The average age of a Financial Planner in the UK is now 56 and just 17% of the profession are female. The demographic just doesn’t represent the wider population.
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Younger planners coming into firms as part of a succession plan. Often, the plan is for them to take on clients who are much older, those at or approaching retirement who form the core client bank of many firms.
So, how do we connect with and offer a valuable experience to people who have very different life experiences to us? Well, it’s not to jump in with our answers, assuming we know what’s best for them – that I can say with certainty.
The key is to develop genuine empathy and to be able to communicate that.
Three empathy fails
Those of us who struggle to sit with the emotions of others might sidestep it completely.
This seems to be very common, and might look like:
“Oh really? Ok, well back to the cashflow plan…”
Then some of us try but just get it wrong. We can think it looks like:
“Oh yes, that happened to me too *insert details of similar situation here* so I completely understand what you’re going through”.
Or
“Oh, bless you, that sounds really awful”.
It doesn’t. The first turns the conversation towards us, and away from the person we are listening to. The second is sympathy, which distances us from the other person and could easily be perceived as pity – which is rarely helpful.
There is some great research now about what empathy is, and what it isn’t. For a quick (less than 3 minutes) lowdown on the difference between sympathy and empathy, try this animation.
What is empathy then?
Real empathy – the kind people feel – looks quite different.
It is listening deeply, giving someone more space to explore their feelings, making them feel heard and not judged, connecting emotionally to something in you that means you can connect to how they are feeling. We can all learn to do that, and I think it’s a core Financial Planning skill.
In order to make meaningful connections across generational divides, I think it’s an essential one to learn.
Creating deeper relationships with clients
Emily Pool was part of the first open cohort of Unlocking Excellence: The Financial Planner’s Coaching Blueprint and from the course, she’s developed some really interesting thinking on the power of listening in developing empathic understanding with clients.
She talks about how she deepens the relationship with her clients, how the value she delivers will go noticed by her clients, helping once again, to create greater confidence in fees.
If you work with clients, or are developing into a client facing role, you may find some useful prompts in this video where Emily shares her experience.
I really love how Emily demonstrates that great client relationships and commercial benefits go hand in hand.
- By being clear on the relationships you want to have with clients, you can get clearer on who your ideal client is. In sector parlance, that’s contributing towards your target market
- By building deeper relationships with clients, they’ll notice the value that you deliver more and that will make conversations about fees much easier
Creating deeper relationships with teams
I spent the day with a group of team leaders last week, thinking about the future of their profession, and the skills that will be needed over the next decade with inevitable changes in their sector, technology and the world at large.
As we explored the skills that they will need in the future, one participant made an astute observation. That a key skill that leaders will need to develop is patience.
She is about my age and has a very tech savvy son in his early 20s. Her comment:
“If I had to manage someone like him, I would need a LOT of patience”.
Her son’s lived experience, as one of the first “mobile native” generations means that his whole outlook and approach is vastly different from hers.
So, to empathise and truly understand perspectives across the generation certainly isn’t unique to financial planning!
Developing an ability to really listen and empathise is crucial for leaders as well.
Especially if we ever truly want to be able to harness, blend and supercharge both the enthusiasm, knowledge and freshness of youth, with the invaluable lived experience with those who have been around the block a few times!
If you’re interested in learning more about ways to improve connection with your clients or in your team, please drop me a line or book in here for a chat – I would love to hear from you.
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash
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