S4 EP05 | The Art and Skill of Conversation (Part 2): Asking the Right Questions to Understand Your Prospective Client’s Needs

02.25.21 | 0 Market Scale

This is the Part 2 of the conversation between our president, David DeCelle, and Ivan Farber, author of Conversations: How to Manage Your Business Relationships One Conversation at a Time.

In Part 1 of our podcast, Ivan talked about how to build rapport in a conversation and how to proactively monitor conversation engagement. In this Part 2, Ivan gives us a more concrete formula on how to bring out the specific needs of a prospective client.

In this episode, you will learn how to plan a conversation that will naturally guide a prospective client into discussing their true needs. Once you understand their needs, you’ll be able show how your professional experience and services can help.

Ivan breaks the process into five parts in what he calls the CLEAR method:

  • Create an opener to start the conversation about your consulting services
  • Learn by asking open and close-ended questions and listening actively
  • Explore by probing deeper with open-ended hypotheticals
  • Address the prospect’s objections or skepticism on how you could help them achieve their goals
  • Resolve and bring the conversation to a close by setting out agreed-to next steps

In the episode, Ivan not only explains his CLEAR method in detail, but also shares with us some of his real-life experiences. If you have ever wondered how to Google a prospective client’s personal background and then tell them you’ve done so without sounding too creepy, Ivan will teach you how.

Though this podcast concludes our conversation with Ivan, we are happy to announce that he will be back in the near future. Ivan has graciously agreed to do a miniseries podcast with us to explore his conversation-building techniques further.

So, stay tuned for announcements!

Links and resources

CONNECT WITH IVAN

LinkedIn 

Twitter

Website

RESOURCES

Book: Conversations: How to Manage Your Business Relationships One Conversation at a Time (Paperback and Kindle available on Amazon.com, Audio book from website)

Ivan’s favorite book: Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins

Did you like this conversation? Then leave us a rating and a review in whatever podcast player you use. We would love your feedback, and your ratings help us reach more advisors with ideas for growing their practices, attracting great clients, and achieving a better quality of life. While you are there, feel free to share your ideas about future podcast guests or topics you’d love to see covered.

Our Team:

President of Model FA, David DeCelle

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

I would say skepticism is present always and everywhere. So let's just define skepticism. skepticism is the idea that your client or prospect doubts, a feature or benefit of something that you've said or even something you haven't said. But there's doubt.

 

David DeCelle

0:24

Welcome Model FA. We are here for part two with Ivan Farber. My name is David DeCelle, president with Model FA, and super excited to bring you this week's episode with Ivan. So in our first episode, we had discussed conversations, of course, primarily, I would say, the overall strategy for maybe like a 10,000 foot view or so. And today, we're going to get into the nitty gritty on how do you actually set up a system? And how do you plan. So I know that there's really five main topics that we're going to discuss today, Ivan. So we're going to figure out how to prepare and plan for the people that are on your calendar, we're going to talk about creating, exploring, addressing, and ultimately resolving and gaining agreement for action. So before we dive in, of course, welcome back.

 

Ivan Farber

1:17

Thanks for having me back. It's a sign of suppose a good first conversation is the opportunity to come back

 

David DeCelle

1:24

exactly. Well, we did say in there that we're going to have a part two. So maybe it's an obligatory conversation, but I'm just kidding. But we are working on a special project that I'll send a teaser out there, where we are going to take all of these principles. And we're going to do a little mini series on each of these different topics dive a little bit deeper in each one. So stay tuned for that probably, end of q1, you know, beginning of q2 and putting that out in the universe to hold us accountable to following through. So more to come on that. But let's dive right in. Because we got a lot to get through. So I've been in your book, right? There's a section that's called preparing and planning for these conversations. So I guess my first question to is, when you see someone coming up on your calendar, right? How do you come up with the talking points on a person basis,

 

Ivan Farber

2:14

I think of talking points on two tracks, there's the talking points that are universal and can be applied to every conversation and the talking points that are going to be specific to those clients needs or prospects needs. So to talk a little bit more about that. There's the overwhelming The important part is presenting that you can help somebody, you have to be able to demonstrate you have needs and we can solve them. And that's a little bit universal. How you solve needs, being very articulate with how you do that. Then there's what's going on right now in the news, obviously, right now, there's a lot of things in the news. Although I would say there's always something in the news, but that's where I would divide the two. So I want to bring both the existing material as well as think about that conversation specifically.

 

David DeCelle

3:04

So unpack that more, I want very specific stuff. So those two categories? Can you give additional examples on that? So pretend that you're talking? While I guess you don't have to pretend that you're talking to me, but pretend that we're in a financial planning oriented conference session? Today? How would you handle that? And you'll need to go through like the actual talk track, like bullet points of certain questions that you may ask or topics that you may hit on? What would some of those things be?

