The Language of TrustBy Bill Bachrach, CSP, CPAE

Your people skills are more important than your technical skills.

How do you know that this is true? 1. Your people skills got you hired in the first place. 2. Everything technical can be outsourced or delegated, and nothing “people” can be outsourced or delegated.

But none of your people skills can be outsourced. You can’t hire someone else to be charming for you, ask good questions, listen with empathy, build rapport, provide leadership, and hold people accountable for implementation.

I’m not suggesting that you can be a financial moron and still be a success. What I am suggesting is that you invest more time in your people skills than your technical skills because your people skills will get you in front of prospects, and they will get you hired. It’s your people skills that manage your clients’ expectations. They help you help your clients manage their emotions during turbulent times, generate referrals and convert referrals into clients.

People skills are like muscles and fitness. They can be developed to be strong and productive and will decline if you don’t consistently work to keep them sharp.

One of the best books about effective communication is You’ve got to be Believed to be Heard, by Bert Decker. My favorite quote from this book is: “The most important language in effective communicating is an almost unspoken language, the language of trust.” But how do you speak the language of trust? It boils down to three things:

1. Know the right questions to ask, when to ask them, and how to ask them.
2. Listen with empathy.
3. When it’s your turn to talk, make an offer or give relevant advice, do so with confidence and conviction, and in a way that inspires action.

Knowing the right questions

What are some of the right questions? In the beginning of a potential business relationship the questions are open-ended and are about things that are meaningful, important, significant, and compelling to prospects, including:

• What’s important to you?
• What are you most passionate about? People? Causes?
• What’s more important in your life than money?
• Who do you care about?
• What are your aspirations for the future?

Notice how the questions are designed to draw out things that are positive and tend to stimulate positive emotions. Consider the positive orientation of these questions in contrast to how the old-school salesperson would tend to focus on questions that draw out problems and fears.

Speaking the language of trust means that you ask questions with answers that inspire people to think about their future, not scare them. The better you understand what inspires a person, the more likely he will feel good about you and even trust you.

Rick Barrera, author of Over-Promise, Over-Deliver, speaks of the importance of “going deep.” What he is referring to is going deep emotionally. To do this, ask clarifying and expanding questions in response to the answers you get from your initial meaningful and compelling questions to your prospects.

An effective clarifying question is: “What do you mean by __________?” An effective expanding question is: “Can you tell me more about _______________.” Clarifying questions provide a lot of details about their answers while expanding questions give you more information about their answers.

Impact questions take what you have discovered during a conversation that’s gone emotionally deep from somewhere meaningful and bring it to a crescendo about the impact and results this will have on your prospects’ lives. Impact questions include: “And what impact will that have on your life?” “Once you have achieved ____________, what will be the result of that?”

Listening with empathy

Listening with empathy is easy if you care about people, especially if you really care about helping people realize what’s important to them. Empathy is the hardest part of the process to learn. An argument could be made that you either care or you don’t. If you don’t care, you’ll struggle to empathize. But don’t give up. You may find that by engaging people in conversations that are compelling and truly listening to them, you will become interested and actually care about them.

It’s time to talk

You have asked good questions, gone emotionally deep with clarifying and impact questions, and listened with empathy. The next step is to start talking. What will be music to their ears is if you make them an offer or give them relevant advice. How do you know what’s relevant? That’s what you discovered while you were listening to the answers to your excellent questions.

My three “rules” for making the offer is that it should be free, relevant and easy. We’ve already covered relevant. “Free” means that your prospects don’t pay anything to take you up on your offer, and “easy” means that there is little or no effort required for them to accept your offer.

Here’s an example of using an opening question that’s meaningful and is followed by clarifying and expanding questions and then an impact question, and wrapped up with a relevant offer to take the next step. You would ask this question after the usual pleasantries, depending on whether you are in a business or social situation.

You: What are some of the things that you are most passionate about?
Prospect: A few friends and family members have been affected by cancer, so we have been involved in some fund-raising and support efforts to find a cure and help people battling the disease.
You: What do you mean by “involved?” (Clarifying question.)
Prospect: Well, some of our involvement is as simple as writing checks for donations, and some of it is more personal.
You: Hmmmm, interesting. Tell me more about the things that are more personal. (Expanding question.)
Prospect: One of our favorite activities is to drive a van to pick up families with transportation issues to their treatment.
You: What makes that one of your favorite things? (Clarifying question.)
Prospect: We get more gratification from doing something hands on. And we get to know the people we’re helping on a more personal level.
You: What impact has getting to know these people on a more personal level had on your life? (Impact question.)
Prospect: We are more grateful what for what we have. Meeting people battling for their lives really puts things in perspective. We always take one of our children along, and this is having as much of an impact on their lifetime value systems as anything else we could teach them at home. And the inspiration! I could go on and on.
You: Wow, that’s really powerful. Thank you for telling me about that. (Pause to reflect and then make an offer.) Some of the work that I do as a financial advisor helps people free up time to do more of the types of meaningful things in their lives that you have described. But based on what you just told me about, I believe you would get some value from a book that describes some ideas that could be relevant for you. I’d be happy to mail this book to you, with my compliments (free), and phone you to discuss how some of the concepts could make a difference for you (easy). Would you like that?
Prospect: That’s very generous of you. Thank you.
You: Do you have a card?

