Everyone Should Have a "Plan B"

A 45 year old, 20 plus year veteran of a Big Firm frustrated me last week. She told me how she was glad that the world had settled down, yet she was still nervous about her current firm. That said, she still was unwilling to look at any other firms because she did not want to distract herself from what she was doing. Okay, I do make a living getting people to move, and a move starts with an interview, so I’ll get how self-serving this may sound out of the way. Fair enough. But let’s have a reality check here. Way back in 2002, looking at the world through post-9/11-Lasix-enhanced eyes, my wife and I had contingency plans for a biological attack, or chemical attack, or nuclear attack on New York. Way back in 2008 (that’s sarcasm for those who are more literally minded), the nation’s financial system almost failed as virtually every Big Firm went through a weekend of death: employees went home on a Friday not sure what firm they would be working for on Monday. Advisors and their clients were panicking. We all hate thinking about it, but sometimes the worst case scenario happens. Having a contingency plan, a Plan B, in case something bad happens is just smart in life and smarter in business. The best Advisors construct financial plans and portfolios for their clients with great care, taking all possible scenarios into consideration. Those same Advisors were also the same ones who carried concentrated positions in their own company’s stock and had their own net worth’s destroyed even as they tried to protect their clients. Unlike most of the world, an Advisor with a book will always have options, somewhere to move in a crisis. An Advisor not knowing where to go before the crisis hits is malpractice to his or her clients. More importantly, it is corporate malfeasance to the shareholders that the Advisor goes home to every day. A wise man once said: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Folks, this "history" happened one year ago. Do you have a Plan B?