Darci Hemsley Brown is uncomfortable in her comfort zone-she'd rather take risks. Just months. Article from Research January 1, 2005. The coaching Darci provided has changed my income and career and continues to everyday. EBOOKS and the School Library Program Leverkus. Darci Helmsley Brown Coaching Program Police believe Sawyer and Darius Beard, a freshman from Bonneville High School, were also involved in the theft of two VCRs and a television from the Learning Enrichment Center about a month ago.
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Picture a world in which you hold the power to consistently win a “yes,” a world where clients and prospects comply with your requests without even thinking. No fantasy—this is a reality, and one that can be achieved simply by folding into your unique approach six basic principles that drive human behavior.
For more than a half-century now, researchers have documented that, beyond many folks’ innate gift of persuasion, there are systematic, scientifically confirmed strategies that can be used to easily steer people in your direction.
The research shows, for example, that the mere addition or subtraction of a word, phrase or gesture within a request can profoundly influence behavior.
Indeed, persuasion is both an art and a science.
Social psychologist Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D., Regents’ Professor Emeritus of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University, literally wrote the book on the science of getting what you ask for: Influence: Science and Practice (Pearson, 2009), a bestseller that has been published in 20 languages.
“For financial advisors, persuasion provides leverage. It’s the ability to move people in your direction so that they’re more likely to say ‘yes’ to a request, proposal or recommendation,” says the Phoenix-based Cialdini, who is also president of Influence at Work (www.influenceatwork.com), a training and consulting firm whose clients include Merrill Lynch, Prudential, Nationwide Insurance, IBM and NATO.
Certainly, it’s important and timely for advisors to cultivate the skills of effective, ethical persuasion. Trained in finance, few have background in the social and behavioral sciences of what makes people tick or the “soft skills” used in these disciplines.
Applied to financial advisor-client relationships, proven techniques of persuasion can heighten outcomes, help expand practices and boost overall success.
Cialdini deconstructs the psychology of compliance as six principles of ethical influence, which are intrinsic to the human condition: Reciprocation, Scarcity, Authority, Consistency, Liking and Consensus.
He says that when raised to the surface under appropriate circumstances, these principles—“weapons of influence,” he calls them—can provide a context for obtaining what you ask for.
A dynamic public speaker, who trains trainers from countries worldwide in his methods of persuasion, the amiable Cialdini maintains that, through wielding a single principle or combinations thereof, people can be steered and educated into saying “yes.”
In addition to decades of academic research into the influence process, Cialdini spent three years posing as a trainee investigating the sales and compliance techniques of a number of companies and organizations. Undercover, he sold cars, vacuums and insurance, and closely observed the methods of advertising agency copywriters and charity fundraisers.
Completing these spying missions (a scientific tack known as “participant observation”) Cialdini detected that six chief principles of behavior were universally put in play to effectively persuade. Called into action by communicators, they can bring about what he has dubbed “unthinking compliance” or “automatic influence.”
Right Moments
One of the most vital, and fascinating, aspects of Cialdini’s process is the “moment of persuasive power.” It is when an individual is most apt to say “yes.” For example, applying the principle of Reciprocation—which creates a sense of obligation in the other party—such a moment pops up immediately after a client enthusiastically thanks you for an achievement on their behalf.
The advisor, suggests Cialdini, should respond: “I was glad to do it. That’s what partners do for one another.” Then, right away, perhaps ask for a referral.
“After you’ve done something for people, they’re very willing to want to do something for you in return,” says Cialdini. “In the moment you have just demonstrated your competence and conscientiousness, you’re empowered in a way that you wouldn’t be any other time. People listen differently and are processing the next thing you say more deeply.”
The doctor himself isn’t immune to his own FA’s moments of persuasive power when he calls with new, as-yet-unpublished information relevant to his client’s portfolio.“If I could press the phone into my head any more deeply,” Cialdini says, “there would be an indentation in my skull.”
According to Raphael E. Lapin, a Harvard-trained negotiation and communication specialist and founder-president of Conflict Management (www.conflict-management.net), based in Los Angeles, the advisor who functions as a genuine counselor and near-therapist is in the strongest position to influence client behavior.
“True persuasion is helping the individual reach their own decisions in an informed way,” says Lapin, with clients such as AT&T, Yahoo! and the U.S. Air Force. “If you’re trying to persuade clients to take an action that is not in alignment with their best interests and get into sales and pitching mode, that’s aligning with your interests, not theirs—and you start sounding desperate.”
Cialdini concurs: “The hard-sell pitch does not work with the more sophisticated high-end, high-wealth client. They don’t want to be pitched or pressured. They want to be informed into yes.”
