5 influencing styles for financial advisors

As an advisor, the ability to positively influence clients is central to guiding them toward wise financial decisions.

<<This article was first published by Schwab Advisor Services>>

Influencing skills are also valuable for making connections with new prospects and building stronger relationships with partners and teammates.

While influential people may seem to possess an innate gift, motivating others is something that can be learned. In their research, Chris Musselwhite, founder of Discovery Learning Inc., and Tammie Plouffe, managing partner of Innovative Pathways, have found that you can improve your influence once you learn to identify and navigate what they call the five influencing styles: bridging, rationalizing, asserting, inspiring, and negotiating.¹

Many people like to be influenced the way they influence others, which is why it's so important for you, as an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), to understand your own influencing styles and the styles of people around you. Let's explore each of the five styles to see the power of your influence and how to improve it.

Bridging

People who use a bridging style of influence tend to motivate by using reciprocity, consultation, and personal relationships. 

Identifying this style in yourself: Do you seek the connections of friends and colleagues? Do you bring people together and invite relevant stakeholders into conversations to build consensus?

Scenario for identifying and working with this style: Your succession plan rests on developing one particularly talented junior advisor. However, when you ask him to join the advisory board, he says he's hesitant to take on too much at once, citing other junior advisors who aren't participating. His referencing of peers tells you he might be a bridging influencer. 

Bridging influencers respond well to social proof, so you decide to invite his mentor to share her experience of serving on the board. After hearing about the value it offered her, he now feels more confident in pursuing the opportunity. By bringing more people into the conversation, you've used the bridging style that most resonates with the junior advisor. 

Rationalizing

People with a rationalizing influencing style tend to use logic and reasoning to persuade others.  

Identifying this style in yourself: Are you analytical? Do you often use facts and data to support your point of view?

Scenario for identifying and working with this style: A prospective client wants to reorganize his retirement portfolio, but you feel that his specific strategy is at odds with his long-term goals. When questioned, he cites data trends and all his research, revealing that he might be a rationalizing influencer.

You shift to a rationalizing style, acknowledging the thinking that went into his strategy and asking him again what his retirement goals are. You outline the costs and benefits of several scenarios, allowing the prospect to follow the logic and conclude on his own that his strategy may not be as ideal as he thought. By appealing to your client's trust in data, you've helped open him to other options.

Asserting

Those with an asserting influencing style tend to use authority and assurance as their way of motivating others. 

Identifying this style in yourself: Are you a straight shooter? Do you use your confidence to help motivate others to act?

Scenario for identifying and working with this style: You're speaking with a professional colleague to establish a new source of referrals. When you ask about his approach to client service, he says, "We work with people who want to work with the best." From his confident and direct manner, you recognize that he has an asserting style.

Rather than go deeply into all the reasons why you'd make a good fit, you meet his asserting style by congratulating him on what he's built and stating your position succinctly: "We specialize in what your clients need. I'm certain we're your ideal partner. Let's get to work." 

Inspiring

Those with an inspiring influencing style use example and comradery to motivate others. 

Identifying this style in yourself: Are you a compelling speaker? Do you use stories and metaphors to help people understand complex ideas, to offer encouragement, or to instill a feeling of shared purpose?

Scenario for identifying and working with this style: You're in an estate-planning session with your client and her 25-year-old son. Not long into the meeting, you notice the young man looks bored because the discussion doesn't feel relevant. He's looking for inspiration, but is getting a dissertation.

To make the information more relatable, you shift to an inspiring style and tell a story about another young client who put properties into a trust, which opened up possibilities he hadn't considered. You explore the idea that the young man may have kids someday and may want to take them on adventures to his family's vacation properties. He becomes emotionally invested in the conversation, and you've found a way in.

Negotiating

People with a negotiating influencing style tend to search for a middle ground to motivate others.

Identifying this style in yourself: Are you a strong collaborator? Do you proactively seek ways to satisfy different interests, make room for all voices to be heard, and create consensus and harmony?

Scenario for identifying and working with this style: Your client is concerned that she's not achieving the results she wants with her current investment strategy, but you're not comfortable with the new approach she suggests. You notice that she isn't demanding as much as seeking agreement – a negotiating tactic. There are hints she might be open to changing course incrementally and testing the waters.

Rather than try to convince her that she's making a mistake, you look for a way to satisfy her desire to explore something new while also protecting the long-term strategy. You offer a complimentary portfolio audit and a timetable for switching strategies. This way, if she doesn't see the results she's looking for, all is not lost. By taking a negotiation style and creating an approach that includes compromise, your client feels heard and is pleased with this new plan.

Mastering the influencing styles

According to Musselwhite and Plouffe, all five influencing styles can be effective, but no single style can address every situation.² When you influence from a place of habit and lean too heavily on your primary style, you reduce your odds of being heard and limit your ability to motivate others.

As an advisor, understanding tendencies – yours and those of your clients _ can help you get to what really matters more quickly and can reduce the noise that makes it hard for clients to make decisions. Like learning a new language, mastering influencing styles takes practice. But if you enter meetings with an open mind and listen closely to how people communicate, you can identify the styles of clients and peers and do more to influence them.

1. Chris Musselwhite and Tammie Plouffe, "What's Your Influencing Style?," Harvard Business Review, January 13, 2012.
2. Chris Musselwhite and Tammie Plouffe, "To Have the Most Impact, Ask the Right Questions," Harvard Business Review, November 12, 2012.

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