For clients, talking about money can stir up deep feelings. Erika Wasserman shares language and listening techniques to help encourage openness and ease defensiveness.

To learn more visit yourfinancialtherapist.com or check out Erika’s book, “Conversations with Your Financial Therapist: Stories and Scripts to Grow Your Mindset” now available at Amazon.com.

Hi, I’m John.

And I’m Julie.

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Fund’s human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week, we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let’s go!

Erika, welcome to the Human Centric Investing Podcast. Thanks for being here with us today.

Thank you. This is gonna be a great conversation.

Erika, it’s great to talk to a financial therapist because so much of what we do involves issues outside of just the money. So as we start, I know one of the areas where many financial professionals are uncomfortable is that some of the stories that surround money are deeply personal and really impactful to our clients. And our clients may not always be ready to open up about some of experiences that they’ve had. Are there ways that as a financial professional, I can kind of cue in on places where my client doesn’t want to go.

That’s a that’s a good question. Yes.

Thank you.

Yes.

As you can tell, I’ve been in that spot before.

Clearly, right? And all of a sudden, all you want to do is leave, like if there was a time machine to pull you out of that seat, and just go down the hall, right.

And redo it over again where I’d never ask that question.

Yeah, where’s the rewind button when you need it? Yeah, that happens to a lot of people we all of a sudden find yourself in a situation that makes us uncomfortable. The person sitting across the desk from you is also uncomfortable. Who do you talk to about money? Now as financial professionals, this is our jam, right? This is like us going to the gym and just doing a workout. But for somebody as a client, they might not talk to anybody at all. You might be the first person they’re talking to about it, or maybe a second or third. And so the conversations get uncomfortable really quickly, because the person sitting across the table from you doesn’t necessarily know how to even express what’s happened to them before. Because they’ve never put it all together, or had somebody with a listening ear, hopefully non-judgmental, that they can share this with. So I think as we go into these conversations, the first is understanding that while you are a trained professional to Tuesday at 10 o’clock for you, the person who’s sharing this information is being very vulnerable. And take that as a compliment. So when you get uncomfortable, Take it as a compliment that they’re willing to share something that’s so personal with them, with you. And so maybe what that is in yourself is taking a deep breath. Just pausing when you get uncomfortable. Roll your shoulders back. Sit back and engage and just listen. Maybe not ask another followup question. Just listen to what they have to say and let them share with you, slow. You notice how my pace slowed down. Slowing down your tone makes a difference also. So I have a money mindset method in the new book that’s out called conversations with your financial therapist using the word money. So M is make the conversation comfortable. And that’s everything from the time of day, morning meetings are generally better because there’s less decision fatigue, temperature of the room. Tone of your voice. So if you come in and start saying, Well, what are we gonna do with retirement? What’s going on here? How many times have you seen that happen? You’re not in your head, right? Sometimes it’s like, how do you want to spend, you know, next year, and all of a sudden engaging in conversation with a different tone, can put your client at ease, which will return put you hopefully at ease. So make the conversation comfortable. Don’t want to keep going or should I’m dying to hear the rest of it. All right. So money. Here’s our framework, M, conversation comfortable. Oh, one question at a time. So your client’s showing up and they’re like, my partner just passed away. And right, the list of questions come out and concerns and what do I need to do first? I tell people set a timer, two minutes, five minutes depends on the client and say, Go write your questions out. Have them write them all out. You write what questions you have also that you need to cover. And then come up with one question that you’re gonna focus on in that meeting. One question at a time. Then we’re gonna go to N, N, nurture your share goal. Why is that question getting answered important to both of you? So again, take the client whose partner just passed away is you need a close out some accounts or move money. It’s important to them because They wanna have funding to pay for the free funeral or to make sure their kids have college money, whatever it is. Make sure you both have nurtured goals so that you’re working for the same. Then we’re gonna go to E, evaluate practical solutions. This is your brainstorming. Brainstorming for you, again, you’re the professional, you do this in your sleep, but the person who’s sitting across the desk might also have some ideas. Or their Aunt Sally’s second cousin told them that they should, right? How many times have you seen that? Told them that should do that. Again, might be an opportunity here to set a timer and say, let’s just brainstorm ideas. Like, what do you want from this? What do you want it to look like? What do want to feel like? And then come back and see how you can obtain that. It might be something that’s outside of your normal day-to-day routine because you’re able to brainstorm with your client. And then we’re gonna go with the why, which is the yes. I wanna say yes to compassion. Yes to compassion for the person who’s sitting across the table again, who might just lost their loved one, got a divorce. Yes to the compassion for yourself. That might be a client that you don’t enjoy working with. And so maybe that means after that client, you schedule a walk. You schedule a call with your friend on the ride home. You know, yes to compassion for somebody who just doesn’t understand what’s happening and they’re learning a new skill. Because when I know when I’m trying to learn something new and my teacher is compassionate with me and understanding, I wanna try again and again. And so keep that in mind as you’re working with clients the money mindset method using those five letters.