 

Ivan Farber

3:33

Okay, so for the purposes of this, I'm going to assume, although we can go different directions, that you're an existing client, and this is like our annual review. Okay, so preparing in general, where are we in the year? Where's the beginning of the year? What is my firm's point of view about the world, but that's only for much later in the conversation, the specifically preparing for you, David, as my client who I haven't talked to in a year, one of the first things I'm going to do is go back and read my notes of previous conversations, I'm going to think about where you are in the world, I'm going to think about rapport items. Like if you and I have been seeing each other on Instagram, for example, I'm going to think about that I'm going to think about what's going on in your life. So I'm always going to have a report plan report being something we've talked about in the last episode, I'm going to think about what your needs are. And I'm also going to think about financially speaking, I call this kind of like pushing the envelope forward or pushing the snowball forward. where it starts is we want to make sure people have the confidence that they're not ever going to run out of money. That's kind of the check number one, but beyond that, when you are confident that you're not ever going to run out of money, then we need to start talking about what are you going to do with your money after you so those are financial needs. But I'm also and I write about this in chapter four, the book on needs. So I'm really thinking if you're familiar with Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs I'm always thinking, How do I push the client of the pyramid. So from survival, to affiliation to self actualization, ultimately. So I'm thinking about all those needs going into a conversation.

 

David DeCelle

5:10

So what I would add to that too, and I think you breezed over it, but I think in today's day and age, it's incredibly important to make sure that we expand upon this a little bit more, I think that this is certainly relevant for existing clients, whether it's a you know, review, meeting, or networking meeting, or whatever. But even more so important for prospects that you're meeting for the first time is if you're meeting with someone, like try googling their name, and seeing if there was any publication, seeing if they received any awards, make sure that you're looking up their LinkedIn profile, see what's on there, just see if there's any commonalities, like I have a client of mine who's into Ultimate Frisbee, and that's literally in part of his tagline. And he's an advisor out of Seattle. And there was a woman who reached out to him who's very successful, who's in the financial planning process that connected with him or reached out to him, I should say, because of the connection that they had, with their ultimate frisbee passion, totally random, right. But what I like to tell people is that social media does a great job at leaving clues as to what people are into where their passions lie, that they're a prospect, maybe if you see something like, you know, they're into a certain sports team or something like that, you may not want to say, you know, hey, you know, I was doing some creeping, and I came across your profile, and, you know, saw that you like this sort of sports team, or whatever, but you could like weave that into the conversation somehow, like, oh, did you see what the Red Sox just did? And you know, then they're like, Oh, my God, I love the Red Sox. And, you know, you kind of have that common connection. So I think it's important to make sure that for all, especially new people, when your report hasn't yet been built, that you do your digging, you do your research, and if it was a referral, which hopefully a lot of you know, the people that you're meeting with our referrals, if it was a referral, ask the nominator, the person who made the introduction, you know, what's the most unique thing about them? And then you can bring that up, like, hey, Ivan was telling me that, you know, whatever that is, right, you're really into fly fishing, right? You're really into using all these client examples of these quirky things, or, you know, you're really into, you know, gardening or windsurfing, or whatever it is, and then boom, you can talk about that. Right. So I think it's important to just note that social media leaves clues and utilize that to a full extent, in order to build rapport, because I feel like what you said was part building rapport and part building credibility and influence over them so that you can be a logical person making the decisions, you know, with them, as opposed to them being emotionally driven to whatever decisions they think are appropriate.

 

Ivan Farber

7:55

Before you ask the next question. I want to build on that and say, another thing that I do, and you're absolutely right, that you have to tell the prospect or client, hey, don't get creeped out by this. But I looked at things. I'll Of course, do a map view, I'll do Google Maps, and I'll look at a satellite view of their house and the Street View. I'll look for report points like and again, I'll bring it up to them say, Hey, I was curious where you live. So I just happen to Google it. And I saw the picture of your house. And in the picture. There's a guy with a lawn mower on the street view is that you? So I've even done that. And then also Redfin and Zillow often have pictures of the inside of people's houses. So I always let them know hey, I also looked up the house on Zillow is curious, you know what your neighborhood was like? Okay, yes, I'm financial guys. So I was curious how much you paid for your house. But it has great pictures. I love that game room. I love that man cave. So those are also along the lines of what you mentioned, some techniques I've used?

 

David DeCelle

8:52

Well, I will say if I'm being totally honest, you certainly have more courage than me. I don't know if I'd be able to do that right off the bat. But if you've done it, and it's been well received, and they still ended up doing business, by all means, but you'd certainly have more cars than me in that regard. Well,

 

Ivan Farber

9:09

so I do have a bit of courage. But like, for instance, the example you gave about Ultimate Frisbee if you already know that going in, of course, last time we talked about and I talked about in my book, especially at the beginning asking very broad questions like what are your hobbies and interests? So you ask knowing that the client or prospect note plays Ultimate Frisbee, you ask what are your hobbies and interests? very broad open ended question and see what they share with you. So you don't necessarily play all your cards from Redfin, and Zillow and Google Maps, but you assemble the cards, I got a will LinkedIn, I will go back and look at their entire career, not because I'm going to go through it with them, but because I'm going to get a sense of their psychographics and their career history. So like if they had been a manager for example, then I might speak to them differently than if they had been a line worker or whatever it

 

David DeCelle

9:59

  1. Gotcha. So in the next section, which is, you know, create, right, you had mentioned something to the effect of an opening statement, or consultative opener. So my first question is, Are those the same things? Or are they different when you use that terminology?

 

Ivan Farber

10:19

I mean, they're a Venn diagram that that are almost on top of each other.

