Best "Client freaked me out when..." stories
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Sitting here prepping for my next review/update/rebalancing meeting and started reflecting on this particular client.
Came to me as an ok sized referral 6 or so years ago, medium sized 401k rollover, and then she got divorced a few years later and ended up with some more of "his" money. It all started out pretty normal, nothing standing out as strange, but then after the divorce I started noticing she was dressing more and more like Stevie Nicks, wearing multiple strange rings and started displaying more "visible" tats (hands, fingers, lower arms). I have no idea how her inventory of non-immediately visible tats may or may not have changed.
So, I'm not going to ask her, "Why are you looking so much like a freak lately," but she happens to mention casually a few years ago while we're going through the review, "You know I can see things, don't you?" Me: See what? That your shares of Southern Company are paying an effective current yield of 5.5% but they're down a couple of points? Her: No, that's not what I meant. I can see things that other people can't. I've got Earth Gifts (her exact phrase) that allow me to know things that other people don't know and can't know. At this point, I'm really wanting to ask her if she'll apply these gifts to our portfolio planning, but I'm just sitting and nodding that blank nod with the Robert DeNiro face, you know the one with the little turned down mouth, the "Hmm, I never thought of that" look. Her: For instance, I know when my mother is going to die, and I asked her if she wants me to tell her, but she said no. Me: Uhhhh, well, I can certainly understand that. I don't think I'd want to know that. Her: Really? (she looks at me with the weirdest 'I'm seeing your innermost being' stare) You really wouldn't want to know that? Or other things about your life to come? Me: Definitely not. Her : Do you think that makes me a witch? Or something like that? Me: Uhhhh, I don't know, what do you think? Her: I haven't decided yet. But I definitely have a gift..... The conversation turned back to business after that, but that was the strangest review I've ever done with a client, including the ones with the narcoleptic client that I always have to wake up during the meeting.Wow! Thanks for sharing that. A couple questions for you.
1) Would you? 2) What's her myspace?I had a couple fight in my office over putting his or her parents as the beneficiary to their accounts. Husband bitch slapped his wife and took off sprinting down the street (in a suit). He snapped in literally 5 seconds before I was even out of my chair.
[quote=Greenbacks]Well if she knows the future she can pick lottery numbers, Right?
I dought it! [/quote] Still more importantly, she should know what the market is going to do and what positions to back up the bus, or bail on.Had a prospect tell me that she had to consult her Ouija Board and Astrologist before she could make a decision.
During a cold call pitch on Bonds, I had someone tell me they didn't need any Bail Bonds before they hung up on me.prospect walked in and asked about buying the drug stocks that make the base components for methanphetimines. six months later, they were arrested for making meth
A client at the bank asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money on the side. I politely informed him that we are not permitted to have side jobs. He clarified with a wink that he wasn’t exactly talking about something legal.
I politely declined.[quote=BioFreeze] [quote=MsBroker]A client at the bank asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money on the side. I politely informed him that we are not permitted to have side jobs. He clarified with a wink that he wasn’t exactly talking about something legal.
I politely declined. [/quote]What do you look like?
[/quote] Rosie O'Donnell
[quote=MsBroker]A client at the bank asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money on the side. I politely informed him that we are not permitted to have side jobs. He clarified with a wink that he wasn’t exactly talking about something legal.
I politely declined. [/quote] "You're a lot of woman, you know that? Yeah, wanna make 14 dollars the hard way?" - Al CzervikAlso had a breast feeding incident. Baby was in the carrier on the floor and she kept crying. Mom said I’m sorry, let me try to make her stop. She picked the baby up, cradled her and out it came. No warning at all! It wasn’t the first time I’d seen one, or the natural act itself. I’m sure it makes me immature, but it’s really awkward trying to explain share classes to a woman with someone latched on her boob.
