What's important to you?
What are you most passionate about? People? Causes?
What's more important in your life than money?
Who do you care about?
What are your aspirations for the future?

Notice how the questions are oriented to draw out things that are positive and tend to stimulate positive emotions. Consider the positive orientation of these questions in contrast to how the old-school salesperson would tend to focus on questions that draw out problems and fears. Don't be a salesperson, be a trusted advisor.

Speaking the language of trust means that you ask questions where the answers inspire people about their futures, not scare them about the future. The better you understand what inspires people about the future, the more likely it is that they will feel good about you, even trust you. This puts you in a much better position to make an offer that might help them have the future they aspire to. More about making the offer later.

My friend and colleague Rick Barrera (author of the best-seller Over-Promise, Over-Deliver) speaks of the importance of "going deep." What he is referring to is going deep emotionally. To do this, you ask clarifying and expanding questions in response to the answers you get from your initial meaningful, important, significant and compelling questions. An effective clarifying question is, "What do you mean by __________?" An effective expanding question is, "Tell me more about _______________." Clarifying questions provide more detail about their answers. Expanding questions give you more information about their answers.

Impact questions are some of my favorite questions. They take what you have discovered during a conversation that's gone emotionally deep from someplace meaningful and bring it to a crescendo about the impact and results this will have on a client's life. Impact questions are questions like, "And what impact will that have on your life?" "Once you have achieved ____________, what will be the result of that?"

Listening with empathy is easy if you care about people, especially if you really care about helping people realize what's important to them. Empathy is the hardest part of the process to learn. An argument could be made that you either care or you don't. If you don't care, you'll struggle to empathize. But don't give up. You may find that by engaging people in conversations that are meaningful, important, significant and compelling and by truly listening that you will become more and more interested, to the point where you actually care. The risk of not caring is that people could feel manipulated by your questions because of the lack of emotional connection. Hopefully, you have discovered that the most rewarding aspect of being a financial advisor is helping people make better financial choices so they get what they want.

You have asked good questions, gone emotionally deep with clarifying, expanding and impact questions, and listened with empathy, so what do you do now? It's your turn to talk. And what will be music to their ears when you do speak is if you make them an offer or give them advice that is relevant for them. How do you know what's relevant for them? That's what you discovered while you were listening to the answers to all of your excellent questions.

My three "rules" for making the offer is that it should be free, relevant and easy. We've already covered relevant. Free means they don't pay anything to take you up on your offer, and easy means little or no effort is required to accept your offer. Your offer can be to send them something relevant in the mail, to come to your office for a meeting, or anything in between.

Here's an example of using an opening question that's meaningful, followed by clarifying and expanding questions, then an impact question, wrapped up with a relevant offer to take the next step. You would ask this question after the usual pleasantries, depending on whether you are in a business or social situation.
You: What are some of the things in your life that you are most passionate about?

Them: We have had a few friends and family members who have been affected by cancer, so we have gotten involved in some fund-raising and support efforts to find a cure and help people who are battling the disease.