 

David DeCelle

10:24

So tell me more.

 

Ivan Farber

10:25

Yeah, the training that I went to is now about 25 years ago, it's called Socratic selling skills. So you think Socrates is going to lead a dialogue? By asking questions, but you do have to be careful at the start. You don't want to alarm people that you're going to be prying into their situation. So the Socratic opener or consultative opener goes like this, David, I'm fully prepared to talk with you about our company, about our services, and about how we can help you in order that I focus this conversation on you. Would you be willing to elaborate on what brings you here today. So it's always a statement of confidence and competence, like I'm fully prepared to talk with you. But in order that we focus on what's most important to you, let's start what's

 

David DeCelle

11:10

most important to you? And maybe I missed it, was that an example of an opening statement or consultative opener? Or are they kind of one in the same helped me understand that?

Ivan Farber
11:19

That's a consultative opener.

 

David DeCelle

11:21

Okay. Give me an example of an opening statement. Is that more of a consultative opener ends with a question? And maybe the other one, the opening statement is just a statement. Am I understanding that correctly?

Ivan Farber

11:33

Yeah, you are, but I'll elaborate. So you have your consultative or Socratic opener, we'll just call it consultative because I don't want to give royalties to Socrates for using his name too much. I write about in this chapter seven, the Socratic opener, the consultative opener and what I call the tripartite agenda. tripartite meaning comes in threes, because I've found that stating an agenda that has three items on it works for people, and then to the conversation that we had a couple of years ago on my show, about lifepo versus FIFO. Clients pick up the last in, okay, so couldn't do it. Either order. I could say, David, I had three things in mind for today. One, I want to get an update on you and how you're doing in your life, too. I want to give you an update on what we're thinking and what we're doing with your money. And then three, I want to make sure that we talk about this year to come and align about what you're going to need this year, does that work for you, then you either accept it or add to it or modify it or but the key in the model is you're going to agree to this as the agenda. Now admittedly, it's very generic. And that's totally intentional. Because then I could do the consultative opener and say, okay, that's my agenda, but look, so that we start with what's most important to you, would you be willing to share David, you know, what's on your plate? What's on your agenda today?

 

David DeCelle

12:50

Okay, so you're basically stating your agenda, asking what theirs is, and they're probably gonna stay within the boundaries that you put out there already? Is that what tends to happen?

 

Ivan Farber

13:00

I mean, they're so broad. If I say, give you an update, get an update and address anything that you need. There's no real boundaries yet. I think of conversations as starting broad and coming narrow, and start as broad as you can. But again, you're interested in what's most important to them.

 

David DeCelle

13:15

So maybe you actually did the opposite. And I misinterpreted it, where you got rid of the boundaries, so that they can go in whatever direction that they want to then allow you to know what your boundaries are.

 

Ivan Farber

13:28

It's Jedi stuff. It's setting boundaries and letting them know I'm prepared without putting this conversation in a box.

 

David DeCelle

13:35

Gotcha. Okay, I gotcha. So in the third section, or I guess, technically, this would be the eighth section in the book, but third section for today. The explore section. So in that chapter, you mentioned the idea of open ended and closed ended probing concepts. Give me an example of open ended probing and typically At what point in the meeting, are you bringing that up?

 

Ivan Farber

14:04

Okay, be happy to do that before, though, to help those playing along in the home game, we are talking about four specific parts of the conversation model, the acronym, and you know, I'm fond of acronyms is clear. So we've talked about create, I have forced in the letter L, because I believe in having clear conversations. And because C e a r, it doesn't help you, but create, listen or learn, explore, address resolve. And the other thing I like about it is I want each segment to be clear. So before we go on to explore, I'm going to check for agreement and say, Okay, here's the agenda. Does that work for you? You say yes, we agree on what we're talking about. And conversations will often go off the rails and you may within the course of a conversation have to come back to what exactly are we talking about?

 

David DeCelle

14:57

Kind of like this one little bit.

 

Ivan Farber

14:59

Well, I think Just seize control of the conversation, to take it to a larger point of view that now, I'm glad to answer your question. Just, you know, to help the people, David, we do this for the people.

DD

David DeCelle

15:12

I love it.

 

Ivan Farber

15:13

So we're in the IE of Claire, your question was when to use an open ended question and when to use a closed ended question.

 

David DeCelle

15:20

And examples of each and examples of each.

 

Ivan Farber

15:23

An open ended question is used to gather facts and feelings and motivations and needs and wants. And an open ended question actually controls and steers the conversation, closed ended question is used to confirm gain agreement, engage people. And so in the book, this is chapter eight, I share nine open ended probes or questions. And these are terms that I made up. So I feel like there's some IP, their proprietary intellectual property, but I'm happy to give them away. And I'll talk about those. And then there's also closed in it. But specifically the question of when it's said in football that a good running game sets up the passing game. And the same is true in using questions to explore a good base of open ended questions sets up a closed ended question. You always want to open the dialogue. If you use closed ended questions, you'll close things off too quickly. But it's not a matter of Okay, I'm done. My open ended questions now move on to my closing questions, it's more a matter of and why I use the football metaphor is okay, we're going to run on first down, then we'll either run or pass on second down, and then on third down. So it may be open, open, closed, open closed. It's actually the sequence of open and closed ended questions that makes the difference.