Thats funny as s**t! That is to a T the exact scenario I was in. There was no "I hope you don't mind", or "Pardon me, but I need to do this to calm the baby down". Just a whipping out of the boob and away the baby sucked. I was explaining share classes too. I was also in a conference room in my office that had windows that people walking by could see into. And they did.Also had a breast feeding incident. Baby was in the carrier on the floor and she kept crying. Mom said I’m sorry, let me try to make her stop. She picked the baby up, cradled her and out it came. No warning at all! It wasn’t the first time I’d seen one, or the natural act itself. I’m sure it makes me immature, but it’s really awkward trying to explain share classes to a woman with someone latched on her boob.
Thats funny as s**t! That is to a T the exact scenario I was in. There was no "I hope you don't mind", or "Pardon me, but I need to do this to calm the baby down". Just a whipping out of the boob and away the baby sucked. I was explaining share classes too. I was also in a conference room in my office that had windows that people walking by could see into. And they did.[/quote] LOL, I had the exact same thing happen as well. No warning and out it came but the husband was in the office as well. I tried so hard to not look over and stay focused on him and he wasn't even phased by it. I was like WTF??[quote=imabroker]Also had a breast feeding incident. Baby was in the carrier on the floor and she kept crying. Mom said I’m sorry, let me try to make her stop. She picked the baby up, cradled her and out it came. No warning at all! It wasn’t the first time I’d seen one, or the natural act itself. I’m sure it makes me immature, but it’s really awkward trying to explain share classes to a woman with someone latched on her boob.
That would have been the perfect setting in which to test your verbal skills, and your cojones, by running out an explanation of your process in a fashion such as this:
“Mr. and Mrs. Client, my commitment to you is to lay bare the double barreled risks we face with swelling inflation and the nip of the tax man, and to keep you fully abreast of the ebb and flow of opportunity. My role is to help you scrape the cream off the top of a well developed and fully balanced portfolio, and not get sucked into the next cleft of extremes. If I can support well rounded planning with the occasional bounce that we’ll get from one peak to the next, then we will enjoy double delightful returns, while pushing back risk with both hands. That, Mr. and Mrs. Client, is truly an investment plan that we can really wrap our hands around. I can almost taste the sweet nectar of success, can’t you?”
[quote=2wheeledbeemer]That would have been the perfect setting in which to test your verbal skills, and your cojones, by running out an explanation of your process in a fashion such as this:
“Mr. and Mrs. Client, my commitment to you is to lay bare the double barreled risks we face with swelling inflation and the nip of the tax man, and to keep you fully abreast of the ebb and flow of opportunity. My role is to help you scrape the cream off the top of a well developed and fully balanced portfolio, and not get sucked into the next cleft of extremes. If I can support well rounded planning with the occasional bounce that we’ll get from one peak to the next, then we will enjoy double delightful returns, while pushing back risk with both hands. That, Mr. and Mrs. Client, is truly an investment plan that we can really wrap our hands around. I can almost taste the sweet nectar of success, can’t you?”[/quote]
“TITILLATING!”
Had a prospect once tell me that she believed in the Mayan calendar and was pretty sure the world was going to end in 2012. This was our first meeting (she was a referral), and it was about an hour into our conversation after we’d covered the usual topics. We were sitting in a cafe. She was a successful entrepreneur and looked put together (didn’t seem flaky or new age-y at all), so I wasn’t sure what to make of this statement. This was last year during the height of the market turmoil (when it was fashionable to predict the end of civilization), so I kind of let it go and moved on to discuss asset allocation and then went to close the meeting by offering to put together a portfolio proposal for her.
At this point, she nodded and with a straight face asked me to put together two portfolio proposals: one with a traditional retirement time horizon (she was in her 30s and wanted to retire by age 60) and a second which incorporated the end of days in 2012. I thought maybe this was a joke and she was trying to test me to see if I had a sense of humor, so I laughed. Big mistake. She was dead serious. She didn’t get upset, but it was clear that I’d lost her. I tried to back-peddle and offered to accommodate, but she told me she had another meeting to get to and she’d think about it and get back to me. Needless to say, I never heard back from her.
…apparently having a client breast-feed in your office during a review/presentation isn’t as uncommon as I thought it was. Personally, that was when I turned the presentation 100% to the husband and pretended that the wife wasn’t even in the room. Given her preoccupation, she didn’t seem to care at all.