Getting Inside Your Clients Heads: It’s easier than ever!
Guest Author: Dr. Michael Klein
Think about this: Rather than having to spend the first interview with a prospect trying to understand their personality, their values, their interpersonal style (and what potential roadblocks you may face in brokering a life settlement sale), you already have that information in a customized, comprehensive, “actionable” report. A decade ago these types of tools were not available online, and would typically take clients (if you could get them to do it) more than 45 minutes to complete. So let’s start with some good news.
Psychological (or behavioral) self- assessment tools have come a long way in the past decade, - in terms of accuracy, what they can test…but most importantly, how easy it has become to get incredible psychological data on who your clients are, what motivates them, what separates them from others, what potential derailers or blind spots they may have…all of this can be accomplished with a few minutes spent online and a conversation with a behavioral professional who helps you understand and do something with the results.
We all have “issues.” We all have ways of seeing the world, of acting, of interacting with others, that goes way back to childhood. And some of these “issues” are unresolved, cause anxiety, have impacted our education, our choice of career, and our choice of spouse, how we live our lives pretty much every single day for the entirety of our existences. We’re all crazy in our own way – after all, we’ve all been raised by human beings, and we tend to spend our earliest years living in groups of human beings known as families, so it’s fairly hard to escape that unscathed in some way.
So let’s talk about an actual client:
Caroline was the long-term client of a financial advisor colleague of mine, and she going thru a divorce Caroline had been married to David for 11 years and was now going through a painful divorce. With two children, Caroline had been a stay at home mother since getting married, and had been out of the work force for 12 years. Given her relative youth at the time of her marriage, she knew of her strengths as a wife and mother, but was not clear about what she would bring to the workforce after 12 years, and given the type of relationship she had with David (especially for the past year or so), her sense of herself was considerably shaken as was her ability to articulate her strengths, her values, her goals. The process of self-assessment revealed several key traits for Caroline.
Her highest scores were on the following scales:
1. Interpersonal Sensitivity – Incredibly approachable, easily understand and tend to others feelings
2. Inquisitiveness – Creative, thoughtful, curious
Lowest scores were:
1. Sociability – Quiet, needed time alone
2. Ambition – no clear picture of who she wants to be, no need or interest in directing others
First, it demonstrated her strength as a loyal, hard-working person who gives anything for the cause, and puts her own needs second to others. In addition, the assessments showed that while Caroline was a very warm and nurturing person, she always made “space” for others and did not need to be the center of attention. The assessments also showed that Caroline was a strategic thinker, capable of great creativity (in fact, she has always enjoyed creative writing), and valued the arts. This process gave great relief to Caroline, confirming that she was a competent individual without her husband, who had her own goals, values, and interests, and would be able to create a new life around herself in his absence. This moved her forward much faster than the advisor could have – although he meant well, this is not his training, right? Good people skills, but again, could have suffered from “I can be all things to everyone” syndrome as opposed to relying on others and tools outside his experience.
From my years of speaking, consulting, and assessing professionals, I can tell you that the ones who tend to search me out have always known deep down that this type of awareness and psychological insight into their clients is the most important information they have acquired in their career – but it took too long to realize it. Or, they realize that there is always more to learn. And it’s the ones who get this earlier in their career that are able to truly develop their practice in extraordinary ways. They break out of convention in some ways, but in other ways, these are the advisors that truly walk the talk - they know what it means to be truly client centric – and the better one knows oneself, the better one can understand and relate to client situations NO MATTER HOW DIFFERENT, because, underneath it all, we all have more in common than not. It’s why a few hundred people can make a film that is watched and loved by millions. But, like anything else, the hard work takes a lot of time and effort. Correction - It USED to take a lot more time than it does now.
By having clients spend ten minutes online, you can gain information that will speed the sales process, but more importantly perhaps, help you customize how you work and what you say to your clients so that they see you as insightful, empathetic, and working in their best interests. Life settlements so often come down to the numbers, but by gaining insight into which these prospects and clients really are, you can differentiate yourself in the marketplace by becoming a relationship master.
How do you pitch this process to a client? Its easy…You want to offer them a chance to enhance their understanding of their own personality or style, and give you an opportunity to say to them, “I walk the talk. Not only do I SAY I will work with you as a “whole person,” but this brief, on-line self-assessment PROVES that I want to fully understand you and how I can best work and communicate with you.” As an example: you administer a brief, inexpensive assessment to a prospect and find that he is incredibly impatient, likes to move quickly and make decisions quickly, but you also determine that he has a strong need for accuracy, data, and thoughtful analysis. As a result, you make sure he has all the information he needs, you are armed with a packet of materials unique to his situation, but you provide a very brief overview of the documents and a short timeline for taking action. What’s the result? He feels like you’ve known him his whole life, and you have easily and clearly differentiated yourself from your competition without spending his valuable time determining this need for data (if you were even capable of determining it without an assessment.
This is the next wave of professional advising. This is about the difference between saying you want to understand your clients, and actually increasing your
ability to understand them.
