As an advisor, you want to deliver a message that sets you apart and makes prospects walk away wanting to work with you. But many advisors go wrong by focusing on their backgrounds, credentials, firms, processes and teams.
Research shows that what makes all but the most analytical of prospects select advisors isn’t facts and figures that appeal at a rational level. Rather, the best way to motivate and connect with most prospects is using a simple, relevant and memorable story to strike an emotional chord. For most prospects, the main role of performance and process is simply as backup to a message that resonates at an emotional level.
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Appealing to the head versus the heart
There’s growing evidence on the powerful impact of an emotional appeal. As one example, in “Charities should appeal to the heart, not the head,” Wharton’s Deborah Star points to research on two ways that a charity working in Africa can frame a request for support:
Approach One: Food shortages in Malawi are affecting more than three million children. In Zambia, severe rainfall deficits have resulted in a 42% drop in maize production from 2000. As a result, an estimated three million Zambians face hunger. Four million Angolans — one-third of the population — have been forced to flee their homes. More than 11 million people in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance.
Approach Two: Any money that you donate will go to Rokia, a seven-year-old girl who lives in Mali in Africa. Rokia is desperately poor and faces a threat of severe hunger, even starvation. Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your financial gift. With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors, Save the Children will work with Rokia’s family and other members of the community to help feed and educate her, and provide her with basic medical care.
The first appeal is much more substantive, with facts and figures that make the case. But the second appeal that focuses on just one young girl in need draws significantly more support. Charities need to hone their stories to focus on emotions. In this same way, advisors need to translate their work into how individual clients are better off as a result. Here’s more on Deborah Star’s findings on how charities should tell their stories:
It’s all about putting together a simple, emotionally compelling message. The best way to do that is in the form of a picture or a story, something that purely engages the emotional system. The mistake that many charities make is trying to appeal both to emotion and to reason. They assume this would be more effective than appealing to only one or the other, but it isn’t.
Harnessing the power of stories
Jennifer Aaker of the Stanford Graduate School of Business has done extensive research on the power of the right stories. In her video, Harnessing the Power of Stories, she explains why “stories are up to 22 times more powerful than facts alone.”
Aaker begins by describing how the power of storytelling motivated over 25,000 people to participate in clinics to look for a bone marrow match for a recent Stanford graduate. The key is that the story humanized the situation and made it personal. Aaker maintains that our brains are wired to retain stories and described how a signature narrative moves you closer to your goal and gets people to look at you differently.
And the right story can make a lasting impact. In an experiment, research subjects were divided into groups. One saw statistics and the other heard a story. After 10 minutes, 5% remembered statistics while over 60% remembered the story.
Aaker describes four characteristics of an effective story:
- A goal: Where do you want the audience to go? What do you want audience to feel, think and do?
- A hook to grab attention: Why should people listen? This can be a shocking stat or a funny joke.
- Engagement: What makes the story authentic and relatable? Why should people care?
- Enable action: What should the audience do as a result?
The best stories, according to Aaker, have a protagonist who journeys through an arc, as well as a beginning, middle and an end that results in persuasion and action. This is very similar to effective case studies structured as follows:
- “before” – the problem the clients faced;
- the actions that were taken; and
- the outcome afterwards.
Stories aren’t just relevant to prospects – for example, if older clients resist sharing the details of their financial situations with adult children or exploring long-term care insurance or life insurance to deal with estate tax issues, telling short stories about other clients who did this this to good effect can get people to rethink their resistance.
Five tips on creating effective stories
My articles “How to Connect with a $3 Million Prospect” and “The Four Questions Every Prospect Wants Answered” argued that the key question that all prospects want answered is how they’ll be better off working with you. The right story can help you answer that question in a persuasive and memorable fashion, provided that the story has five key elements; it’s short, interesting, credible, relevant and not about you.
It’s short and to the point
Practice your stories so you can get them down to 60 seconds. That doesn’t mean you tell prospects everything there is to say in that minute, but you need to capture their attention in that time period and use the story as a jumping off point to talk about their situation. Here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared in Fast Company on “The Simple Science to Good Storytelling"
"Less is more" is a basic rule of good storytelling. Avoid the complex and details as well as the use of adjectives and complicated nouns. Using simple language is the best way to activate regions of the brain that help us relate to the events in a story. Remember that you are not trying to impress, but to share an experience.
It’s interesting
Here’s what Aaker had to say in The Seven Deadly Sins of Storytelling about making a story interesting and engaging:
Unless you're telling the story about the proper assembly of an IKEA bookshelf, your story probably shouldn't begin at the beginning. Chronology matters much less than having your story follow an interesting arc. Events need to build, one after the other. Your story should describe increasing risk and increasing consequences until the final, inevitable conclusion, but not necessarily in the exact way that the audience expects.
It’s credible
The best stories have a ring of truth. In these stories, clients don’t always achieve the outcomes they’re looking for without effort and trade-offs and without encountering setbacks and adversity along the way. Here’s what Aaker has to say about credibility:
Engaging stories do not chronicle a straight line to success. Imagine if Rocky won every fight … yawn. Hone in on your protagonist's problems or barriers to achieving her goal. What is standing in her way? By incorporating moments of vulnerability or doubt, you create empathy and lend authenticity to the story.
It’s relevant
For stories to resonate, they have to be relevant to your audience. Unless you have a narrowly focused client niche, one case study won’t work for everyone. Instead, you need to draw from an arsenal. The closer to your prospect’s situation that the clients in a story are, the more those prospects will be able to relate and remember the story and the more motivating they’ll find it. The more stories that you have to draw from, the more likely you’ll be able to select one that will resonate with the prospects with whom you’re talking.
It’s not about you
Effective stories need to put clients at the center. While it may be tempting to focus on the key role that your insights played in creating a happy ending, that can undermine the credibility and impact of the story. It’s not that you don’t play a role, but you are a supporting character with the clients with whom you worked center stage. Here’s another excerpt from the Fast Company article:
Talking too much about ourselves directly can be viewed by others as being self-serving and turn others off. Skillful storytellers can weave information about themselves they want the audience to know, without appearing to be pretentious. Past stories of struggles, failures and overcoming barriers the storyteller has experienced are excellent sources that help the storyteller connect with the audience as everyone has experienced these in life. This will compel the storyteller to appear more human, more like one of them.
Whether describing your approach to prospects or in conversation with clients, the traditional focus on facts and figures with the advisor as the center of the conversation will no longer work. For maximum impact, shift your focus to stories that strike an emotional chord. Spending the time to hone your stories and your storytelling skills is one of the best investments you’ll make.
Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written commentaries, go to www.danrichards.com.
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As an advisor, you want to deliver a message that sets you apart and makes prospects walk away wanting to work with you. But many advisors go wrong by focusing on their backgrounds, credentials, firms, processes and teams.
