A Bullet In The Chamber

Great financial planning is NOT about asking great questions.

Many say it is – I say it isn’t.

In fact, I often see financial planners talking about their ‘killer’ questions that they use with clients to ‘open the conversation’…

• What does money mean to you? 
• What would you do with another day in the week? 
• What’s the one thing you couldn’t live without? 

They’re deep philosophical questions designed to prompt a thoughtful and meaningful response from the client.

Maybe a hallelujah moment that will change their life?  

But they don’t.

Because great financial planning and coaching isn’t about asking great questions, no matter how ‘killer’ you think they are or how spiritual you try to come across when asking them.

It’s about what you do with the answers.

You see, us humans are great social liars.

Don’t look so shocked! You lie all the time in social situations.

When someone asks you how you are doing, I bet your standard answer is ‘Yes, not too bad thanks’…even though your life could be falling apart at that very moment…

The first answer we give is a shield, designed to keep the questioner at arm’s length. 

So just machine-gunning a client with your list of 5 ‘killer’ questions isn’t coaching.

You’ve got to receive the answer and probe it, play with it, tease it at the seams, and feed it back into the mixer time and time again until the real truth starts to show itself.

And you can’t do that if all you’ve got in your head is the next ‘killer’ question lined up like a bullet in the chamber.

You’re not really listening; you’re just waiting to speak.

You need to clear the chamber and give yourself room to really receive the answer.

To put it on the workbench in your mind and give yourself the space and time to get your tools out and give it a right good rummaging.

That’s where you add the real value. 

By showing your clients something about themselves that they didn’t already know.

And that’s not in asking them questions. 

It’s in what you do with the answers. 

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