As a person whose professional life is all about coaching and training advisors, I am frequently asked, "What's the most important thing I can do to be more successful?" The answer is that you must improve your people (or interpersonal) skills.

Your success as a financial advisor has more to do with this than you'd think, and in fact, it's often more important than your technical expertise. Of course, it's good to have both. But in the current economic climate, it's your people skills that set you apart. They allow you to demonstrate empathy for the pain your clients may be feeling as they make a mental and emotional transition to their new economic reality. Such skills also make it more likely clients will act on your advice. It's your people skills that can help you help your clients adjust their goals and financial time horizons.

A knack for communication will also help you engage people who might make more ideal clients. As a skilled communicator, you can learn to more effectively find referrals and make follow-up connections-making sure more of the clients you're seeking out are the ideal ones.

What if you're not a natural people person? Don't worry about that. The problem with the "natural people person" anyway is that he or she tends to talk too much. Talking skills are not the same as people skills.
But how do you develop this flair for people if you are new to our business? And how do you polish your people skills if you've allowed them to get a bit rusty?

There are three key things to remember: Ask good questions. Listen with empathy. And when it's your turn to talk, be able to articulate your ideas and your advice with conviction so your clients and prospects respond. It also helps if you genuinely care. It's hard to fake liking people.

For referrals, your people skills are invaluable. In fact, regardless of the way you currently prefer to seek out new clients, sooner or later you're going to have to talk to a human being. The more you do it, the better you get. Over the past 20 years, I've seen several studies about how people with money meet their financial advisors. And typically, 90% or more say it's through a referral. (The remaining 10% meet professionals through cold calls, direct mail, drip marketing, seminars, advertising or radio shows.)

Of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. No doubt, you've read the same research. I'm simply proposing that you finally suck it up and get good at actually asking for referrals and making the follow-up calls. Can you think of anything more intelligent than becoming good at meeting new ideal clients the way they say they want to be met?

There are also critical reasons to give these skills more consideration now, given the current market turmoil. You might have been able to get away with not-so-intelligent marketing in the old economy, but the new world is far less forgiving. And it will be your people skills that have the biggest impact on your search for new clients, because your cost per "ideal client" is the lowest when you acquire them by referral. Can you think of a better time than now to implement the most effective and least expensive way to find those clients who are right for you?

Improving Your People Skills
At first, these "muscles" may be weak. But with constant exercise, they become strong. Being a financial advisor, you're likely the sort to seek a formula that produces a predictable result. So the key is to have a process. Thus you should be able to do the following things when talking with clients or prospects:

Ask good questions
Listen with empathy
Resist the temptation to talk about yourself and/or what you do and how you do it
Ask more good questions
Continue to listen with empathy
Continue to not talk about yourself or what you do and how you do it
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. (The sound advice you find on the back of the shampoo bottle)

Say something relevant to them when it's your turn to talk and try to offer something of value, whether or not they ever do business with you.

When you genuinely listen with empathy to these people, you'll be able to take meaningful next steps, perhaps setting up a telephone conversation or a meeting in your office. You could also send them relevant gifts, such as a book or an article or something else that might help them with their problems.

How do you remember what they said? To do that, you must tease out the most compelling and emotionally charged words that they use and repeat them. You might also try to explain how your process will help them achieve the goals they have (after jotting down a few notes to refresh your memory). If the family's goals are to have more interesting experiences in life-to "see the Grand Canyon" perhaps or "get more involved with programs to help at-risk youth," repeat these phrases back to them while explaining how your process will help them achieve these goals. The next step is likely a telephone appointment or a meeting, preferably with both spouses and all their financial documents.

The secret to making this work is to use these meaningful conversations as a substitute for superficial chitchat about sports, hobbies, the weather, politics and other topics that frequently dominate people's interactions. Where do you have these conversations? The short answer is: everywhere you meet people.

What do you say when they ask what you do? This may not work exactly for you, and you may have to adjust it accordingly, but this is what we teach the advisors we coach: "I help people make smart choices about their money so they achieve their goals and fulfill their values. We do this by helping them get their entire financial house in order and keep it that way forever."

Whatever questions you get asked, answer them succinctly and directly, and then immediately follow that up with your own questions. The objective is to keep them talking.

What are some good questions you might have for them?

What's important about money to you?
What are your aspirations for the future?
Who do you care about?
How does money affect these relationships?
What's changed for you as a result of the recent economic events?
What are you doing to cope with this change?
How would you like your financial advisor to help you?
And if you meet a stranger, try this: "I'm a financial advisor. Is there anything on your mind you'd like to talk to me about?"

Keep this list of questions on 3x5 note cards in your pocket and refer to them often.

Self-Referrals
These conversations are all part of what I call a "self-referral," my term for the process of referring yourself to people you already know and new people you meet in the course of your everyday life.

Norman Levine, my co-author on the book High-Trust Leadership, was brilliant at this. He called his self-referral process the non-interview. He described it to me this way, "I meet new people, strike up a conversation, and sometimes nothing comes of it. Sometimes I make a new friend. Sometimes I get a new client." Nothing bad ever happened to Norman by striking up conversations with strangers, but lots of good things occurred in his 50-plus years in our business.

You meet lots of people you could engage in conversation with who might lead you to a business relationship, but you probably choose not to. One excellent way to implement a self-referral program is to strategically put yourself in places where you know your ideal clients are, as long as these are places you genuinely enjoy being. It's painful to hear about advisors who pretend to be interested in the symphony just to meet wealthy donors. You will be far more effective when you get involved in things you actually enjoy, and you'll meet potential ideal clients while living the life you want to live anyway.

Let me wrap up with a few things you can do to keep your people skills sharp:
  Have a list of questions.
  Get in the habit of engaging people wherever you are.
  Keep those "muscles" active that allow you to interact with people. Remember, muscles you don't use do not get stronger by themselves.
  Buy a small digital recorder and record your client meetings, both initial interviews and discovery meetings, implementation meetings and progress meetings.
  Listen to the recordings to see how well you ask questions and listen. One objective is to hear the voice of the other people on the recording much more than your own.
  Go to a communication skills class, preferably one that puts you on video and provides personal coaching. You must see yourself on video. Painful? Probably. Valuable? Absolutely! An excellent and cost-effective program is the Decker Communications Course at www.decker.com.

Think about your people skills in the way a professional athlete thinks about her sport or a professional musician thinks about his instrument or a best-in-class surgeon thinks about her specialty. Most of these people have dedicated themselves to being students of the skill. To simply be a glib, spontaneous people person is rare.

What would your business be like if you had world-class interpersonal skills? If you do have them, it's a great time to be a financial advisor.