What are your thoughts on using stories to try to share examples or maybe draw out more information from a client, whether it’s stories about other clients, obviously with the names changed to protect the innocent or yourself, share with us where that maybe falls into this process, or if it does.

Yeah, so we’re all different types of learners. And oftentimes, again, we get into our normal routine of how to present. And I call most of most financial professionals a how person, there’s wow, people with the big ideas. And then there’s the how with the details. And we’re, I put my loop myself into this, right, right? How are we gonna get this done? How we’re gonna do that. And it might be on a spreadsheet, and we get excited about that information looking at it. The person who’s sitting across from us might be a wow. And what you just showed them on the piece of paper and the Monte Carlo blah, blah, like, literally, that’s what it sounded like to them. And they could look at it and be like, that is a pretty rainbow. So understanding your client, how they learn. Some of us like stories. So I understand when I hear another story, oh, I just had a client up, you know, a few months ago who who lost their partner. And, You know, they. They looked at these and all of a sudden that client might not feel alone. They feel connected to somebody. Other people are visual learners. So maybe it’s showing a picture, a physical picture of what retirement could look like for them now, or, you know, the colleges their kids are going to go to with the logos printed out. Right. So some of us need a visual as well. And some of needs it stats numbers. So if that client is like, well, studies have shown, let me pull out a report from X, Y, Z, all of a sudden we’re making progress. So as you’re working with your client, start noticing, do they relate more when you’re storytelling? When you’re showing them facts and figures, pictures or stats? Make a note of it so that way you prepare for your meeting a little bit differently the next time they come in and each time you could grow.

So Erika, sometimes when I talk to financial professionals, especially about using some of their own story, right? Making themselves a bit vulnerable. Sometimes they’re very hesitant to do that for fear of kind of trumping on the client that just shared something very personal with them. Like, so they’re holding back because they don’t want to dominate the conversation. But yet we know those personal stories can have tremendous impact. Is there any guidance you can give about, to someone that says, well, I would like to share a personal story to align with my client, but I’m somewhat concerned that, you know, I don’t know that they’ll be offended or I’ll talk too much, or how would you advise me to work in that kind of situation?

That’s sensitive in any business that we’re in, right? Is how much does the person behind the desk talk and how much do we listen? We’re in a business and really the everybody right now with AI and with everything else that’s going on, it’s people, it’s our connection. And so if they can connect to you by a personal story, you know, when I was doing college searching, this is what we looked for. And see how that person responds. Again, look into body language. Are they leaning in? Are they leading out? Are they looking at their phone or away when you’re talking and telling a story?

Watch dead si- right - when is this going to be over?

So as you’re talking, which is great, you know, enjoy it, but if they’re asking questions back and engaging, go for it. If you notice they’re totally disinterested, again, make a note. These are the important things to note with your clients that they like personal stories, skip that story next time, because then you’re going to learn more and more about them each time you meet. So you’ll see today’s day and age. All of the A-listers are really in anybody on Instagram and reels and TikTok. Are showing behind the scenes. We tend to not direct people now to businesses, we tend to direct them to the people running the business. And you’re the person running your business.

Erika, you recently wrote a book called Conversations with Your Financial Therapist. Will you share with us a little bit about the inspiration for this and maybe what some of the key takeaways are?

Yeah. So people kept coming to me saying, I don’t even, I’ve never seen a productive financial conversation. How can I then do it in my home with my partner, teach my kids? And so that’s where the book came about. I developed the mindset, the money mindset framework. So that way in any situation, you can do it repeatedly. So I took seven characters loosely based on clients that I’ve had over the years, right? Change the names protect the innocent. And we meet Madison at 19. Gets a nail in her tire, takes good old cannonball to the shop, you know, and they say, oh, well, you need four new tires, that’s $1,000. Well, Madison has $37 in her checking account. And like, what do you think the guy across the counter does? Says we take credit card. And I’ll throw in a free tire rotation. And lo and behold, Madison as credit card debt. And so we meet her through her life. And each is a different life chapter. So she merges money with Jose. So we talk about different ways to merge money. And then there’s scripts in the back. So like for Madison, for example, there’s a script in the bag of how to call the credit card company to lower her APR. And how does that conversation look like? Then she meets Jose, they merge money, guess what, they have kids, guess what? They got divorced, right? And so they have to co-parent. Oh, they had a co parent, one of their kids going to rehab. So how do you have that conversation in a productive way? We have other parents co-parenting back to school clothing. So then aging parents. So there’s a chapter in there that I tried to do. Look, the book, we could have three volumes on this, but that you could see a little bit of yourself and different characters. One is Avery, who was an attorney at a big law firm trying to decide to go out on her own. Career change, lifestyle. What do those conversations look like with your boss? And so that’s where the scripts come in. It was important for me to give people a tool of what it could look like. Again, I like examples. I like pictures. I liked storytelling. And so, that’s how I built the book. There are facts in there too, for those people who like facts.

