Planner to Planner: How Are You Communicating the CARES Act to Clients?

FPA has created a safe space to do this with weekly peer-to-peer conversations open to the planning profession, including FPA members and non-members. These conversations are hosted by well-known speaker, author and mentor Elizabeth Jetton, M.Ed., CFP®, and include venerable thought leaders—a “who’s who” in financial planning.

“These conversations offer a great tool for solo practitioners, firm teams and firm leadership groups to gain practical ideas and find support within this community of thought leaders,” Jetton says. “The sessions can be a springboard to meaningful firm conversation and strategic planning at this time when we are all looking to do more and better on behalf of our clients.”

The April 9th conversation explored how planners are communicating the CAREs Act to clients.

“The calm in your voices—and I know you’re not calm on the inside—and the conviction you have is very comforting to clients right now,” Jetton told the group of several dozen planners. “They need to hear that conviction! This is when we demonstrate the deep value we bring. Even if your clients know what you’re going to say, they need to hear you say it.”

Here are key takeaways from the conversation; and see the end of this post for information on how to join upcoming calls:

Q: How are you communicating the CAREs Act to different kinds of clients?

Evelyn Zohlen, CFP®

We’ve tried hard to meet them where they are. We know our clients pretty well, and those that need that out call immediately get it; those who are OK with an email get that, and then we have a handful of millennials who just want us to text them the pertinent info. The challenge is to meet them where they are, but also take the time to find out what’s on their mind. There are so many planning opportunities right now. I’ve personally struggled with wanting to get to that planning, but I’m sensitive to the client’s need to just talk.

Rick Kahler, CFP®

I initially put out a lot of information to clients. Then that information changed; then it changed again. I was attempting to get clients the latest information, but I backed off that, because it turns out that their main thing is frustration. And I can share that with them. I’m experiencing this with them. They’ve turned to me to have the answers. I don’t have a lot of answers, but I’ve been able to say, “I’m in this boat with you.”

Dan Moisand, CFP®

The first thing we had to do was huddle as a team. We laid out: what’s in the act, who does it apply to, and how do we communicate it? The halting of required minimum distributions affects a much larger part of our client base than the provisions for small businesses. So, our first outreach was to those affected by RMDs. It was a simple email: RMDs are not required in 2020. If you don’t need it to pay the bills, we can talk about this later.

For our small business people, we started with clients for whom we do their tax work. We made personal phone calls to them right away. The third kind of communication was reactionary. It was to clients who lost their jobs or were furloughed—and that involved a whole other slew of things. But we don’t know that until they call to tell us they’ve lost their job.

Brian Thompson, CFP®

I have three ways of communicating this: One, I do a weekly newsletter for clients called the “5-Minute Friday.” Most of my clients are affected by [the CARES Act] because the act is huge. Two, I have a lot of business owners [as clients]. I email them separately, outlining the different options they have, with the caveat that this changes daily. And three, I do rolling client appointments, making sure to hold space first for whatever is coming up for them, because my clients have been in very different places.

Hannah Moore, CFP®

In my communications to clients, I’ve stripped out any complexity; they’re shorter and more streamlined communications. We’re doing a lot of videos now that we posting to our Facebook page. In some conversations we’ve had with clients, they’re telling us, “We’re turning off the news; we’re turning off everything.” We wanted to honor that with them a little bit, so we’re doing simple communications, and if they want more, they can go to Facebook. We’ve also gone to physical mail. There is so much information being shared via email that we want to be in contrast to that, so we’re sending weekly postcards and engaging that way instead. Everybody’s at home right now. What do I want? Something that comes in the mail.

Guy Cumbie, CFP®

We’ve done a client bulletin or two. The first one was not about the CAREs Act, but COVID. We framed it as risk management at large; not stock market or tax risk management, but human capital risk management. We talked about virology, helping clients understand what a virus is, and what COVID means, and how washing your hands disarms the virus. That bulletin was well-received, so we stayed on that theme … then very quickly moved into tax loss harvesting and the CAREs Act.

Mike Alves, CFP®

We are sending emails every other day, on average; and making proactive calls to check-in on clients—especially older clients. It’s very important that we’re empathetic with clients right now. We try to really check in and ask: How are you doing? Can we help with anything? We’re dropping off gift baskets with fruits/vegetables/snacks/wine to local clients, and mailing baskets to clients who live farther with handwritten notes. For any business-related items, we’re using Zoom meetings.

Chris Pollard, CFP®

I work with fair number of business owners, especially ones that have just gone through a merger or acquisition, or are in a position where they are owing money to someone else. So, it’s been very much putting out fires and making sure they are first in line with bankers to make their business viable and get them out the other side. It’s quite a bit of work helping business owners as if they are a start-up. And when you’re a start-up, it’s all about: What’s your burn rate? How do we make the runway as long as possible until things get better?

We’ve provided a lot of relief of clients just so they can talk to another person about the business’s cash flow, because that’s been causing a lot of stress for people. I had my admin call every client, and everyone got 20 minutes with me the week the market was imploding. If they needed it, we had another call the next week. They could hear my voice and get some assurance. And we did a group webinar. Half of that webinar was focused on stress relief, taking care of yourself if you’re stressed out. Because if you’re stressed out, you’re more likely to get sick. About three-quarters of our clients show up to that webinar. They’re stuck at home, and I think they appreciate something to distract them.

We’ve been reaching out constantly—even in shorter snippets—to say: This is not permanent. Things will get better; we just don’t know when.

Mariah Sacoman, CFP®

For my single clients—unmarried or widows—I’m having gentle conversations, asking: Who is in your network? Who needs to be contacted if something happens to you? Do you need to update your beneficiaries? Do you have a medical power of attorney? I tiptoe into this one, but it is important, I think, if it’s addressed the right way. It really resonates with people. And this conversation is evergreen; it doesn’t matter if we’re having a pandemic.

Q: Are prospective clients coming to you right now? How is this looking in your firms?

Evelyn Zohlen, CFP®

We do have perspective clients coming to us right now. There’s so much uncertainty. For many do-it-yourselfers, they are now thinking that do-it-yourself was not a great strategy.

We decided to continue with those prospective clients already in the pipeline. But the firm has taken a moratorium accepting new clients until the third quarter, so we can focus on serving our existing clients. We’ve published that and shared it with our existing clients, and we’ve received tremendous feedback from them on that.

Dan Moisand, CFP®

We are on-boarding some new clients right now; those who had already made the decision to go with us, and these events have just spurred them on. What has happened through other really dramatic, significant [market] declines over the course of my career, is [bringing on new clients] tends to slow down a little bit, and you are taking really good care of your clients.

Our clients have one incredible advantage: they have a plan, and they have a competent, ethical planner to help them execute that plan. No planner worth a hoot would ever put clients in the market to NOT plan for a downturn. When clients have this plan, they have much more control over their finances. And once the dust settles, referrals pick up and the quality is really fantastic. And it’s all based on financial planning.