Communication Essentials for Financial Planners. Grable John E.
and decode the message – Steps 5 and 6. These steps in the process happen quickly and are usually based on the type of question asked and the client’s personal beliefs, values, cultural background, preferences, and expectations, in addition to other factors. While it is easy to think about these steps theoretically, it is important to remain grounded in practice. Everyone uses eye contact, body position, and other forms of nonverbal communication during a conversation. Being able to identify and use these forms of communication is an essential element in the process of building client trust and commitment.
While the client is receiving and decoding the message, there will be opportunities for the planner to observe nonverbal cues. These are essentially unspoken signals sent back to the financial planner. It is important to note that very rarely are the cues purposeful or intentional. These cues, however, can serve as important clues about the message’s success or failure. Consider, for example, sending an email to a client. If a client responds immediately, this might indicate that the client is interested in the message. It might, on the other hand, simply mean that the client was online when the message was delivered. A delayed response could indicate a lukewarm interest in the message. It could also indicate that the client does not read his or her email often, and as such, a different channel of delivery is needed. Identifying and interpreting these nonverbal cues is an important financial planning communication skill.
In addition to nonverbal cues, financial planners need to be aware of a phenomenon called transference. Sometimes a client’s attitude, mood, fear, or other emotional disposition is communicated nonverbally back to the financial planner during the client’s decoding process. If unaddressed, the client’s disposition can be absorbed or taken on by the financial planner. It is important for financial planners to understand when this occurs and how to handle this possibility. The arrow running from nonverbal cue evaluation and transference to the box called “decode response” represents the ongoing continuous feedback dynamic that is active in nearly every client–financial planner communication and counseling situation.
Whenever dialog occurs, the client (or receiver of a message) automatically engages in an assessment and evaluation of the message. As shown in Figure 3, at Step 7 the client formulates his or her own idea in response to the message. Within a financial planning engagement, this step in the process will hopefully be engaging and productive. There may be times, however, when no response is given. The client then moves to Step 8. This involves selecting a channel for response. The client then sends his or her response message back to the financial planner at Step 9.
Although Step 9 represents the last stage in the process, the actual communication and counseling framework is continuous, as shown with the arrow from Step 9 back to the financial planner decode response box. Stated another way, the framework is built on multiple levels of feedback. This is illustrated with the arrow coming from the financial planner’s decode response box back to the client at Step 6. This represents the client’s own interpretation and evaluation of nonverbal cues being sent by the financial planner. For example, imagine what the client would think if, during the evaluation of risk tolerance discussion, the financial planner started talking to someone else on her cell phone? It is likely that the client’s trust and commitment would be harmed.
SUMMARY
As illustrated in Figure P.3, the financial planning communication and counseling process is potentially endless. Of course, there may be times when a particular communication has a demonstrated beginning and ending point. Asking a client, for example, if he or she would like some coffee or tea, may not lead to an ongoing discussion with feedback experiences. The fact that the question was asked and answered, however, adds to the ongoing client–financial planner engagement.
The remainder of this book reviews some of the most important communication and counseling skills that researchers and successful financial planners have identified as being essential to becoming an effective and successful financial planner in the twenty-first century. Throughout the book, we provide examples of important techniques as well as contexts in which some of these actions transpire in practice. In many situations, video examples of what to do and what to avoid are also provided. It is through a combination of reading, watching, and practicing that a financial planner can improve his or her skillset. Whether in your final day of your thirtieth year in financial planning or your first day in your first year of enrollment in a CFP Board Registered Program, we strongly believe this book will facilitate useful reflection regarding best avenues for engaging clients or for you beginners, allow you to build an important skillset that is the keystone element of serving our clients.
Acknowledgments
A book like this does not go from conceptualization to publication without the help of many dedicated people. We would like to thank a number of individuals who helped bring this book project to fruition. To begin with, we are very appreciative for the work and words of Dr. Tom Warschauer, professor emeritus at San Diego State University. It was his question about how a finance faculty member could incorporate communication and counseling skills into a program of study that prompted our first thoughts about writing this book. We are also grateful for those who have helped pave the way for the inclusion of communication topics to be a focus of study in CFP registered programs. A list of everyone who has made an argument for focusing on communication and counseling skills would be too long for this brief dedication, but there are a few who stand out, including: Kristy Archuleta, Elissa Buie, Carol Anderson, Charles Chaffin, Dottie Durband, Bill Gustafson, Sherman Hanna, Rick Kahler, Kevin Keller, Megan Ford, Deana Sharpe, Dave Yeske, and our colleagues at the University of Georgia: Swarn Chatterjee, Jerry Gale, Lance Palmer, Kenneth White, Duncan Williams, Ann Woodyard, and Sheri Worthy. We are also grateful to the leaders at the CFP Board who took a chance in creating the Center for Financial Planning, which provides a forum for works like this that might otherwise never be published.
In the end, this book is dedicated to our financial planning colleagues who are building financial planning into a profession on a daily basis. We know that you are often working alone – sometimes in a firm, a large academic department, or in a small certificate program. It is our hope that this book will be a resource to help you grow your practice or program. If you are an instructor, we hope that the techniques and tools presented in this book help you teach communication and counseling skills more effectively. If you are a student, we hope that you gain practical skills to help you in your career. If you are already a financial planner, our hope is that this small book will help you become even more successful.
On a personal note, we would like to thank our spouses for their unwavering support during the writing process. To Emily, thank you for helping me stay focused on the bigger picture. To Lindsay, I cannot thank you enough for your overall support, and particularly, for taking care of so many important tasks as I dedicated time to this book.
How to Use This Book
This book was written with two goals in mind. The first was to help aspiring financial planners develop core competencies related to interpersonal communication techniques. The second was to provide tools and techniques to those already working in the profession to gain mastery of the interpersonal communication process. A key element of the book involves not only reading about “how to communicate,” but also watching examples of what to do and what not to do.
Throughout the book you will see text boxes that look like this:
SAMPLE TEXT BOX
Provides title of video relevant to the discussion (for example, Video 4A).
Whenever you see a text box, you should recognize that an accompanying video showing an example of the topic is available online. The text box will provide a code, such as 4A, that will help you find the appropriate video clip. In this example, the number 4 represents the chapter, while the letter A represents the first video in Chapter 4.
While you do not need to watch the videos to gain an understanding, or even a mastery, of the tools and techniques provided in the book, we have found that sometimes