Singing, Swinging, Alive in the Moment

Asking the right questions is critical to that goal, but every bit as important as the questions you ask, is how you ask them.

The objective should be a meaningful, open exchange of ideas, opinions, sentiments, feelings and experiences. All too often something less happens. Pitfalls abound.

Just Routine

With all the standard forms advisors must complete and compliance tests they must meet, it’s easy to fall into a mechanical routine. The good news is that the routine is efficient and often provides the facts needed to check the required boxes. The problem is that it a mechanical approach only scratches the surface, yielding superficial answers… and precious little more.

Chit Chat

It’s nice that a client and advisor share an interest or activity. Chatting about it is fun and can sometimes lead to a meaningful conversation. Yet, standing alone, chit chat is not a basis for a professional relationship. Worse, it can trivialize a meeting and destroy an advisor’s credibility.

Sweat it Out

“I have to know my clients’ Investment Wiring. So I shine a bright light in their face and grill them.” Well, no one does that, but many time pressed advisors press go too fast and press too hard. Clients feel they are being interrogated and clam up.

Make it a Conversation

To have a meaningful exchange, make it a conversation in which both you and the client are openly and actively engaged: “singing, swinging and alive in the moment.”

Start with the right attitude: be sincerely interested and open. That’s essential but it may not be enough.

Current Events

Use current events to segue into a topic. Your source might be your own life, or the lives of your clients. A common example is happening to me right now. Last week, my siblings and I moved my mother into assisted living. It has been a drain on our emotions, time and finances. Talking a bit about that experience is a way to introduce the topic of long-term care to a client.

Use the Newspaper

Rather than just blurt out a question about concentrated stock, you might say something like, “Did you see yesterday’s Wall Street Journal? Andy Fastow got six years for his role in the Enron mess. We both know what the most important lesson from Enron is: don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Can we talk about diversifying your holdings a bit?”

Another example: if you wanted to get a client to reveal their past investment mistakes, you might read a headline like the one that appeared on the front page of the New York Times in late September: “Mortgage Suit Says ‘Trust Us' Led to Fleecing.” That was a story about a lay minister and her daughter who may have perpetrated “one of the biggest mortgage frauds in US History.” That particular story could set you up to say, “Most of us have made investment mistakes. Have you?”

Segway to Investment Wiring

Advisors know that married couples tend to have different attitudes about investing and risk. Yet many couples are reluctant to discuss those differences with each other, let alone with you. The front page of the Wall Street Journal on September 26th, offered two bold headlines that would allow you to ease into that conversation:

One talked about a couple in Brazil who was running for Congress against each other. The other was a headline that read “Republicans Leaning against Republicans.”

Using news items such as those have a number of benefits:

• They lead you and your clients into a conversation naturally.
• They keep your message fresh and current.
• In effect, by saying that your clients are not alone, news items can “normalize” the issues and allow clients to speak more freely.