 

David DeCelle

16:41

If we're in a conversation with, say, a prospect, who is not obviously yet a client, and you're trying to gather more information from them, what's an example of an open ended question that would in turn, be followed up by a closed ended question just so that the listeners can hear a real life example,

 

Ivan Farber

17:04

David, and I'm in a mini roleplay? This, David, what's important to you, as you're looking for a financial professional,

 

David DeCelle

17:09

I think someone who number one I get along with number two is competence in what they do. And number three would be to challenge my thinking and get me to think bigger than what I was thinking before. That would be my top three criteria.

 

Ivan Farber

17:25

So someone who challenges you someone who's competent, and someone who understands you. Is that correct?

 

David DeCelle

17:31

Yes, it was out of order. So it threw me off for a second. But yes,

 

Ivan Farber

17:35

I went life Oh, I went life Oh, because admittedly, I the first thing you said fell out of my head. And so I figured I would go lastin. First out. But that was an open ended question. It was a what's important to you about what you're looking for. And then it was a closed ended, which was active listening was restating what you said, and then the closed ended question. Part of that was, am I correct? Or is it correct? Gotcha. So that was open, closed,

 

David DeCelle

18:00

that was open, active listening, and then closed, right? Because the closing wasn't the rep repeating the whole thing. The closing was just the question at the end.

 

Ivan Farber

18:09

Exactly. And then the next to go next. From there, in case you're wanting to see what's next, then I could go open or closed, depending on what I want. So I said, is that correct? And then you modified or at least you were questioning? Did Ivan really hear me? And that is what a lot of people do is like was I really heard. And so either a I want to have the self control to just button my lip and let you keep going be do something have a easy probe? Like Tell me more? Or ask a closing question. When you say competent, I could go closer open here. And this is the control that I talked about in my book, and that I coach to is having the control to say, okay, you said the word competent, that's of the three, that's the one I'm going to go with, I'm going to ask you, what's your definition of competent, I'm thinking ahead, like I'm gonna sell you, whatever you tell me you believe is demonstrates competence.

 

David DeCelle

18:59

I like that you just said that, I think that's a very important piece for people to really hit on and for us to highlight is get them to tell you what you need to do. And then just do that. And, you know, say, hey, at the beginning of the conversation, you mentioned XY and Z. And we had determined xy and z, you know, let's get to work type of thing. So one thing I asked a lot when I was an advisor, or if an advisor is coming to me now who's worked with a coach or a consultant in the past, I'll ask them and say, you know, on a scale of one to 10, right, 10 meaning that you're going to have more for dinner and work with them the rest of your life and one meaning you are actively shopping and looking around and that you basically already left them, how would you grade your relationship with them? And typically, they say anywhere from like, five, six to seven, no one ever really says a one and no one really says a 10. So even if they say an eight, well, great, then I'm gonna follow up and say Well, what would they need to do? Or what would they have needed to do to go from an eight to a 10? And then whatever they say, that's what you have to do. And then you can ask a follow up question, say, That's fantastic. Why were they an eight? Right? What did they do to get, you know, over that five over that six over that seven, and then boom, they just gave you everything that they're looking for. And they're not even a lot of times conscious enough to realize that they're giving you the information that you need to sell them. So all those questions, I think, are incredibly important to your point, Ivan, to basically use that, you know, to your advantage when it comes the point in time where you're asking them to take action on whatever that you know, action step is, so appreciate you bringing that up. 

 

 

Hey, modelfa’s I know you're enjoying this conversation, but I wanted to take a quick break to talk to you about the model FAA accelerator. This is a unique collaboration between us and you, where we help you build a financial advising practice that you can be proud of, we focus on the foundational concepts around how to pick a niche or a specialization, how to price your services, how to construct an offer that people are going to buy, and then how to market it and sell it in a way that will get people to sign on the dotted line and become clients of your firm, all while giving you the information to scale, and set up workflows and operational processes that will allow you to reclaim your time and build a practice that doesn't run you. So if you'd like to hear more about that, go to www dot model faa.com forward slash accelerator, or www dot model faa.com. Hover over work with us and click on accelerator and hope to see you in the program.

 

Ivan Farber

21:35

Now if you're thinking chess, and I definitely believe in playing conversational chess, versus conversational checkers in that sequence of what do you find credible? They may very well say I don't know, what should I find credible? Or I haven't really thought about it. That's a very common answer. So you have to think in that planning part, knowing the person knowing their history, knowing where they're at knowing maybe who their current provider is, you have to start to do kind of detective work in advance. But this is where questions I would call it hypotheticals or sub decision questions. If they said something like, I don't know what I would consider competent. And I would say well, and I would have to again, go like two part question or multiple choice, rather than Well, what do you find? Because you're asking an open end question. But it's open for them. And they say, Well, do you find designations credible? Or do you find longevity credible? And if they say, Well, actually, they need both? Now you have two clues for what you can do. They said, Well, do you think it's important that the person is maybe kind of famous? Who's making the decisions for you? Or would you prefer to have someone more exclusive so that other people don't know about them? Oh, no, I would want the famous person I would want the guy who has the podcasts and has the articles. So you're just basically asking them to lay out what are their criteria for buying

