The following is an excerpt from an article by Carl Richards originally appearing in the December/January 2015 issue of Morningstar magazine. We’ve bolded a few of the more interesting points.

I suspect you’ve heard a version of this phrase at least once in your career. It usually makes an appearance after you offer a recommendation to a client. They were expecting the financial equivalent of a home run and all you did was get them on base. Of course it doesn’t matter that your recommendation is in their best interest. They’ve been trained to believe that big plays are the only way to accomplish investing success.

It’s not a surprise that clients come into your office expecting a show. Maybe it’s because financial industry advertising reflects some sort of idealized experience. There’s also those stories they might hear from a friend of a friend about an investment that comes with zero risk but high returns. Whatever the cause the result is an individual investor with a very skewed perspective of investing.

One of the best examples has to be a client who called me several years ago. He had just read a story about one of the university endowments and what a great return they’d generated for the year. “Why aren’t we doing what they’re doing?” he asked. To be clear this client was a smart and successful guy but he truly believed that he could invest like a multibillion-dollar endowment. He didn’t see the difference – instead preferring to pursue a strategy that did little to support his goals. But it sounded like such a great idea!

Helping clients understand these differences remains one of the hardest tasks for financial professionals. It gets particularly tricky when we’re suggesting – to continue with the baseball analogy – that they play small ball. A small-ball strategy doesn’t focus on rare, showy and hard-to-predict events but on making small, repeatable moves that compound into positive results over time.

It’s a hard strategy to advocate when the client is expecting something big and bold. But that’s the point. The reason you have a relationship with your clients is to make recommendations and provide advice they might otherwise overlook. Without your guidance they’re much more likely to swing for the fences every time without understanding that the odds are against them.

It may feel and sound counterintuitive but the more boring you can make the investing experience for your clients the better off they’ll be. If you think I’m exaggerating just remember back a few weeks to October and how “exciting” the markets got. I very much doubt that when clients called they were happy about what was happening. Which brings us back to helping clients play small ball.

When investors embrace a small-ball approach it’s much easier to handle the market rollercoaster. In large part it comes from no one thing being a make or break event for investors. Instead they’re focused on goals like saving, rebalancing and aligning their capital with their values.

Small-ball investing delivers results. By taking the time to help investors understand the benefits of small-ball investing you’re helping investors better understand why they’ve chosen to work with a financial professional. It’s not because you can time the market or pick the next “hot” stock. It’s because you’re invested in their long-term success.