The chief means to that end, in Lapin’s approach, is to ask good questions that get clients to think. “Questions are the fuel for persuasion. They stimulate the clients’ thinking, which makes them start seeing you as a real consultant helping them with their real issues,” Lapin says.
If, for instance, prospects are reluctant to open up and talk about their retirement visions or financial fears, he advises: “Don’t lecture to them. Engage them to talk about their values and priorities. Get them to do the work. Don’t impose a solution. Instead, make them partners in the problem-solving. They’ll have much more ownership in the solution and will therefore be more compliant.”
Of course, trust must be established before clients can ever be expected to comply.
“You can’t authentically persuade someone unless they trust you. Helping them to an informed decision has to be built on trust,” Lapin says. “The more that people feel they’re being heard and understood, the more they’re going to trust you.”
He continues. “Once you demonstrate that you understand the client, they’ll feel less compelled to talk and much more receptive to what you’re about to say. You’re getting their buy-in every step of the way. By the time the decision has to be made, you don’t have to sell it—it’s an automatic process.”
Meeting with a prospect, the advisor should seek to control the interview’s direction, says Darci Hemsley Brown, M.Ed., managing partner and performance coach with Aaron Hemsley & Associates (www.aaronhemsley.com), a sales and psychological training firm based in Las Vegas. “But throw away the script and be human!” she counsels.
“Clients are already nervous,” Brown notes. “Some people who come to see an advisor are anticipating pain, like when they go to the dentist. Tell them, ‘My job is to reduce your financial stress and worries so that you can sleep better’.”
Often, however, certain words can be more persuasive than others. To wit, changing only one word of your presentation or recommendation can have significant positive impact and even mean the difference between “yes” and “no.” Let’s say a client has been saving for retirement according to plan. You tell her: “Congratulations on your progress toward your goal.”
Nope. That’s the wrong thing to say, Cialdini insists. “Research shows that if we characterize such behavior as ‘making progress,’ it gives people license to coast. But if we say, ‘Congratulations on your commitment toward your goal,’ that spurs them onward. Commitment is a loaded word and forward-moving. When you characterize a goal-consistent action as a commitment rather than progress, you sustain that action into the future. It’s the principle of Consistency.”
Clearly, you, as an advisor, have no hierarchical power over clients and prospects. But bringing out your unique features or providing exclusive information—i.e., uncovering the principle of Scarcity—gives you weight.
If, for instance, clients refuse to adhere to their financial plans, don’t hesitate to tell them the top qualities that differentiate you as an advisor. Here, you should also exercise the Authority principle: You’re an expert and a credible source of information.
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However, Cialdini cautions that to be most persuasive, the Authority principle must be highlighted at precisely the right time.
“The single biggest mistake that communicators make when trying to move people in their direction,” he says, “is sending in the strongest arguments—the most positive features—without first establishing their credibility and trustworthiness.”
The correct way, Cialdini says, is to note, fairly early in the relationship, a drawback or weakness—perhaps in a strategy that you’re recommending, like lengthy time to accomplish a particular goal. Then right away say: “But here are the strengths to doing this.”
“When you mention a drawback,” he says, “people believe the next thing you have to say. That’s the place to send in your strongest argument because people are now more confident about your trustworthiness and willingness to give them the pros and cons of a situation.”
Empathizing with the client’s situation or point of view is a prerequisite to effective persuasion. Consider, for instance, the scenario of recommending a conservative strategy but the client’s insistence on aggressive investing:
“Step out of your space and into their space,” Lapin advises. “Step over to their side and ask: ‘How does that help you?’ Walk along with them before bringing them back to problem-solving. It’s like fishing: Before pulling in the line, you let the fish” wear itself out.
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Likewise, if you want to persuade existing clients who also have assets at another firm to consolidate with you, encourage them to talk. You say: “Your portfolio is doing well here, but I know you have assets elsewhere. Help me better understand what your thinking is and why you feel that having money with a different advisor is working for you,” Lapin suggests. Then explain how you’d invest those assets with the likelihood of producing better results.
“That’s so much more effective,” Lapin notes, “than saying, ‘I really think you should put your entire portfolio with us. Here’s why.’”
Similar Likes
Cialdini’s Liking principle seems easy enough to activate. Liking, when raised to consciousness with a client or prospect, harnesses great persuasive power. “We like people who like us. They feel we’ll take care of them—and we do,” he says. “Liking comes from positive connections that people feel with us.”
One way to bring out this principle is before a proposal, to invoke similarities, commonalities or parallels between you and the client or prospect. This creates a bond: People see you as an advocate who listens to them.
