Advising wealthy clients

KEY POINTS

• Advisers must be able to adapt and use emotional intelligence.
• Problems can arise when a young child inherits a substantial sum.
• Understanding clients’ personalities is as important as technical knowledge.

A private client practice is often not about financial planning at all. Human relationships availability and complete engagement with individual needs are central and expected by those whose interests the adviser serves.

The role requires constant adaptation and attention perhaps more so than in the past and is as much about emotional intelligence as financial skills. People rather than technical issues are at its core particularly the different expectations of generations. These can cause turbulence that requires sensitivity to navigate especially because people are living longer fully engaged lives.

Neither are client expectations uniform. Ambitions for inherited land have arguably changed...