A recent conversation drove home how easy it is to cross wires when communicating with existing and prospective clients.

I was talking to a successful lawyer who I've known for many years. He has been managing his own money but markets over the past years persuaded him he should look at the possibility of working with a financial advisor.

He mentioned that he had sat down with one advisor (as it happens an advisor I know quite well) for ninety minutes, had enjoyed their conversation and been leaning to the possibility of working with him.
His only concern was this advisor's strong emphasis on junior resources ("Moose Pasture Mines" was how my friend described these stocks) that he saw as being too risky for someone in his sixties. As a result, he had decided not to move forward with this advisor and had cancelled a follow up meeting that had been set up.

Knowing the advisor in question as I do, this just didn't sound right. I called the advisor, mentioned I knew the prospective client he'd talked to - and asked for his take on the conversation.

It turns out, that in the last five minutes of a ninety minute conversation, he'd mentioned that he'd successfully used flow throughs as a vehicle to help clients save taxes .... And yes, he had told my friend that these flow throughs did consist of junior resource stocks.

I did ultimately get this advisor and my friend back together for a coffee to clear the air on this - and we identified the source of the miscommunication. The very last thing they'd talked about when they met was the flow through share opportunity - and by leaving this to the end of the meeting, this was what the prospective client walked away remembering.

There are two important lessons for advisors from this.

First, in structuring agendas for meetings with existing and prospective clients, be sure that you end on the right note - often advisors will leave the least important item to the end of the agenda.

And second, you need to be sure to summarize what you've covered at the end of every meeting (and ideally recap this in a short email immediately afterwards.). You can't assume that people you meet with will remember all the things you covered - you need to ensure that you take two minutes at the conclusion to summarize the key points you talked about.

You can never eliminate the chances of miscommunication - but you can reduce them.

One way to do that is to be sure you learn from the mistakes this advisor made - and end every meeting on a strong note and take the time to summarize what you covered.