Notes Brown, a former psychotherapist who teaches a graduate-level Hemsley program, “The Psychology of Persuasion”: “When people feel liked and respected, trust grows. But if what you’re saying with words doesn’t match up with what you’re otherwise communicating—by facial expression, tone of voice, body language—people will not trust, believe or like you.”
Expressing genuine compliments and establishing common goals are two more ways to raise your likeability quotient with clients en route to successful persuasion, Cialdini says. “People typically believe praise, and they like those who confer it.” Just so, “people like others who work with them toward common goals, a real mutuality of purpose.”
A major mistake, though, is trying too hard to make a good impression in prospect interviews, Brown says. “The idea is to try to get to know them as intimately as you can. Ask probing questions, find out what their needs are. It’s all about them! Forget about you!”
In a first interview, “ask a lot of find-out questions—who, what, when, where, how, why,” she says. “Don’t ask complicated questions, and don’t imply that the prospect is stupid by being condescending.”
Throwing around jargon is “a fatal mistake,” Brown says. “Some FAs try so hard that they start talking over the prospect’s head. That raises their anxiety level, and they stop listening. They’re feeling uncomfortable, and you’ve lost the sale. If you have to use technical terms, define them.”
In seeking compliance, it’s also critical for FAs to control their voices so they come across confident and assertive, yet caring.
“Speaking too fast,” Brown says, “makes the client feel anxious. They’ll shut down, stop listening, tune out—and all you’re going to get is a ‘no’.”
Active listening—being attentive and giving feedback to what the other is saying—is essential. It is, Lapin says, “the building block of any communication.”
Such listening is vital in trying to diffuse client anger when the market has plummeted. In this situation, Brown suggests using the potent psychological approach, “anger starvation.” “Be quiet and listen to the client vent. You want to exhaust them so they get everything off their chest. But while they’re unloading, make supportive statements like, ‘Our relationship is very important to me. I want to understand how you’re feeling’.”
The next step is “crucial,” Brown says. “Ask: ‘Do you believe it’s my fault that the market crashed?’ The client will probably say no. If they say yes, you need to re-teach the risks of investing—but in a loving way.”
Suppose a client won’t take your financial advice. To help avoid this in the first place, employ Cialdini’s principle of Consistency. At an early stage in the relationship, draw up a mutual agreement detailing values, priorities, goals and investment strategy. But don’t you write it down; that’s the client’s job.
“People live up to what they write down,” Cialdini says. “By asking them to be complicit in the commitment to their set of goals, the client is more likely to stay congruent with them in the future.”
The principle of Consensus, or Social Proof, is brought to bear by indicating, for example, that others just like the client have had success with a particular investment vehicle.
You say, “Other individuals in your circumstances have chosen to shift their assets into what I’m recommending because they want to optimize their outcome for retirement,” Cialdini offers.
The persuasion process actually begins in your office reception room by offering the prospect or client water, coffee or a soft drink. “This makes people want to open their ears and mind to the next thing you provide. It’s the principle of Reciprocation,” Cialdini says.
The bottom line: Ethical, effective persuasion stems from effective communication techniques. “If an advisor is using persuasion to help clients and prospects make informed decisions in a timely manner,” Brown says, “they’re using it in the best possible way—to serve and protect.”
Persuasion Principles
These are Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s Principles of Ethical Influence, as discussed in his books and other materials:
Reciprocation: Be the first to give: service, information, concessions.
Scarcity: The rule of the rare. Emphasize unique features, exclusive information.
Authority: Establish position through: professionalism, industry knowledge, credentials, admitting weaknesses first.
Consistency: Start small and build: with existing commitments, from public positions, toward voluntary choices.
Liking: Uncover: similarities, areas for genuine compliments, opportunities for cooperation.
Consensus/Social Proof: People power by showing: responses of many others, others’ past successes, testimonials from similar others.
Face it: financial advisors have issues — often with themselves. In fact, sometimes they can be their own worst enemy.
ThinkAdvisor asked Darci Hemsley Brown, senior managing partner of the management, sales and psychological training firm Aaron Hemsley & Associates, to identify the 10 worst sales mistakes that advisors make.
Since 2001, Brown has worked with hundreds of financial advisors in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Australia and Asia. The financial author-speaker Nick Murray calls Brown’s 10-week coaching program “the single best investment you can make in your career.”
Brown’s father, Aaron Hemsley, is a pioneering performance-psychology researcher and sales-process coach whose philosophy is: “Top producers are not born – they are made.”
[Check out The 6 Cold Calling Skills You Really Need]
Darci joined the company after years as a psychology professor and psychotherapist. She specializes in coaching advisors one-on-one to help overcome sales-related fears and self-sabotaging behaviors. Once completing the “Psychology of Maximum Sales Performance” program, advisors are ready to use the techniques on their own.
