Another way to build engagement and trust is to tell a client a secret. Not necessarily an actual secret, says Kurlander, but a comment or a piece of information that creates intimacy with the client. Advisors should lower their voice, lean in, and give a client a piece of information or an observation that is not commonly known. To be effective, however, advisors must be authentic when doing so.
Storytelling can also help create more engaged, enthusiastic clients, said Kurlander.
“I can talk in a very academic, theoretical way, but I’ve learned that’s not the way to engage people,” he said. “Rather than speaking academically, I tell them a story.”
Advisors can also use mimicry both to engage clients and to test whether their clients are engaged, said Kurlander.
Neurobiology has discovered mimicry as a form of implicit, non-verbal communication that is difficult to fake. Mimicry refers to largely unconscious but reflexive exchange of gestures, postures and expressions in a conversation.
“The extent to which there’s mimicry in a conversation determines the extent to which the people who are speaking like and trust one another,” Kurlander said. “Work to become more self aware and more self conscious, and see if mimicry is taking place in … conversations.”
Mimicry should extend, to a certain point, to speech patterns as well, said Kurlander. While he doesn’t advocate anyone switching verbal affectations a la Hillary Clinton’s suddenly rediscovered southern accent during the 2008 presidential primaries, he does recommend slowing down and adopting more musical speaking patterns when in the American South, and speeding up and adopting flatter speech affectations when in the metropolitan Northeast.
Finally, one topic is more universal and engaging to human beings than any other, and is the key to engaging with them on a more open and intimate level, said Kurlander.
“Family is the one thing, not just for us, but for our clients as well, the most engaging thing in the world,” he said. “It’s ironic to reflect on that, because the best advisors in their firms, when I ask them if they know the important things about the families of their five to 10 most important clients, most will admit that they do not know. Families are the most engaging thing we can talk about, yet we don’t know everything we need to know about our clients’ families.”