Two Professionals Tell Us How- September 2007

People are funny when it comes to money and they can be downright irrational when getting divorced. It takes a special person to guide people when making life-altering decisions that are driven by raw emotion. We spoke with Anita Kain, Principal of Kain & Ball, a legal practice focused on family law and with Michael Korman, a wealth manager and member of the Platinum Advisor Group at Raymond James Ltd.

Oomph: How do you guide clients who are going through something as stressful as a divorce?
Anita Kain: It’s a real process and it doesn’t happen spontaneously - it takes lots of on-the-job training and experience. The first step is to learn that you are seeing people at their worst and to approach them and the situation with a great deal of understanding. The next step is to provide lots of information on the applicable law and on what their options are. Explaining the law helps us to show why the things clients have seen on TV aren’t feasible... We have literature, information sheets, FAQs and a special section on our website explaining the process in detail.

Oomph: How do you deal with the real ugly or extreme cases where clients have become irrational?
Anita: If a client is making what I believe is a very questionable decision, I’ll ask them to write it down and give me the written instructions. Putting words to paper forces people to slow down and organize their thinking; it makes people see things more clearly, carefully and in a more comprehensive manner and often makes them reconsider the decision they were making. If they’ve written it all down and they still want to proceed in the same way, then I know they’re really serious. Another tactic is to build time into the process so there’s an opportunity to cool off.

Oomph: Trusting someone with your money is not an easy thing to do. How do get your clients to trust you implicitly?
Michael Korman: I use moral suasion instead of coming across like I’m pitching a product. I advice and persuade in such a way that I lead my clients to a logical conclusion in their own mind. They need to think that they thought of something on their own instead of being led or pushed into a certain situation. Open ended questions and third-party stories help clients to arrive at an understanding of the situation.

Oomph: OK, so there’s a major disaster, attack or economic shock and the stock markets take a dive. How do you deal with clients who call in a panic?
Michael: I start long before the occurrence by getting to know my clients really well so that I understand their psychological temperament and how they think. I do this by asking a lot of open ended and probing questions such as “how do you feel about ups and downs in your capital?” and so on. It takes a while until you get to know a client really well so I’m always asking questions.

If I have done a good job of assessing their emotions on a continuous basis and I understand them, then I know how they will react when there’s a crisis and it’s a simple process: some are intuitively able to understand what’s going on, others need help. I contact them and start communicating right away by painting a macro picture so they understand what’s going on. I ‘manage’ that view by relating it to them so as to manage their expectations. All the while I probe, but I also stay quiet and listen. The process doesn’t change, just the way you communicate it. It takes awhile to master and it’s an art, not a science – the art of interpersonal communication.

Anita Kain - Kain & Ball

Michael Korman - Raymond James Ltd