Speaking from company headquarters in Las Vegas, Brown revealed financial advisors’ biggest sales mistakes and ways to overcome them. Here is what she said, starting with No. 10 on her list:
10. Rationalizing, Justifying, Minimizing, Making Excuses for Behavior
If you stay up till midnight drinking with your buddies on a Monday night and your head feels like a bowling ball on Tuesday, how can that not affect your performance, sales and prospecting? Thinking that it’s “no big deal” is making an excuse. Mood, energy, productivity, performance are directly affected daily by everything you do. You’re 100% responsible for the things in your life that you have 100% control over. No one would consider putting anything other than premium fuel in a Bugatti. Likewise, if you’re not taking care of yourself, you aren’t able to effectively help people that need your help – who are negatively affected by your bad personal choices too. When you don’t get enough sleep, you might think, “No big thing.” But feeling tired and sluggish the next day will affect your performance and productivity. The human body is so much more valuable than a sports car.
9. Not Having a Daily Accountability Tracking System
You can use a yellow pad to track performance. I don’t care if you use a Post-it! A tracking system is a way to slow down the action so that you can see your reality and fix problems quickly. That allows you to do better in sales and every other area of your business. When you track your performance, you’re able to evaluate it rationally instead of emotionally. Any time you’re trying to improve, grow or overcome a negative habit, or create a new positive one, you need to be accountable and carefully monitor everything you do all day long. If you’re unwilling to do this, you’re putting your head in the sand: “Oh, I’ll just do the same ol’- same ol’.” You don’t need to be held accountable to a branch manager or regional manager; but if you’re serious about growth and change, you must be held accountable to yourself.
8. Living Life in Your Comfort Zone
You feel you’re making enough money; you don’t need a nicer house or car. So you get complacent and stop pushing. Or you’re simply settling for mediocrity. That good-enough attitude, “I’m doing well enough,” or living in your comfort zone are lazy approaches. If you’re grossing $1 million a year but capable of doing four times that and not using all your talents and skills, or if you’re sitting in your office reading the sports page online and not working seven to eight hours a day, you’re choosing to act irresponsibly.
Maybe you have a fear of success because you think that you’re undeserving: “Good grief, I can’t make more than my brother, the doctor. He saves lives. What do I do?” Fear of success usually is quite hidden. When I see advisors clearly sabotaging themselves, I typically spot a red flag: a record of roller-coaster productivity, with their best month frequently followed by two or three bad months. But then they get nervous again: “Oh, I’d better kick it up a notch and have another great month.” Then: “Whoa, I’m getting too big!” This is always absolutely subconscious. If you bring up a fear of success, they’ll immediately be in denial: “That can’t be me!”
7. Perfectionism
This is a self-defeating behavior that affects financial advisors by sucking all the joy, happiness and peace right out of them. Perfectionism is typically motivated by a fear of failure or a sense of duty. But if you pursue excellence in a healthy, rational way, you find joy in the journey. Perfectionists are so terrified of failure that they try to do everything perfectly. This leads to procrastination because you’re worried that you can’t do it perfectly. Or when you do start a project, you spend way too much time on it. That creates anxiety, making you and everybody around you uncomfortable. The perfectionist is waiting to be happy.
But no matter how great their accomplishments, they’re never really satisfied: “I sure will be happy once I become a million-dollar producer.” But when you get to the million dollar mark, you’re still not happy: “Maybe $2 million is the happy gross-production point.” Perfectionists are striving to accept themselves: If I’m perfect enough, then I’ll be worthy of love. Perfectionism is tied into loving yourself unconditionally and allowing others to love you unconditionally.
6. Refusing to Create a Daily Plan of Attack
This is a horrendous mistake: Not having an hour-by-hour agenda of how you’re going to use your time every day. A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach is ineffective at best. A daily plan makes you more organized and gives you flexibility to move things around. In the life of a financial advisor, money is on the line every day – yours and other people’s. If you’re not making a plan of attack that’s specific, immediate and clear, and are passively approaching prospecting and client care, that’s lazy and irresponsible. You aren’t serious. Professional football players always have a plan of attack. The teams are strategizing – just like in war – studying the opponent and how they’re going to beat them.
There’s a proverb associated with King Richard III about the neglect of a simple detail. He [supposedly] was unprepared in a crucial battle because of a missing horseshoe nail, causing him to fall off his horse and his army to scatter. Shakespeare wrote: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” [Factually, the horse got stuck in mud.]