There’s something for everyone.

Yes.

So Erika, I have a question about starting a conversation on a really serious financial incident. Trauma could involve debt. It could involve family history, divorce, whatever it may be. Is it wise to ask permission of the client to ask that question? Like Erika you mentioned, you had a child in rehab. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Do I always have to link it? To the financial aspect or do you recommend just allowing them to tell the story if they’re willing? So that’s where I guess as a financial professional, I’m curious about the person across the table, but is there expectation that I’m only going to be asking about things financial?

Well, I think you’re planning for the whole life cycle, right? And so part of the question is, you might reframe that to say, I know Johns has been in and out of rehab, as we’re looking at financial planning, have we also looked at estate planning? Do we want to put inheritances in place that have some catches? And so the conversation is, I’m looking out for your overall family wellbeing, and now you’re talking generational. And now you’re hopefully holding on to this client for generations as well. So I think the goal here is that you’re trying not to be a transactional person, you’re a holistic person. And so when you come in with that empathetic tone with that understanding that we’re gonna build something that takes care of not just you, but your whole family, if that’s a goal for them. By the way, we just made an assumption. That parent could be like. Johnny’s out of my life. You know, he’s on his own and he’s not in the will. And so I think those are important questions as well.

How could a financial professional overcome a client that maybe gets defensive during a conversation? Maybe they regret decisions that they made or decisions they didn’t make or maybe they feel embarrassed by something and so you can just watch the wall coming up or their sort of defensive answers. How can we take some of that down so that we get to the point where we’re really able to have such a productive financial and emotional conversation to move them into decision or really making the balanced decision or approach for their future.

Move. Move location. Get up, go for a walk. Hey, you know what? It’s really nice outside. I’ve been sitting here all day. Like, can we go get some fresh air for a few minutes? When you engage different parts of your body, you’re all of a sudden reconnecting your mind differently as well. When you’re walking shoulder to shoulder, the conversation might diffuse as well, and so when you are, especially somebody behind the desk that seemed like a principal and a student, and they feel they’re being reprimanded or in the wrong, the defenses come up. So change locations.

That’s great, I never thought about that.

So Erika, your book is called Conversations with Your Financial Therapist. If it’s okay with you, Julie and I are thinking we might further our conversation with you by asking you some questions, just top of mind questions. We often ask us the podcast and the reason is we want our audience to get to know you a little bit better, not just as a financial therapist but as a person. So if that’s okay, with you I’ll ask Julie to cue up the first question.

Fire away, flip the script on me. Let’s go.

Perfect. What’s your favorite quote or mantra in life?

All right, I have two, not my monkey, not my circus. Again, raising three kids, blended family, got to stay focused. The other one is good or bad, hard to say. So when life happens, sometimes we don’t know it seems like it’s something really bad, but it could lead to something good. And vice versa, something good could lead to not something not so great. So good or bad, or just say, we’re in the middle of the story right now.

Very wise.

I love that.

How about, what’s your favorite board game or card game?

Connect Four, I invite anybody to come challenge me.

Awesome.

What’s your favorite season of the year and why?

Oh, that’s a tough one. I live in Florida. So we have one season. I would love it to be fall though, because then I would love to pumpkin spice and pumpkin patches and all that gorgeousness.

If you could take a time machine for just one trip, where would you go and when?

Wait, am I going back in time or forward in time?

You can do either. You can go forward, you can go back.

All right, because my dad’s been on my mind so much, I have a book coming out and it’s dedicated to him and his anniversaries and 10 days of his passing. I would love to go back to a childhood trip that we took with him and just spend more time with him.

Where was the trip to?

Yellowstone.

Beautiful.

I did not appreciate it at the time. I was way too young.

It’s funny how that works. Yes.

I’m sure it was not a kind kid at that moment. I was probably a bratty teenager, but I would love to go back and redo that with him.

What’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?

Um, I don’t enjoy spelling. I’m a math person, not an English person, and both my mother and my grandfather were English professors. So, yes.

Wow.

And my last question is, what’s the first concert you ever went to?

Billy Joel and Elton John.

Oh, amazing.

Right?

Well, Erika, we can’t thank you enough for joining us today on the Human Centric Investing podcast and sharing so many actionable ideas. And for our listeners, if you’re interested in learning more about Erika, please feel to visit her website, yourfinancialtherapist.com, or as mentioned, you could Uh, seek out her new book, which is called conversations with your financial therapist, stories and scripts to grow your mindset and it’s available at Amazon. Thank you again, Erika, for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Erika.

Thanks for listening to the Hartford Funds human-centric investing podcast. If you’d like to tune in for more episodes, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

And if you’d like to be a guest and share your best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us at guestbooking at HartfordFunds.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Talk to you soon.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest who is not affiliated with Hartford Funds.