Financial advisors should be a rock in the storm.

Clients seek professional financial advice because they recognize that it is already challenging to achieve long-term goals in good times, but even more of an uphill climb when the markets become more volatile. A financial advisor can start this conversation long before difficult days become obvious. By counseling clients to approach the planning process with both bull and bear markets in mind, they tend to become less rattled when the media headlines turn dour. There have been many recessions in the U.S. since the first one in 1797, after the Treasury expanded the money supply to fuel land speculation. Early recessions were especially challenging as the federal government had few tools at hand. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 to decentralize competing interests and create different avenues for the government to attempt to avoid these financial upheavals. Advisors, too, have a wide variety of options to help a client weather the cyclical nature of the markets. Here are seven areas that every client and their advisor should discuss to be better prepared.