only been six months, but in that time Amanda Moore has grown into her role as a young financial planner at Cornerstone Wealth Advisors Inc.

The 23-year-old has not only picked up a wealth of technical knowledge on tax issues and retirement income, but she’s also become closely attuned to the behavior of her clients. It’s an affirmation of the emotional intelligence required to excel as a financial planner.

“We have a client whose husband is terminally ill, and I’ve been in contact with her,” Ms. Moore said. “It’s reassuring as to why I wanted to do financial planning. It’s encouraging having her reach out to me; it makes me feel like I’ve earned her trust.”

Naturally, those emotional needs also can influence the financial decisions those clients make, and Ms. Moore and her colleagues are in charge of keeping a cool head.

“It’s drawing that line between having empathy, but not being too emotionally involved,” she said. “In that situation, other advisers and I have to give direction and guide them through stressful times.”

Another learning experience is adapting the know-how she picked up in school to real life. She learned many financial planning rules of thumb while earning her finance degree at Virginia Tech, but the applicability varies for each client scenario.

“You have to be quick-thinking [in school], but not to the same extent” as when working with a client, Ms. Moore said. “When the client calls, you have to be able to answer the question then and there, giving them the right amount of information.”

PRACTICE, PRACTICE

It’s all practice: She’s learned from observing her colleagues during meetings and then engaging with clients. “When you try to talk through something the first time, you don’t do it the best way,” Ms. Moore said. “By the fifth time it’s a little easier.”

Next year, Ms. Moore expects to concentrate her efforts on passing the certified financial planner exam in March. She began studying in November, and taxes were the first subject in the study guide.

“Nine times out of 10, everything I do on a daily basis relates to taxes,” she said. “Required minimum distributions, 401(k) contributions, withdrawing from accounts — financial planning is so much more than the sum of the individual parts.”