 

David DeCelle

22:52

and getting feedback from them. And you know, if they don't end up becoming a client, at least they've given you insight as to what a consumer is looking for. So you can improve in that. So that's a little bit of a tangent here. But I share this with people all the time, whether you win or lose or something in different happen. It doesn't matter, I think, if you are actively learning, so we've been talking about actively listening, if you're actively learning, there's no situation that you're going to come across to where you can't get better because of so the three questions that I always try and ask myself and those situations are, what did I do to put myself in this situation, right? Extreme Ownership, side note, Extreme Ownership by Jocko is a great book, what I do to put myself in this situation, what am I supposed to learn? And how am I going to get better because of it? And if you do that, through that active learning exercise, that self awareness exercise, and then you actually do something about it, every interaction, every step that you take throughout every single day, you're getting better and better and better, because you're just living a much more conscious life than you know, whining that someone didn't become a client and blaming it on them. It's like, No, no, look yourself in the mirror. What could you have done differently? So tangent, but I thought it was helpful, share

 

Ivan Farber

24:06

valuable, valuable, valuable tangent, I wrote down Extreme Ownership,

 

David DeCelle

24:11

I saw you taking notes, taking notes, because

 

Ivan Farber

24:13

you have a lot to give around books. So I think we wrap up this section on the E and clear of explorer tab with actually the word clear, which is sometimes people are asking questions, either for questions sake, because someone told them you better ask questions, you can ask more questions. I think it's really important to say in the needs based model, that spouse, you're probing for needs. So if it's like competence, why is that important? Right? You're starting if it's competence, if it's whatever it is, that's important to them, but underneath it is what is the need? Well, the need is probably making sure I don't run out of money, making sure good decisions are made whatever the need is, but you want them to say it and the phrase that is my mantra is you're looking to get a clear, complete and mutual understanding. Ending have their needs. So it's not a vague understanding. It's not an incomplete understanding. And it's not what you think you understand it's a clear, complete and mutual understanding,

 

David DeCelle

25:11

making sure you're on the same page. Love it. So let's go to the A in clear, which is address. So I have a couple questions that I do want to ask. So part of this section, from my understanding is how to address certain things that come up in conversations, specifically objections. And what you mentioned the book is that there are four main types of objections. And once you say your piece, I'm going to share something as well because I love dealing with objections, because I feel like they're almost like a knee jerk reaction. They're not actually real. Sometimes they are very real. But whatever the first thing they say, isn't enough information to be able to reply directly. So I don't want to steal your thunder. So I'll tag you back in what are the four types of objections that people commonly bring up throughout conversations?

 

Ivan Farber

26:07

Number one, skepticism. Okay, number two drawbacks. Number three misunderstandings, and number four is indifference.

 

David DeCelle

26:19

Okay, so let's start with skepticism. skepticism in you skepticism in the process, skepticism, and the recommendation, skepticism, and all the above

 

Ivan Farber

26:31

D all of the above.

 

David DeCelle

26:33

Do you think that if it was a very strong referral, and the nominator did a great job, not just teeing you up but teeing up the process and the planning and things like that? Do you think skepticism would be a relevant objection? More often than not, or if the nominator did a good job of teeing them up? Do you think that that kind of goes by the wayside,

 

Ivan Farber

26:56

the first I would say skepticism is present, always and everywhere? So let's just define skepticism. skepticism is the idea that your client or prospect doubts, a feature or benefit of something that you've said, or even something you haven't said, but there's doubt. And so even if you got teed up, you know, like if Michael Van Sant referred me to you. And I'm still going to be skeptical of you, David, because even though Mike said it, I need to see for myself, what David is like, and what the experience of knowing David and working with David is like,

 

David DeCelle

27:32

so do not trust Mike. Nice.

 

Ivan Farber

27:35

Shout out to Michael fans. I do trust Mike. But like any human being, we've all been burned. Just because you got a good haircut from XYZ salon doesn't mean and you're looking good.

 

David DeCelle

27:50

Thanks, man,

 

Ivan Farber

27:51

it doesn't mean that I'll get a good haircut from them. So just like when someone has a good experience with a financial advisor, and you're like, you should go to my guy. What if I don't like your guy? So one of the tips I give is that people mistake skepticism for being mis trusted. And they're not the same. It is possible that there's mistrust, but it's just possible that they're from Missouri, and they just want to be shown, you know, the show me state, they just want to walk a mile in the moccasins with you.

DD

David DeCelle

28:18

So then how do you identify if there's skepticism because I picture a lot of people not coming out and saying, Well, I'm skeptical of this, right? So it's either intuitive, or there's questions that you ask that get them to admit that or say something similar to where you now know, it's skepticism? And how do you respond to that?

 

Ivan Farber

28:39

I've seen you do this technique. So I know, you know, the, tell me if I'm wrong, or I may be wrong about this. But David, it sounds like you're a little skeptical. So you would soften it. But sometimes it's very clear the person is skeptical.

 

David DeCelle

28:52

Yeah, I like the phrase to the risk of being too direct. And then it's almost like a No offense, but I like telling them what's coming before actually saying that to your point to soften it. So if they say yes, I'm skeptical, then what?

