You don’t need to necessarily have all of the answers when dealing with HNW clients, but they’ll certainly expect you to know someone who does. In Miracle on 34th Street, Kris Kringle was onto a good idea when he began referring customers to Gimbels and other stores when Macy’s didn’t have the item. The same rule applies to advisors. If you can’t help clients, especially when they have complicated estate planning or tax issues, make sure you know lawyers and accountants to whom you can refer them, otherwise they may go looking for a new advisor as well. 

Whether they actively know it or not, your clients come into your office with an agenda, or at least a desirable end goal in mind. They will ultimately measure the success of your financial plan based on this metric, whether they express it to you or not, so it’s in your best interest to get it out of them as quickly as possible. Some will make your life easy and let you know how they feel up front, just like 9-year-old Ralphie Parker told everyone who would listen about how he wanted a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in A Christmas Story. Others may not be so forthcoming.

Just because a client has goals and dreams, that doesn’t mean that they’re realistic, or even necessarily desirable. Figuring out how to tell a client that what they want isn’t a great idea while offering a palatable alternative can be one of an advisor’s greatest challenges. Every client is different and requires a unique tact. Some will appreciate a logical explanation that breaks things down, while for others, it’s not the substance of what you say, but how you say it. How did that BB gun work out for Ralphie Parker again?

The holidays are a good time to review charitable donations with clients. And for those who are on the fence or channeling an Ebenezer Scrooge attitude about the size of their donations, there’s always the tax write-off argument to keep them from feeling bah humbug.

This one is a bit more self-serving, but still mutually beneficial. Just as encouraging your clients to involve their families in managing their finances can help make a plan more successful, creating a relationship with your clients’ children, be it personal or just in passing, can be imperative in making sure you are able to continue overseeing that plan even when the main client is gone. Anything you can do to change their perception of you from “Dad’s (or mom’s) advisor” to “our family’s advisor” can make a huge difference. If the first time you’re meeting your client’s children is at his funeral, then your chances of keeping that business are dire indeed.

Financial advisors often create plans based on models that attempt to calculate events far into a client’s future, and even beyond his death. Yet that same plan must be nimble enough to deal with the unexpected challenges that may arise in a client’s day to day life—such as a long-lost child returning from being raised by elves in the north pole for the last 30 years. Though Elf’s premise is a bit ridiculous for sure, the possibility that a client could have a child that he doesn’t know about is not so far fetched and could have disastrous financial results. It, like many “unexpected” events can also be fairly easily planned for and indemnified against, if the advisor is paying enough attention.

While we’re talking about surprises, even the wealthiest clients still need a safety net when things unexpectedly go wrong, particularly if the catastrophe in question involves the head of the household. That being said, even if your client never suffers any Clark Griswold style mishaps like having to replace furniture and carpeting after accidentally electrocuting the cat, life insurance can still act as a valuable and reliable, if low-upside, investment vehicle.

Markets fluctuate, as do clients’ resolves, and even advisors aren’t immune to getting a little nervous when things aren’t working out exactly as envisioned. However, resist the urge to make wholesale changes to a plan (and make sure your client understands the same), unless absolutely necessary. Financial planning isn’t as exact of a science as we’d like it to be, but a well-considered plan should work out positively in the long run with only small tweaks here and there. It may be better to stay the course than risk breaking the rules and having to deal with a bunch of Gremlins.

With more than half of marriages ending in divorce, it represents a very real potential threat to your clients’ wealth. Prenuptial agreements still carry some stigma but are an increasingly vital part of planning for HNW couples. And, don’t forget that your clients’ best laid estate plans can also be ruined by a descendant’s divorce, so consider placing assets in trusts to ensure that the go exactly where your client wants them too. Your clients’ shouldn’t have to accidentally murder Santa Claus and assume his mantle in order to get things back in order after a divorce. (Yes, that’s the actual plot of The Santa Clause.)

Every advisor wants to be on the cutting edge, using the newest and best techniques to offer their client to most up-to-date and optimized services he possibly can. However, just because something works for someone else, doesn’t mean that it’s right for you or your client, and newer isn’t necessarily better. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington becomes infatuated with Santa Claus and tries to take over Christmas by assuming Santa’s position as “Sandy Claws.” Though he’s researched the holiday obsessively, Jack doesn’t actually comprehend what Christmas represents. The results are, fittingly, nightmarish.