Major market upheaval presents the perfect opportunity to review client portfolios. Portfolios have been “fire-tested” by today’s challenges, exposing weaknesses in traditional planning and product decisions. Use this information to their advantage. It’s “Tested by fire and proven in reality.”

You now know which concepts work in the toughest situations and which don’t in a way that no one could have known before. No one called this one. Resist the natural inclination to hide from these challenges. Instead, embrace them as opportunities. Hiding never helps.

When you are “up” in a “down market”, you help keep your clients from making bad decisions and compounding problems. You prove your value many times over this way.

Offer prospects and clients an “Emergency Portfolio Update” (EPU) immediately. The market shakedown also exposed tremendous financial opportunities. An EPU can identify specific opportunities and give your client smarter places to wait for the market to rebound. If you can help identify the investments where the market recovery will be quicker and higher, you will provide a tremendous service.

Also, review a client’s lifestyle funding program their protection portfolio. As protection products became more performance oriented, product selection has become more critical than ever. Some may be too scary for some people. Tell it like it is.

Project the cash their current portfolio now provides to protect their lifestyle. Calculate and correct for the changes. Reinforce their overall lifestyle security with the right decisions today. Market swings provide extra urgency and a new climate of security consciousness. Use it.

Review overall investment performance and individual fund decisions. Deal with the reality without blame and excuses. Over reactions can cause unrecoverable losses.

Remind your clients, “All you’re left with after a crisis is your behaviour during it.” If you are an investment expert, prescribe the necessary changes. If not, find the specialist who can.

Consider replacing investment losses with life insurance that will not disappear unless you let it happen. It’s what life insurance does best.

Regular updates support long-term success. Do more than just chat. Review expectations, calculate changes, implement adjustments and reset new expectations. Make reality work for you by doing more of what survived the fire and less of what burned up cash. Now you’re earning your keep.