The Fed held, as expected. The war headlines aren't going anywhere. And while the economic calendar is light this week, two conversations are going to walk right into your inbox and buzz your phone this week, or worse… never reach you at all because your clients kept their questions to themselves.
These aren't slow news weeks. They're the weeks advisors earn trust or lose it.
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ADVISOR BRIEF: Week of March 23rd
Data and science to help you anticipate client questions and concerns this week
Last week's Fed hold and oil headlines dominated. This week, the first hard data on how the economy is actually absorbing the shock starts arriving, and tax season is reaching its anxious peak. Expect two distinct flavors of client call.
Top 2 client questions:
"The news keeps saying the economy is slowing down. Is this war actually going to cause a recession? Should I be worried about my business/job?"
"I got a big tax refund. What should I actually do with it? And I keep seeing these tax identity thefts online… are those real?"
Calendar:
S&P Global Flash US PMIs - Tuesday, March 24th
Oil price headlines all week
Tax Day - Wednesday, April 15th
Let’s break it down…
Most advisors are great in the room. The ones who grow are great everywhere else too. Not because they became marketers, but because they learned a few rules.
Every week, I’ll bring:
1) THE ADVISOR BRIEF: Data and science to help you anticipate client questions and concerns to build content that speaks to your audience’s needs
2) READ THIS: One thing worth reading, and exactly why it's worth your time
3) THE PLAYBOOK: The content play, the hook, the email, the AI tool, or the framework that makes you impossible to ignore. And the reason behind why it works, so you can use it like an advisor, not a marketer.
From a former JPMorgan Private Banker who reached millions every month explaining finance the way a trusted friend would.
Not financial advice.
Definitely not marketing advice.
Just what works.
Conversation 1: The War's Toll on Business
Why it matters: Tuesday's flash PMIs are the first data to actually capture business conditions during the war, not before it. S&P Global's March PMI Bulletin noted that the pre-war February data for the global economy showed the "fastest growth since May 2024" and "one of the best expansions since the pandemic," but explicitly flagged that "a further increase in price growth is likely after energy costs rose sharply after the PMI data collection in February."
In other words, the February report was the last clean reading. Tuesday is where the war shows up in the data for the first time, and clients are already expecting bad news, whether it comes or not. Brent oil settled around $107 last week with a session high of $112, and war headlines continue to drive fear regardless of daily developments.
Biases at play:
Availability Heuristic: War footage, gas price signs, and recession-word headlines are vivid and omnipresent. Clients are treating media intensity as a proxy for economic severity.
Recency Bias: The oil spike is still fresh. Clients are extrapolating those two weeks into a multi-year economic scenario.
Representativeness Heuristic: "This feels like 2008" or "this feels like the '70s oil crisis" - pattern-matching to the most dramatic historical analog rather than current data.
Likely Client Q's:
Business Owner: "My suppliers are already warning me about price increases. The news is saying the economy is slowing. Do I freeze hiring now before things get worse?"
Common Reaction: Making a permanent hiring or capex decision based on a weeks-old oil spike that may already be reversing.
Corporate Professional: "My company just put a hiring freeze in place. They said it's 'because of uncertainty.' Does this mean layoffs are next? Should I be selling my RSUs now?"
Common Reaction: Concentrating panic-driven RSU sales at a potential market trough, amplifying loss on already-depressed equity comp.
Young Family: "My husband's company does a lot of international shipping. If this war keeps going, is his job safe? Should we stop investing and build more cash?"
Common Reaction: Pausing 401(k) contributions, especially if there's a match, in response to a job-insecurity fear that hasn't materialized.
Retiree: "Every channel I turn on is saying recession. I lived through the early '80s. I cannot afford another 2008. Should we reduce our withdrawals until this settles down?"
Common Reaction: Reducing distributions from a withdrawal strategy that was already stress-tested for this type of environment, disrupting the income plan unnecessarily.
Helpful context:
US not doing as well: February S&P US Composite PMI: 52.3 (still expansion, but slowing from 53.0 in January, the weakest reading since April 2025)
The services economy, where most Americans work, was registering 56.1 on the ISM Services PMI as recently as February, one of the strongest readings in years
The Strait carries a fifth of global oil exports.
The IEA called this the largest supply shock in recorded history.
Brent crude settled ~$107/barrel on March 19 after peaking at $119 in the session, still elevated, but below the $120 peak from March 9
Conversation 2: Tax Season Refunds, Changes & Fraud
Why it matters: Tax season peaks in the three weeks before April 15, which means advisors are fielding a different kind of call this week - not market panic, but financial confusion.
Three threads are running simultaneously:
clients who got unexpectedly large refunds and don't know what to do with them,
clients who heard the new tax bill changed something but can't articulate what, and
clients who encountered (or almost fell for) a tax scam.