 

Ivan Farber

29:07

What are you skeptical about?

 

David DeCelle

29:09

What do you find people say more often than not in terms of why they're skeptical?

IF

Ivan Farber

29:14

Well, first off, the first thing that they'll say is usually not the thing. That's just what came to mind. And so this is where exercising self control and peeling down or as I like to say let them empty the suitcase of the dirty laundry because the dirtiest laundry is on the bottom. So the discipline to be you know what makes you skeptical. They say something you say you either echo paraphrase, tell me more, and then you keep going. And then you definitely want to active listening and restate. So what I heard you say is the reason you're skeptical is because you just have never delegated to an advisor before and they say yeah, that's it. Well, we understand that and then some kind of validation, like we understand that we have a lot of clients who Never delegated before. And in fact, this is a hard transition for them. So there's then some kind of empathy statement. And since we're in the A of clear, and we're talking about address that is addressing the need, like the need to provide empathy.

 

David DeCelle

30:12

So that skepticism, the second objection is as a reminder for everyone, and then if you can, including myself, and when we list it off, and then we talk about one in depth, I got to start taking notes during this, but I'm also you know, there's video here going to so the second objection, typically is what do you have an acronym for this? Or can we make one,

 

Ivan Farber

30:35

we're gonna have to make one because that will help you and me? I mean, I have the benefit of writing the book and editing and all that. So yeah, and the audio book that I just completed, I'm just making an acronym on the fly here, skepticism, dims, dims, we might be able to do better than that. But

 

David DeCelle

30:53

drawbacks. Okay. So draw back then what

 

Ivan Farber

30:55

indifference, misunderstandings and skepticism.

 

David DeCelle

30:58

Okay, so we started from the back. So let's go in that same direction.

 

Ivan Farber

31:02

All right, misunderstanding, misunderstanding is when the client or prospect has an understanding that is just incorrect. There's a feature or benefit that they think is either doesn't exist or exists. And they're just they need to be uncorrected their conception of the way it is needs to be correct. Now, do

 

David DeCelle

31:20

you think that's their fault? Or the advisors fault for maybe not being clear? It's always the advisors fault. So I'm glad that you said that. And I think oftentimes, what advisors will say is they'll go through something that's educational, or valuable or whatever, and then they'll follow up with Does that make sense? Okay, now, if they say, does that make sense? If the person says, No, they feel dumb because of that, okay. So more often than not, they'll just say yes. And then they may not take action, because there's a misunderstanding. And you don't even have the opportunity to know that there's a misunderstanding, right? So instead, after you say whatever you say, if you're wondering if it made sense or not, you know, you'd say instead of Does that make sense? You say, am I making sense as I go through that? Or should I be explaining that differently? So it puts it on you to where if they say, no, it's your fault, not theirs? And they're more likely to actually speak up in that instance, as opposed to just moving on? Because they don't want to feel dumb?

 

Ivan Farber

32:28

Yes. And instead of saying, I think there's a misunderstanding here and blaming them, obviously, in that it's saying, you know, I'm not sure we're on the same page, maybe you could help me by telling me what is your understanding of XYZ said a different way, you may have already explained your let's say, your planning process. And it's clear that they did not understand what you said, which we have to assume mostly. So it might be like, we've just gone over our planning process. What if any questions you have about it? How do you feel about it? What are your thoughts about it? What's your opinion about it? In part one, we talked about the best questions to start with, what do you think? How do you feel? What's your opinion? And that just really helps with misunderstandings.

 

David DeCelle

33:13

So moving to indifference. I feel like this may be the toughest one because they're indifferent. So it's you push Do you pull? Do you just let them fly on their own? How do you handle indifference where I also interpret in differences like indecisive to maybe could be certain extent? So how do you deal with someone's indifference? or Do not

 

Ivan Farber

33:37

you have to deal with it? The thing is that it is more uncomfortable sometimes in some of the others. I'll give you an example that comes to mind an advisor will call a client, and they'll say, is there anything you need? No. Do you have any questions? No. You've got Tic Tac? And then they usually followed up with one more No, and you've got Tic Tac? No, they're indifferent. Because most clients prospects, if they value the relationship with their advisor, they want to engage, they're not indifferent. So indifference is often a sign that you're about to lose a client, it's certainly a sign that for a prospect, they're not going to come on board. That's the whole point of conversations to alter the future. And if they're not engaged, if they're indifferent, you're not going to alter the future mean, you're all to the future, but it won't be with you the way to handle in difference and by the way, the book to plug the book. shamelessly. I have a seven step method for all four. It's just you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, but with indifference, you're going to ask for permission to probe. So someone says I don't have any questions. I'm going to go with will may ask you a couple questions. I always think it's funny when you say to someone may ask you a question. You've already asked them one question, right? And kind of a smart guy with that one where someone says, may I ask you a question like you already have, but you can ask me a second one too.

