Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Throughout my career, the idea of “likability” was always at the forefront of my mind. Learning to be liked was an idea endorsed by the courses, books, and articles I read while progressing in my sales career in life insurance, commercial real estate, bank trust services, investment management, and hourly fee-only financial advice. Being successful in a sales position depended on my ability to be likable.
That belief was brought into question recently, when I came across a March 2019 Harvard Business Review article, Salespeople, Stop Worrying About Being Liked, by J. Keenan, author of Gap Selling.
My 1990s New York Life Insurance Company training program taught me to vocalize the three issues a prospective client had to address in an initial interview. They were, “Do you like me?” Do you trust me?” and “Do you have some idea I know what I’m doing?”
Later, as a fee-only financial advisor, I routinely encouraged prospective clients to consider those three questions during our initial interview. I explained that my role was to be their educator/coach and their role was to be the decision-maker. It was up to them to decide if they would engage in my services and implement my recommended strategies.
The HBR article quoted a survey of more than 450,000 salespeople conducted by the Objective Management Group. The study claimed that top sellers said likability was not important to the sales process. By comparison, bottom-level sales performers reported that likability was important. After reading those results, I wondered, “Hmm… Who wants to be on the bottom and be liked?”
I now refer to this report as the “OMG study.”
This OMG study was conducted as a B2B survey, but Keenan indicated in his article that it also applies to B2C salespeople. Yes, that’s right. The findings of this survey are applicable to those of us in the financial advice and investment management arena. Certainly liking someone is not the key to a sale or engagement, but it is highlighted as an important component in most sales books, including one by David Hoffeld. He quoted a Kellogg School of Management study that found people are more likely to buy from salespeople they like – even if the offer is less compelling than one from a person they dislike.
During a recent webinar to a group of fee-only financial planners, I shared that the two key factors of engagement were trust and value. I added the likability factor since this was, as I pointed out, key to engendering trust. “If you don’t like someone, how can you trust them?” I asked.
I recalled the 1980s seminal book of required reading by stock brokers and life insurance salespeople written by LeRoy Gross. In it, he listed “19 principles to live by, sell by, and prosper by.” The number one principle was to smile. The last on the list, number 19, was also to smile. Forbes even endorsed smiling as an effective way to be seen as likable.
With deference to the HBR report, being seen as likable is key to your next engagement. Yes, trust and value remain the key components to focus on, but smile – because they need to like you first.
After retiring from a 20+ year career as a fee-only advisor, Jim Ludwick, CFP® helps other financial advisors improve their sales skills via coaching, books, and public speaking. For more information visit procrastinationjunction.com.
Read more articles by Jim Ludwick
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
