The latest Road to Exchange, hosted by VettaFi’s Cinthia Murphy, featured retirement expert and author of Your Best Financial Life, Anne Lester.
Lester is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Exchange conference, which happens March 23-26 in Las Vegas.
Lester to Discuss Human Connection for Advisors & Clients on the Exchange Stage
“I think it’s challenging for people who spend their lives in a compliance controlled environment, surrounded by numbers and graphs sometimes to remember that our clients are human beings,” Lester shared.
She said it can be easy for financial professionals to overlook the fact that many people do not want to deal with money at all, which is why they go to advisors in the first place. “We tend to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher when we talk,” Lester added.
Her speech at Exchange will be full of tips and actionable information to help advisors better connect with their clients. Accordingly, Lester will also have advice for reaching through to younger clients.
She reinforced that many advisors and financial professionals got into this work because they think it’s fun and they find interest in the numbers and day-to-day tracking of the markets. However, many people do not enjoy that, and it’s easy to forget that fact.
Money Can Be a Topic of Shame for Many
“Something we often overlook is a lot of people have a lot of shame over money,” Lester noted. For many clients, some of their earliest memories are of paternal figures wagging their fingers at a financial choice or making them feel guilty. Add on the tendency of society to equate a person’s money with their intrinsic value, and you have a recipe for shame.
When people feel shame about something, they avoid dealing with it. Above all, this creates obstacles and opportunities for advisors to connect with their clients on a human level. Lester promised she would be sharing tips on being an effective storyteller and connecting with clients going through this sort of shame.
Retaining the Family Business
Being able to connect to the younger generation is critical for advisors, particularly amid the great transfer of wealth that is happening. “If you are seen as someone’s parent’s ally, that can be a very difficult relationship to transition,” she shared. Connecting to generations that are not holding the purse strings is important if you want to retain that business as new generations inherit the family wealth.
One piece of advice Lester offers is to share your own mistakes: “Younger people are very quick to feel judged by their elders.” By sharing your mistakes, you can remove the appearance of judgment and create camaraderie.
Register for Exchange today and hear more from Anne Lester and other experts.
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