Journal of Financial Planning: November 2015
When you are meeting with a prospect or client, there are two things you can do: talk or listen. Unfortunately, most financial advisers are under the misconception that the more they talk, the more information they are sharing or explaining, and that that’s a good thing. However, for clients to feel comfortable with you, they need to feel like they—and their concerns or fears— are truly being heard. One of your main tasks as their adviser is to ensure that when you spend time with clients, that you are not just talking to them, but more importantly, you are listening to them.
Often times, when I coach individual advisers, we do a quick five- to 10-minute role-play to prepare for an upcoming meeting. About a year ago, while in the midst of one such role-play session, I noticed that although the adviser was asking a number of questions, he really was not listening to what I was saying. Instead, I could sense that he was merely waiting for me to finish my statement so that he could reply with a possible rebuttal. He was more focused on thinking about what he wanted to say next than he was digesting what I was actually saying.
I suggested we stop the role-play and start working on strengthening his listening skills. So I dusted off a copy of Stephen Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and turned to the section on the four levels of empathic listening.
I shared with my coaching client the familiar quote, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” In order for clients to feel that you care (and have their best interests at heart) they have to feel that you are truly listening to them.
Becoming an empathetic listener is a learned skillset; and awareness of the four levels of empathetic listening is the first step. However, awareness alone is not enough to make you a better listener. It also requires action by applying a process and an accountability to learn from your experiences.
Level 1: Mimic Content
Mimicking content is the easiest of all four levels of empathetic listening. You “hear” what the prospect or client has to say and you simply repeat it back to them. This is also the most common form of listening that I have encountered in countless role-play sessions. Here is an example:
Client: “I’m not sure I want to do any investing when the market is so volatile.”
Adviser: “Okay, you don’t want to do any investing right now while the market is so volatile.”
As you can see, this may prove that you actually heard what the client said, but it does little to build a connection. In fact, if you had no relationship with this client at all, this type of listening could be misconstrued as being rude or even condescending.
Level 2: Rephrase Content
Rephrasing content is slightly more complex because you actually have to listen more intently in order to figure out how to rephrase what you have heard. Here is an example:
Client: “I’m not sure I want to do any investing when the market is so volatile.”
Adviser: “The market is volatile right now and I can see how you might not want to invest.”
This is also a form of listening that you may have developed as a way to try and make a connection, however the reality is, this kind of listening rarely creates a deep connection because you are merely talking about content.
Level 3: Reflect Feelings
Reflecting back on what you believe the other person is feeling shows an entirely higher level of understanding. You are no longer just listening to their words, you are empathizing with how you think they may feel about a subject. Remember, you can never truly know how someone is feeling so do not make the mistake of using the phrase, “I know how you feel …” because you don’t.
However, when true level three empathetic listening occurs, the prospect or client finds it much easier to open up and either agree with your assumptions or further explain their feelings. Here is an example:
Client: “I’m not sure I want to do any investing when the market is so volatile.”
Adviser: “That sounds kind of stressful.”
A brief statement such as this can make a client feel as if you get him or her by reflecting on the emotion or feeling that is probably making the client feel the way they do.
What the adviser in this example is doing is empathizing without agreeing. If, as the adviser, you said, “I completely agree that it’s stressful,” you would be assuming that the prospect was in fact stressed. However, by using the first example, “That sounds kind of stressful,” you are making a neutral statement prompting the conversation to continue, with the client usually answering the question and providing additional context for their statements.
A final note about level three empathetic listening: to get someone to reflect on his or her feelings, add a tie down question to the end of your statement. For example:
Adviser: “That sounds kind of stressful, is it?”
By adding the “is it?” to the end of your reply, you are turning your statement into a question and asking the client to further explain their feelings.
Level 4: Rephrase Content and Reflect Feelings
In the final level of empathetic listening you are combining level two (rephrase content) and level three (reflect feelings) to foster an even stronger connection.
Client: “I’m not sure I want to do any investing when the market is so volatile.”
Adviser: “That sounds kind of stressful. The market is volatile right now and I can see how you might not want to invest.”
In this example, the adviser is combining reflecting feelings and rephrasing content to articulate their understanding of what the client is trying to say. When you use this level of listening, it allows the client to consider two important factors, first, how are they feeling about the subject, and second, are they truly being heard?
Remember: people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. If you are genuinely interested in understanding and you are truly listening to clients at this kind of level, they will realize that you do care. That is when a bond of trust forms with a new client and is reinforced with existing clients.
Daniel C. Finley is president of Advisor Solutions (www.advisor-solutions.com), author of 101 Advisor Solutions: A Financial Advisor’s Guide to Strategies that Educate, Motivate, and Inspire, and a regular contributor to the FPA Practice Management Blog, powered by the Journal of Financial Planning
(www.PracticeManagementBlog.OneFPA.org).
Learn More
To learn more about mastering the lost art of listening, email author Daniel Finley at dan@advisorsolutionsinc.com to request free audio of a group coaching session that practices an empathic listening exercise.