Then mail your prospect the book or something else free, relevant, and easy (not marketing or promotional material) and arrange a time for a follow-up phone call. You can apply this process everywhere with friends and family, at social events and business networking events, and virtually anywhere you could strike up a conversation with a stranger.

Bio:
Bill Bachrach is the author of several books, including Values-Based Financial Planning. He has delivered approximately 2,000 keynote speeches and presentations that teach teaching financial professionals how to build high-trust client relationships. www.baivbfp.com.

12 Steps for 2012By Bryce Sanders

Tuesday, January 2nd begins a new year. Take some steps now to line up prospects, referrals and business for 2012. The object is not to “sell” now, but to meet prospects, get on their radar screen and leave a favorable impression. Here are 12 things you need to get started:

1.    Think about your ideal prospects. They are perfect but out of reach. Make a list of their names. Who could introduce you socially over the holidays at a party or community event? Let a friend know the type of person you would like to meet and ask him to introduce you socially.

2.    Raise awareness. Holidays bring distant family members together. They know who you are but may not know what you do and why you are good at it. When they ask you how’s business, you have an opportunity to tactfully educate them.

3.    Give wisely. You will probably give small gifts to clients and friends over the holidays. They most likely support a favorite charity. But when times are tough, charitable giving tends to suffer. So instead of buying them a gift, make a contribution to a charity in their name and let them know you realize how important the cause is to them.

4.    Be visible. You want to be seen by community leaders and leave a positive impression on them. So, volunteer for a community toy drive, serve food at a homeless shelter, or gather contributions for the local food bank. Try to be low key, however. If one of your clients is involved, volunteer alongside him.

5.    Meet with your investment clients. As you work together on year-end planning, you might remind your clients that they have been fortunate with their investments and explain to them why certain investments worked out. If they know other people who have not been as fortunate as they have been, let them know that you want to meet with those people.

6.    Research your prospects and clients. Do you know where they work and what they do? We assume we know about our clients, but sometimes they forget to announce they’ve changed jobs or firms. So read the business journals regularly, especially the layoff announcements. Your client or prospect may be a conduit to some rollover business for you.

7.    Schedule January Account Reviews. Most clients expect these reviews since other advisors are probably doing them. Also, there are stories in the newspapers about performance figures for the past year. These reviews are an opportunity for them to focus their attention on their accounts and reconfirm what’s important to them. For you, it is a good time to ask for additional assets that are held away and for request referrals.

8.    Find out who’s new in town. New executives move into town, a house on the block is sold, and fresh faces turn up on the sidelines at school sporting events. Who are these people? Try to meet with them. They are probably feeling a little lonely in a new town over the holidays, and your taking the time to meet with them is a friendly gesture, as well as a tactful business move.  

9.    Keep up with clients who have not heard from you. We keep in touch with some of our clients frequently, but not with all of them. However, if they are in your book of business, they are your clients. So call them and ask them how they are doing and what has changed in their lives.

10.  Stay top of mind. These days, fewer and fewer people are sending holiday cards. But they are still a joy to receive, especially by clients who are Baby Boomers and older. An advisor in Northern California wants his card to be the first his clients receive because this increases the impact the cards have. Remember that cards should be personalized, signed, addressed and stamped--all by hand.

11.  Shop locally. The internet and Big Box stores have been devastating for many local merchants. So try to shop locally. Tell the owner you understand why this is important and patronize the businesses your clients own. During a slow period, remind them what you do and the types of people you help, and ask them if they know anyone who could use your services.

12.  Review your book of business. Some clients receive lots of attention because of the assets they have or because they are demanding. Some do lots of business with you, but have few requests. Now is the time to find out if your best clients are getting most of your time. Dig more deeply and you often will find more assets. Are the “sleepers” a source of opportunity? Should you “re-prospect” your small clients? Also, you might consider suggesting a different “line of business” when those demanding clients call. Continually addressing their demands is giving them great service, and you should ask yourself if they should be doing more business with you.

Bio:
Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. and provides HNW client-acquisition training for the financial-services industry.