Biases at play:
Mental Accounting: Clients treat a tax refund as "found money" or a windfall rather than their own after-tax income returned to them, and that framing leads to impulsive spending decisions instead of plan-aligned ones.
Present Bias: The refund is in hand right now, making a kitchen renovation or vacation feel far more compelling than routing it to a retirement account.
Availability Heuristic: One viral TikTok "tax hack" feels credible because it came up three different times. (The IRS specifically flagged misleading viral social media tax advice as a top 2026 threat.)
Client Q's:
Young Family: "We got an $8,000 refund, much bigger than usual. My husband wants to finally redo the kitchen. I want to put it toward the 529. What's the right answer?"
Common Reaction: Making the decision emotionally rather than against the plan.
Business Owner: "My accountant mentioned the new tax bill changed something for pass-throughs. I don't really understand what changed. Should I be doing anything differently this year?"
Common Reaction: Assuming the accountant has the full financial planning picture.
Retiree: "I got an email that said I owe back taxes and they'll freeze my accounts if I don't pay immediately. Is this real? I'm scared to ignore it."
Common Reaction: Acting under urgency. The IRS initiates contact by mail only, never by email, text, or phone as a first outreach. Any urgent digital message claiming to be from the IRS is a scam, full stop.
Key context:
SALT deduction raised to $40,000 for 2025 returns (up from $10,000 cap); phases down above $500,000 income
Standard deduction raised to $15,750 (single) / $31,500 (joint)
No tax on tips and overtime pay for eligible worker
Additional $6,000 deduction for seniors (65+)
Trump Accounts: A new savings vehicle for children - Form 4547 can be filed with the 2025 return to establish the account, but accounts cannot be funded until July 4, 2026
Estate tax exemption: raised to $15M single / $30M joint, indexed for inflation
The IRS will NOT text you, DM you, or call you demanding immediate payment. First contact is always by mail.
Average 2026 refund: $3,623 (up 10.8% YoY, IRS data through March 13).
READ THIS: CFP Professionals Linked to Stronger Financial Outcomes
One thing worth reading, and exactly why it's worth your time
This is worth your next 10 minutes because it is a university-backed longitudinal study with the hard numbers to prove a human advisor's value in a world that keeps asking if one is necessary.
83% of CFP-advised clients have a fully funded emergency fund. Only 53% of unadvised clients do.
CFP-advised clients are more than twice as likely to have a will (61% vs. 24%).
59% say their advisor lessens their anxiety. Only 38% of clients with other advisors say the same.
CFP clients are nearly twice as likely to refer their advisor. The planning experience itself drives referrals.
This is not a vendor survey. It is a 10-year study run by NORC at the University of Chicago. Use these numbers to shift the conversation from "can you beat the market" to what you actually deliver: preparedness, calm, and a financial life that gets finished. That is not something an algorithm can replicate.
STEAL THIS: The LinkedIn profile assistant who never complains
One practical thing you can use in your practice, in your content, or on a call
I bet most of you haven’t spent enough time on your most important asset.
Most advisor LinkedIn profiles are doing one of three things:
saying nothing,
saying the wrong thing, or
scaring off the exact person you want.
Advisors write LinkedIn profiles like they were forced to fill out a form at the doctor, instead of understanding they are now the main landing page for prospective clients.
No one searching for help with their retirement reads "Results-oriented financial professional with 15 years of experience" and feels anything.
The best advisor LinkedIn profiles follow this structure:
Headline = Financial Advisor + Who you help + the one problem you solve
About section = Short story about why you do this + exactly who you serve + proof of competence in plain English
Featured section = Two links (One to convert today, if they’re ready, and one to get your “free subscription” if they’re not)
Activity = Recent posts that show you're alive, thinking, and worth following
The behavioral science behind it:
Credibility is built through specificity. The more specifically you describe the exact person you help and the exact problem you solve, the more that exact person trusts you're the right advisor for them.
Vague profiles create zero credibility signal. Specific profiles feel like you're reading their mind.
This week's action item: Talk to the robot me about your profile.
I’ve helped close to 100 advisors optimize their LinkedIn profiles in the past 9 months. But you don’t have to wait for me.
We built a custom GPT that walks you through optimizing your LinkedIn profile step by step: headline, About section, featured content, and post strategy, all in your voice, all compliant-friendly framing.
It uses our complete LinkedIn Optimization Guide for Financial Advisors as its knowledge base, so it's built specifically for advisors, not generic content creators.
It’s free.
One hour. Real results. The advisors using this are showing up in search results they weren't in before, getting connection requests from prospects they never would have reached, and turning their profile from a digital tombstone into a trust machine.
Not marketing advice. Just what works.
See you next week,
Augustus
Augustus Christensen
Founder & CEO