 

David DeCelle

34:59

So Before we get into the final objection with the new acronym that we came up with for now, unless we think of something else is D, just because I haven't mentioned it, and if you hadn't listened to the first part of the podcast, be sure to go back to part one. But if you go to just amazon.com and typing conversations, just note, there's a lot of books that have the word conversations in it. So if you type in conversations, Ivan Farber, fa, R, br, it'll pop up and you can buy it right there. And then here shortly, there will be an audiobook as well. So stay tuned for that. But let's go through the last objection before we wrap up with the our of clear

 

Ivan Farber

35:42

and I have a new acronym, as well, which I'll present to you shortly. Okay, so a drawback is when there is something present, that the client or prospect wishes wasn't present, or there's something missing, that the client or prospect wishes was there, and so much like skepticism, you have to acknowledge sounds like Mr. client, you would like x and x doesn't exist. You would you would like to both get growth and not go down. Is that did I hear you correctly? You want fat free chocolate cake, right? Or should I say you want good fat free chocolate cake?

 

David DeCelle

36:22

I'm definitely using that one. So I like that.

 

Ivan Farber

36:25

I've got a lot of them, David. I mean, we're in the business for over 25 years, and I've had 50,000 conversations, I've done seminars. By the way, this was part of preparing which we didn't cover and I won't go too much on it. But having a repertoire of things to pull out of your tool case is things like that, that you know will either always get a laugh or always do a pattern interrupt. It's very just very useful and part of preparing to have have a repertoire dimes is my new acronym for the objections.

 

David DeCelle

36:57

Where'd you get the E from? Or are you pronouncing it dimes and not DIMMs?

 

Ivan Farber

37:03

I bought a vowel I bought a vowel I bought it. Well,

 

David DeCelle

37:07

that's all get paid yet. So I'm not giving you the vowel.

 

Ivan Farber

37:11

I think dimes I'll have to find an objection that starts with E. But because, frankly, smid doesn't really do it for me and DIMMs doesn't either so dimes, dropping dimes,

 

David DeCelle

37:23

dropping dimes, I love it. Well, certainly find an E objection. And just make sure that Venmo me after this, since you're buying a bottle,

 

Ivan Farber

37:30

you're too expensive, you're too expensive.

 

David DeCelle

37:34

So in the last piece, so resolve and gain agreement for action. So this is kind of what this all leads up to is, you know, we're making sure to identify their needs, or making sure to address objections to ultimately get them to do what they should be doing. And in turn, you know, obviously do what we think they should be doing and getting compensated, you know, for those efforts. Okay. So tell me about the word no, and what that means to you. If someone says no, in some point of conversation,

 

Ivan Farber

38:08

no is feedback. And no, is very valuable feedback.

 

David DeCelle

38:12

So do you think that is what you're saying? or about to say that that no, then goes back to trying to figure out what the objections are? If you didn't uncover the objections already? Or do you address a no in a different way than kind of where my mind just went?

 

Ivan Farber

38:29

differently from the way your mind just went?

 

David DeCelle

38:32

Okay, so let's stick with yours. And then

 

Ivan Farber

38:34

Okay, so let me take a step back, and then a step to the side, and then a step forward. Okay. Okay, step back, every part of this process to create the Explorer, the address resolve is designed to have agreement along the way. So agreement about what we're talking about, and what the conversations for that that's the see and create, then the Aeon Explorer is agreement on a clear, complete and mutual understanding of your needs. So we've agreed on your needs, then when we're addressing your objections. We're also addressing needs, and that I'm glad we're going to come back and do I love the term miniseries as well. We'll do a miniseries because you could spend definitely a whole episode maybe even more just how to address needs and objections, because they're definitely linked together. But we agree on what were conversations for we agree on the needs. We agree on the solutions to address those needs. Now we resolve it, we just come up with next steps. And we agree on next steps. So part and parcel of my model is agreement at every level. So the word no, now I'm coming back forward. Yeah, the word no is feedback along the way. And that's why I say it's feedback. And the way I think about and I mentioned conversational chess, I think about it like a decision tree. So I moved my Bishop here or my pawn here, my night here. There's different ways that they might go as a response. If I'm asking a closed ended question, it's because I want to get a yes or no and I'm looking for No, I'm searching For No, but I'm also searching for Yes. But the way that question is asked or series of questions or sequence of questions I'm very comfortable with no, I understand that no is very much a natural response. And there's a book called never split the difference with clip by Chris Voss. Yep. And I did an episode on this called seeking No. Anyway, we don't want to tangent too much off of that. But in terms of resolve, if you place yourself on the same side of the table as your client and prospect, no is just telling the two of you together, where to take things.

 

David DeCelle

40:34

Okay. So it's not that you're comfortable with no, because you know, K and o w, that, you know, not everyone's going to become a client. It's more so comfortable with no, because you then have a challenge that you have the opportunity to resolve. Am I hearing you correctly?

 

Ivan Farber

40:51

Yeah, you could say that. I mean, I welcome objections, because

 

David DeCelle

40:54

you like that closing the question?

 

40:56

Yes.

 

David DeCelle

40:58

I want that one.

 

Ivan Farber

40:59

I welcome objections, because it's my job to address objections, I welcome the opportunity to have a dialogue with anybody, anywhere at any time, the best way to demonstrate my model is through roleplay. And so I look forward to the miniseries where we probably bring on a third person, I nominate Michael Van Sant. And we show the technique in roleplay. In Action, it's the best way to demonstrate all of these, but I need to know the answer. Am I sad when someone decides to either not do business with me or having done business with me for years leave working with me? I am I take it like a doctor who loses a patient. Like when I lose a client? I take it really hard. So I don't like that. No. But I have to get know along the way to find out? Well, to find out if I can get them on board and keep them on board. I need no, no is essential.

