Have you ever been confused by someone asking you poor questions? I know I certainly have! Do you think, on reflection, better structured questions would have helped the outcome?
Whether you were visiting an accountant, doctor, broker or other party, if you were in the role of client or prospect, consider:
- Did the poor questions affect the process and the rapport between you?
- Was the underlying meaning of the interview dislocated and/or fragmented because of poor questioning?
- Were the outcomes diluted because of the structure and placing of the questions, or lack of sensitivity in the fact-finding or discovery process?
- What was the outcome of the relationship? Did you visit that person again?
I raise these issues because it appears to me, from considerable discussion with many advisers, that they do not have a number of negotiable questions which are carefully knitted into the advisor client process. In order to get to a point or an objective we must drive the prospect or client to that very point we’re carefully constructing.
In many of my meetings I have built a structured process that follows guided discovery. Let me illustrate how.
Asking open-ended questions
Open-ended questioning allows you to understand why this person has come to see you and allows them to be the centre of the dialogue. These questions allows deeper responses to be obtained. Your experience and intuition will drive you to the problems at hand. Some examples include:
- “Mr Prospect, please tell me what is important to you at the moment? Family? Business? Children? Parents?” And so on.
- “Where would you like to be in 12 months’ time? Three years, five years, 25 years?” At each of these times you are able to walk with the person and help them identify short-term and long term goals.
- “Who are the people you love and why? If you were to die today how would you want to leave these people?”
- “Why are you looking for another adviser and what are you looking for in a professional adviser?”
These are questions I always ask in the interview process of new prospects. My discovery document helps me to clearly understand clients’ goals and can also be used to prompt them to remember what they wanted to achieve.
Existing clients
A similar process can be used for reviews with existing clients. Here are some examples of questions I ask:
- “What has happened in the last 12 months in your life? Family? Business?”
- “Are you happy where you are at the moment? What have been the upsides for you in 2013? Any negatives outcomes?”
Depending on the answers to these questions, you will then take a journey together, to try to either build on their continued success or rectify the current position or problems.
Remember, it is the quality of the questions that you ask and continue ask that will determine how well you understand your client. Poor questions equal poor outcomes and well-structured questions equal fantastic outcomes.
Dr Jim Taggart is a financial services veteran who founded, grew and sold the hugely successful Taggart Group.
Jim currently works as a Professor at Notre Dame University, is a radio presenter on Live 90.5FM and is passionate about empowering advisers to develop more meaningful relationships with their clients.