5. Focusing on Results vs. Activities Over Which You Have Control
It’s not just advisors that do this — it’s branch managers and all the way up the company. They focus their attention on results — gross production — instead of rewarding advisors’ good activities that will lead to good results. This can cause advisors to become depressed and discouraged, leading to emotional exhaustion. Many branch managers think concentrating on results will push you harder; but if your focus is on results and you have a fear of success, that can backfire. This destroys your emotional strength, bringing on low self-esteem and all kinds of other negative issues.
If you’re a smart branch manager, you do not want that to happen. If you’re an advisor focusing on the goal to make $1 million in gross production next year and on January 10, you land the largest client of your career and already surpass your goal, you might think, “Guess I’ll take a vacation for the rest of the year.” No! What you earned yesterday is irrelevant. How many people are you going to talk to today? If you want to make your branch manager happy, set a darn goal. But then try forgetting about it and start focusing on the daily activities that you have 100% control over. Focus on what you can control, not on what you can’t.
4. Neglecting to Effectively Manage Daily Stress and Anxiety
The higher your stress level, the lower your productivity and the poorer your performance. If you feel stress but are doing nothing about it, you become worn out emotionally and physically. This affects your mood, productivity, sales and ability to prospect. Performance anxiety is about stress; it typically comes from a fear of rejection or looking foolish. Ruminating about the past or worrying about future production is a distraction; it wastes your emotional energy and creates stress. Many advisors self-medicate for stress. The most common way is to surf the Internet.
But this is an avoidance behavior that actually exacerbates stress: you’ve lost an hour or two procrastinating, putting you behind; and now you’re anxious about something that has to be done. Drugs are another way to self-medicate: caffeine or cocaine – both are drugs. Alcohol is the most common self-medicating drug used for stress. But instead of feeling better, you’ve made the problem worse by taking a depressant. Be sensitive to your stress level. When you notice it’s getting out of control, do some deep diaphragmatic breathing, for example, and generate relaxing, peaceful thoughts. This helps keep your motivation, energy and emotional strength at healthy levels.
3. Pride
A self-defeating behavior, pride negatively affects sales because it prevents learning and growth. Pride is, in this sense, more than conceit or arrogance: it is a state of opposition. If you’re a truly prideful person, you have a very difficult time accepting authority or direction and if you need help, are highly unlikely to seek it. You might not even admit that you have a problem. If you’re capable of but not quadrupling your gross production by using all your talents and time effectively, you’re choosing to act irresponsibly. You have a fear of failure, a fear of success or a fear of rejection. It requires humility to seek out help when you’re struggling, but prideful people are not humble enough to do that. They make everyone their adversary and pit their intellectual ability, talent, wealth – any other worldly measure – against everyone else.
2. Habitual Distorted Thinking
Negative thinking can be both accurate and true, but distorted thinking is different: there is something wrong with a distorted thought. It is inaccurate and untrue. And it tends to be negative as well. Distorted thinking is the root of all irrational fear. We create our own fear through the distorted thoughts we choose to entertain. “Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda” is a type of distorted thinking. Fantasy daydreaming is self-defeating too because it wastes time: it’s avoidance from work.
One of the most common types of distorted thinking that financial advisors engage in is “mind-reading”: they think they know what another person is thinking and feeling about them. For instance: You have a fear of asking for a referral because you imagine that clients will think you’re rude or offensive. This leads to the belief system that asking for referrals is rude, annoying, makes people angry and that they therefore won’t like you. The big, encompassing fear is the fear of rejection. Advisors need to learn how to control distorted thoughts by using the three C’s: Catch it, Challenge it, Change it – into healthy, rational thoughts.
1. Fear of Prospecting
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This is the most damaging fear – and it’s pretty prevalent.
Prospecting is the one thing that financial advisors, almost without exception, avoid because of fear of rejection, fear of failure or fear of success. Everyone has fears; but if they’re causing you to perform below your potential, hide out in your office and not prospect day after day – and if you aren’t seeking help – that is going to lead to failure in the industry. At a bare minimum, you won’t be as effective. You might be able to somehow get by, but you’ll be performing far below your true potential because you’re not handling your fear. You control your own fear. You exacerbate it. And you can choose to start minimizing it.
If you’re just sitting on your behind waiting for referrals to fall in your lap, you’re rationalizing. That’s a very passive, lazy approach to prospecting. In fact, you’re not prospecting – you’re making excuses for not prospecting. All advisors know they need to prospect to grow their business. So avoiding it creates anxiety, worry, remorse, frustration and self-loathing. You can’t wait for referrals to magically come to you. The biggest problem is choosing not to do something proactive to eliminate any fear that interferes with doing your job effectively.
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