 

David DeCelle

41:51

Well, to your point it gives you like you said it gives you feedback so that you know you understand what the next step is, or hopefully is right. So I am also looking forward to the miniseries as a reminder of the two acronyms so that people remember this. So one is clear, create, listen, explore, address, and resolve. And then I've been I'll let you go through the demos because I had the clear one written down. I don't have this one written down. So I think it's weight drawback in difference, misunderstanding and skepticism, and we're searching for the see the acronym already worked,

 

Ivan Farber

42:30

right. And in part one, we talked about the rules. And so we may be did this lastin. First out, but I'm working on book number two, which I believe will be called clear rules for conversations. Oh, that's news to me. You heard it here. I've talked about it on my show briefly, but just briefly, and you're a big part of this, David, now that I've done an audio book, and I've seen the ease, and frankly, the less expensive nature of an audio book. My next book is going audio first, and maybe pay per copy too. But for the most part, audio rocks.

 

David DeCelle

43:09

So I know before I said, and I think this is gonna be funny. So before I said, Hey, I got the book, but I really liked to listen, can you make an audio book? And you're like, yes. Okay, so to throw a curveball at you. I like to listen to the books, but also always buy the hardcopy too, so that I can fill a bookshelf. So I'm going to need you to follow through on the actual book too, and not just an audio book for your second one.

 

Ivan Farber

43:40

I've already anticipated that David,

 

David DeCelle

43:42

or at least one copy, I just need one coffee.

 

Ivan Farber

43:45

Well, what I didn't do in the first book that I want in the second book is a workbook.

 

David DeCelle

43:49

I like that idea.

 

Ivan Farber

43:50

And it's true. It's true that when you do an audiobook and one of so there's many benefits of audiobooks, one of the drawbacks is drawbacks dimes dropping dimes. One of the drawbacks is you don't have anything to refer to. So if there's a list of open ended probes closed in and probes you don't have anything to refer to, or flowcharts.

 

David DeCelle

44:10

So there is it's just a little bit more clunky than actual book. So what you can do, because there's been plenty of books that I've read that have had similar stuff, you can have what they refer to as an accompanying PDF. And then you can take that and like email it to yourself or text it to yourself and then like print it off. So you have it so obviously, it's a little roundabout, but you can upload it so that way you can include the workbook section in the audio book for the second one. Bingo. Bingo. Gotcha. Cool.

 

Ivan Farber

44:40

So Ivan as we wrap up here, just as a reminder, where can people find you so we already mentioned the book can be found on Amazon if you type in conversations, Ivan Farber, fa, R, br And where else can they connect with you? conversations dot biz bi z cuz I'm all about the biz. And then my email address is Ivan at conversations dot biz. Anyone can feel free to reach out to me at any time. And LinkedIn is a place I play. So encourage people to follow me or connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter as well. Those are good places to find me.

 

David DeCelle

45:14

Awesome. And then the thing that I almost forgot that I will moving forward say before this park is all of our episodes moving forward, we're going to do our best to send out weekly episodes for the podcast this year. We're revamping it recommitting to it and making sure that we have top notch guests. So we have a bunch of guests who are scheduled in the upcoming weeks that we can start releasing those on a weekly basis. And one question I'm going to ask every single guest, I think it's a little bit selfish of me because of where my interests lie. But I also think it will be extremely helpful for everyone else. So I love listening to books. And I try an average, you know, three or four per week. So my question to you is, what is your number one, without a doubt, most favorite book you've ever read or listened to? And you cannot say your own since you have written a book that can be your favorite book.

 

Ivan Farber

46:11

My own is not my favorite book,

46:13

actually. Anyway,

 

Ivan Farber

46:14

there's a number that come to mind. But I understand you're forcing me to pick one, just one. And the one that when I was a young lad made the biggest difference for me was unlimited power BI and Robins have listened to that one. And it's really good. It's really good. It might be a little dated. He's obviously I got it for my 21st birthday. So it's a while ago, but really made a made a big impact on me in a number of ways. So that's the book,

 

David DeCelle

46:43

unlimited power by Tony Robbins. Quit while you're behind and and to the podcast, I need a coffee to wake me up. But I appreciate everyone tuning in. If you have feedback on the episode or the format of the episode, if you know any guests that you think would be great to have on the show or if you think you would be great on the show, feel free to email me at David at model fa.com. You can also find me on social media, David de sel D, C, E, LL E, on both LinkedIn and Facebook and then on Instagram, it's David underscore to sell so feel free to connect with me and feel free as well. We have a Facebook community called the model FA Community where we have about 13 or 1400 members or so. And there's a lot of ideation in there. There's a lot of QA in there collaboration, so we'd love to have you in the community if you're not already. And before we wrap up, Ivan, thank you very much for joining again and excited for what's to come in the miniseries that we have alluded to

 

Ivan Farber

47:49

love it. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Take care.