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Do You Want My Advice?
Oct. 9th, 2008 08:39 amOver the last few days the stock market has gone from bad to worse, and at my job, calls are spiking. We've been asked to work more overtime and take short lunches. The callers have become more and more agitated, searching for any information they can. For me, it's been tough.
I've never been in a position where I had to actually council people about their finances. I've always been behind the scenes working on issues, but never have had to guide someone into a decision of whether they should sell out of an investment, or buy into another. In a way, I can't actually tell people what to do, but I can provide guidance. Still, that's very difficult.
My job is a telephone councilor for people. In some ways I do simple things like address changes and getting out paperwork to people, but in others I have retirees worried that the value of their account has declined as well as people who have lost their job who are needing the money even though the taxes will eat up about 35% of what they take out.
It's been difficult. Funds invested in the stock market have declines more than 30% this year, a remarkable number. Still, for some people, you try to tell them to wait it out. It's all about the buy low, sell high idea, but then you have people who will be needing the cash for retirement in the next few years. Do you tell them to hang on, or do you tell them to sell and move into more secure assets? Then the question becomes, how do you guide them to the decision, and how much guidance then becomes advice and decision making?
I'm not supposed to make decisions for people, but that's what people are calling in for. It's difficult when people continually ask you for your opinion. Most people don't think about their retirement funds until you get to a crisis like this. Only now is when they want to act, and now they are acting out of fear rather than rationality, but I understand that response. Hell, the whole stock market is going through that right now as people sell out of stocks that have already declined. More often than not, people really do buy a hot stock when it is at it's peak, and sell when it didn't perform the way they wanted it to.
So I sit in my cubicle each day and take calls from people, some just need to be reassured. One lady asked about my company's financial health and I spit out the talking points we've been given which say how strong we are and she asked how long I've been there. I fudged and said about a year. She said she was surprised because I had the answer down cold. I replied, "I've had to say it so many times it's become second nature with me."
In a way I feel like I'm not doing very well for these folks. I try to provide the best information for these people, sometimes spending over an hour with them, but despite licensees and ten years of industry experience, the best I can do is give them a slightly educated guess. I had an 85 year old man call yesterday who wanted to know if he should get out of the market. Normally I would have said yes, but the guy didn't need the money. He had a lot saved, and was living comfortably without having to use this pool. I asked, "Do you want to take the loss at this time?" He said no, and we left it alone. I will continue to worry about him if the stock market continues to decline, but I also worry about those who only have a few buck that they have saved and expect years of income to come out of it.
I wish right now I could just go back to being an order taker, someone who doesn't have to try to go through these people's stories just to give them a half-assed "Sure" when they ask if this is a a good move for them. I never wanted to be a financial advisor, and I'm not, but for many people, I am their source of information. I try to cull from as much conventional wisdom as I can, and try to do my best, but I really don't know if I'm providing the right information for people.
The line between guidance and advice is a narrow one, one that I'm having difficulty with. I feel that in some cases I may be trying to do too much. Even my boss said I need to stop trying to fix everyone's problems because it takes too much time. I want the market to start going back up, just so people will stop calling in such a panicked state. I'm worried that angry people are going to come back to me stating that I told them to do something and it didn't work out.
Heck, I have enough trouble managing my own finances.
This job, it's proven to be more stressful than I thought it would be.
On a lighter note, I had a call from a customer in Wasilla, Alaska. I said that her town was famous and she said that they were all proud of Governor Palin. I just gave a non committal "uh-huh" to that. She then defended that their town isn't as small as they report, giving that standard line about how the mainstream media distorts things, as Republicans are wont to do at this time. Here's was a simple request, but it was interesting to get a call from the area.
I've never been in a position where I had to actually council people about their finances. I've always been behind the scenes working on issues, but never have had to guide someone into a decision of whether they should sell out of an investment, or buy into another. In a way, I can't actually tell people what to do, but I can provide guidance. Still, that's very difficult.
My job is a telephone councilor for people. In some ways I do simple things like address changes and getting out paperwork to people, but in others I have retirees worried that the value of their account has declined as well as people who have lost their job who are needing the money even though the taxes will eat up about 35% of what they take out.
It's been difficult. Funds invested in the stock market have declines more than 30% this year, a remarkable number. Still, for some people, you try to tell them to wait it out. It's all about the buy low, sell high idea, but then you have people who will be needing the cash for retirement in the next few years. Do you tell them to hang on, or do you tell them to sell and move into more secure assets? Then the question becomes, how do you guide them to the decision, and how much guidance then becomes advice and decision making?
I'm not supposed to make decisions for people, but that's what people are calling in for. It's difficult when people continually ask you for your opinion. Most people don't think about their retirement funds until you get to a crisis like this. Only now is when they want to act, and now they are acting out of fear rather than rationality, but I understand that response. Hell, the whole stock market is going through that right now as people sell out of stocks that have already declined. More often than not, people really do buy a hot stock when it is at it's peak, and sell when it didn't perform the way they wanted it to.
So I sit in my cubicle each day and take calls from people, some just need to be reassured. One lady asked about my company's financial health and I spit out the talking points we've been given which say how strong we are and she asked how long I've been there. I fudged and said about a year. She said she was surprised because I had the answer down cold. I replied, "I've had to say it so many times it's become second nature with me."
In a way I feel like I'm not doing very well for these folks. I try to provide the best information for these people, sometimes spending over an hour with them, but despite licensees and ten years of industry experience, the best I can do is give them a slightly educated guess. I had an 85 year old man call yesterday who wanted to know if he should get out of the market. Normally I would have said yes, but the guy didn't need the money. He had a lot saved, and was living comfortably without having to use this pool. I asked, "Do you want to take the loss at this time?" He said no, and we left it alone. I will continue to worry about him if the stock market continues to decline, but I also worry about those who only have a few buck that they have saved and expect years of income to come out of it.
I wish right now I could just go back to being an order taker, someone who doesn't have to try to go through these people's stories just to give them a half-assed "Sure" when they ask if this is a a good move for them. I never wanted to be a financial advisor, and I'm not, but for many people, I am their source of information. I try to cull from as much conventional wisdom as I can, and try to do my best, but I really don't know if I'm providing the right information for people.
The line between guidance and advice is a narrow one, one that I'm having difficulty with. I feel that in some cases I may be trying to do too much. Even my boss said I need to stop trying to fix everyone's problems because it takes too much time. I want the market to start going back up, just so people will stop calling in such a panicked state. I'm worried that angry people are going to come back to me stating that I told them to do something and it didn't work out.
Heck, I have enough trouble managing my own finances.
This job, it's proven to be more stressful than I thought it would be.
On a lighter note, I had a call from a customer in Wasilla, Alaska. I said that her town was famous and she said that they were all proud of Governor Palin. I just gave a non committal "uh-huh" to that. She then defended that their town isn't as small as they report, giving that standard line about how the mainstream media distorts things, as Republicans are wont to do at this time. Here's was a simple request, but it was interesting to get a call from the area.
