When working with clients, we tend to connect organically with those who are most like us. But those kindred spirits typically only represent a small portion of our overall client base.

Even if you focus on a narrow niche, such as airline pilots or anesthesiologists, each client within that niche is a unique individual. Each person has a lifetime of experiences that influence how they communicate, behave, and interact with others. And those distinctions ultimately define each of your clients’ personality styles.

Understanding your clients’ personality styles is central to your ability to provide tailored advisory services and create a more empathetic and personalized approach to financial planning. Such an understanding will empower you to craft strategies that resonate with clients on a deeper level, leading to stronger rapport, increased trust, and enhanced collaboration – and ultimately driving long-term client loyalty.

Recognizing how different personality styles influence decision-making and financial behaviors also enables you to anticipate clients’ needs and challenges, so you can go beyond a one size-fits-all approach and offer guidance that aligns with individual preferences.

Here, I’ll outline a three-step process to recognizing and understanding clients’ uniqueness so you can “flex” your communication style to suit their distinct needs and preferences.

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Step 1: Conduct an audit of top clients’ personality styles.

To keep the process manageable, I recommend starting your personality style audit with the top clients in your segmentation model and enlisting your team in the effort.

Spend time with the team to understand the various personality styles of your clients and think about how they behave and communicate differently. The Practice Management experts at Janus Henderson have developed a WOW Audit that breaks personality types down into the four segments shown below.

 

Step 2: Use the audit to capture insights on top clients’ personality types.

Once you and your team members have assigned a personality style to each of your top clients, input the relevant details into Salesforce so everyone can view them. Be sure to continue updating and adding to the findings to capture what you and your team learns about your top clients’ expectations and the values and traits that make them unique.

Over time, you’ll gain an understanding of what each client values. The goal is to create a memorable experience for each one based on what you’ve learned.

Which brings us to step three …

 

Step 3: Create a WOW experience based on your client’s personality style.

With your team, discuss what each of your top clients might appreciate based on their personality style. Remember, they are all unique, so consider what they would value most when it comes to a memorable experience.

Also consider that experiences can take many different forms. I find it helpful to use the following categories when working to identify new ways to WOW clients:

  • Tokens: Tangible expressions of appreciation
  • Acknowledgment: Verbal or written expressions of acknowledgement or praise
  • Service: Acts that show someone you care about them
  • Time: One-on-one time invested in the relationship

Certain personalities will value your time or an acknowledgement more than receiving a physical gift. Below are some examples of potential experiences that are tailored to each of the personality styles identified in our WOW audit.

 

Driver personality

 

Social personality

 

Empathizer personality

 

Analyzer personality

 

Understanding the different personality styles of your top clients allows you to gain greater awareness of what drives their behavior and what they value most. By following a consistent and structured approach to defining and categorizing clients’ personality types, you’ll be able to cater to each client’s uniqueness, find ways to celebrate life moments, and surprise and delight them in unexpected ways. And with each WOW experience you deliver, you’re creating clients for life.

If you’re interested in completing a WOW Audit or diving deeper into this topic, reach out to your Janus Henderson sales director.

 

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About the Author

Marquette Payton, CRPS®, CDFA®, Director, Practice Management Consultant with the Specialist Consulting Group at Janus Henderson Investors

Marquette Payton is a Director, Practice Management with the Specialist Consulting Group at Janus Henderson Investors. In this role, she provides thoughtful guidance and consultation to financial professionals in strategic support of their goals to help them achieve differentiated business success. She is also a keynote speaker for national and international financial professional and investor audiences on topics such as client acquisition, client loyalty, life wellness, financial education, women and investing, and diversity and inclusion. Prior to joining Janus in 2011, she worked as a manager at American Century Investments, where she led and coached a team that focused on consultative solutions to meet the financial goals of retail clients.

Marquette received a bachelor of science degree in microbiology with a minor in chemistry from New Mexico State University, where she was recognized as a Crimson Scholar. She holds FINRA Series 7, 63, and 26 securities licenses as well as the Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA®) and Chartered Retirement Plans Specialist (CRPS®) designations. Marquette is a Kolbe™ certified consultant. She is currently pursuing a Professional Coaching Credential through the International Coaching Federation. She has 25 years of financial industry experience.

 

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