A casual ‘hey’ from your adviser may not be the real red flag

A retired couple’s tolerance for financial-adviser small talk has officially hit its limit: one reader told MarketWatch that a casual “hey” would be enough to send him and his wife toward the door.

In a July 16 column, MarketWatch’s Quentin Fottrell, who writes The Moneyist, responded to a reader using the name “Old-fashioned Couple.” The reader backed another couple who had objected to their younger adviser calling them “you guyses,” saying professional conduct and respectful communication matter in business.

The reader also described meeting a financial representative who did not know that AT&T was short for American Telephone and Telegraph. He asked where clients should draw the line with an adviser’s manners, language and general knowledge.

Fottrell’s answer: clients are entitled to their own dealbreakers, but they should be careful not to confuse style with skill.

He wrote that a greeting such as “hey,” the phrase “you guyses,” or ignorance of AT&T’s original full name might be a firm no for some clients. Others, he said, may care more about whether an adviser can explain the difference between a mutual fund and an exchange-traded fund, a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA, or a percentage and a percentage point.

Fottrell noted that Alexander Graham Bell was the main co-founder of the original Bell Telephone Company, which later became the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885. The company was widely known as “Ma Bell” before antitrust action broke it up in 1984, he wrote.

Still, Fottrell said that not knowing the backstory of AT&T does not prove an adviser lacks ability in portfolio management, tax-loss harvesting or estate planning. He suggested it may say more about the adviser’s age than their competence.

The column also took aim at the tiny judgments people make in professional settings. Fottrell listed examples such as a wrinkled shirt, bad breath, a weak handshake or a hairstyle that puts someone off, while warning that those reactions may reveal more about the observer than the professional being judged.

To widen the point, Fottrell cited Dr. Nicholas Rule, a University of Toronto psychologist, speaking on an American Psychological Association podcast. According to Fottrell’s summary, Rule said people form first impressions within milliseconds, often before they realize they have done it.

Rule said research shows first impressions can sometimes be accurate, but overall are only moderately reliable, at about 60% to 65% accuracy, according to the column. He said people tend to be better at judging characteristics such as age and gender than traits such as trustworthiness.

Fottrell wrote that Rule sees first impressions as shaped by both real perception and social bias. Stereotypes and cultural assumptions can distort judgments, particularly around race and ethnicity, with serious consequences in areas such as policing and criminal justice, the column said.

The column also touched on artificial intelligence. Rule said AI systems may absorb human bias because they are trained on human-created data, but he viewed human bias as the bigger concern, especially because people can be too confident in their snap judgments.

Fottrell’s bottom line for clients was to treat first impressions as a clue, not a verdict. A greeting, an acronym gap or a handshake may reveal something about communication style, he wrote, but far less about whether an adviser can build a retirement plan, reduce taxes or help clients avoid costly mistakes.

This story draws on original reporting from MarketWatch.