By Steve Garmhausen

Experienced financial advisors know that every client's communication preferences are a little different. Some like in-person meetings or phone calls and loathe Zoom. Others are most comfortable texting. Some write and expect formal emails. The differences can be stark across generations -- with plenty of exceptions. For this week's Barron's Advisor Big Q, we asked advisors: How do communication styles and preferences differ between your younger and older clients?

Sarah Paulson, owner, Valkyrie Financial: My older clients are a lot more, "Mind your P's and Q's." They're more buttoned up and restrained. I don't feel that I can fully express who I am when I'm working with older clients, because they very much have this service mind-set. They're expecting a service, and they want respect for that service. My younger clients -- my millennials, my Gen Z's -- they're a lot more relaxed. They speak their mind.

I actually did a little experiment when I was just getting started in financial advisory. I would work with clients' kids and grandkids, and they would always come in super tense, like, "I don't want to talk about finance, this is awful. This advisor is going to yell at me for not doing the right things." Trying to get them to soften up was always kind of a struggle. One day I let slip a swear word, and the person's shoulders relaxed, their face lit up, and it was much more like, "Oh, she's just a normal person. She's like me." I've run that experiment a couple of times, and you definitely have to read the room and know your clients, but being much more informal can go a really long way. It's like having a conversation with a friend that just happens to be about a weird topic.

Ashley Foster, founder, financial planner, Nxt:Gen Financial Planning: Younger clients like texts. They like very direct messages. Their attention span is a lot narrower than those of my oldest clients, who are 45 and like to write me much longer and more descriptive emails. I'm also starting to see some of my younger clients incorporate some ChatGPT-type email language. I can tell it's ChatGPT because I live in ChatGPT as well, and it uses that particular kind of dash line all the time. So it's really interesting to see the different preferences in how clients communicate with me.

My practice is completely virtual. I don't meet with anybody in person. Everyone's with me on doing Zoom calls, even my Gen X client who works at Netflix in California. My parents are my oldest clients, God bless them, and I've gotten them used to doing Zooms. My wife and I do a lot of travel; we were recently in Hawaii for two months, and I was taking Zoom calls the entire time.

Quentara Costa, owner, POWWOW: I don't know that you can assume anything about communication preferences based on age alone. One of my youngest clients always does her meeting in person. We sit, we chat. She's very loungy and comfortable, and we look at everything together. She's handing me documents or emailing them to me on the spot. I've had people aged 70-plus who are on their iPads constantly, always doing the Apple classes.

I have clients in their 40s who are construction workers or bartenders or nurses, where they're more on their feet and not at a computer all day. So despite their age their preference is to just mail you something, because it's easier for them to just stop at the post office on the way to work than it is to deal with scanning and uploading and making a login for a site that they might not use again. So it's hard to predict based on age who is going to want what. You have to ask and not assume, because it's a personal preference.

Bradley Hilton, founder, financial planner, Sonas Financial Planning: Generally my boomers like things face-to-face a lot more. They're more and more comfortable with Zoom calls, because that is sort of face-to-face, but they'd rather do that after they've met me in person. The initial conversations just go better that way, and we build better rapport up front. For them, smaller touchpoints go farther, because they want to know you're thinking about them. The younger generation doesn't need to be sold to. They want to seek you out.

What I love about the younger generation is that they can flex and work in almost every capacity. With all the technology I can just say, "Log on to this and let me know if you have any questions." Very few have questions. They get in, they run with it, they figure it out. They like the challenge, and they do homework exceptionally well. With the older generation there's a lot more hand-holding. If there's something we need to do, we're doing it together. Generally speaking, if you give people in their 20s and 30s something to do, they'll do it. I don't have to sit there and explain something starting at a high level and go deeper if they need it. I can say," Have you heard of a backdoor Roth? Go GPT it, and we'll talk about how to implement it the right way the next time we get together." And they'll have done that before the next week.

Write to advisor.editors@barrons.com

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October 22, 2025 15:53 ET (19:53 GMT)

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