When buying our last car, we decided exactly what we wanted and then I emailed 10 dealers to get them bidding on getting me the car for the best price. 4 of them made an offer and I sent everyone each other’s bid to see who would go the lowest. I am pretty sure I wasn’t going to get a better price than the one I ended up with and there was little to no hassle.

When you are trying to be empathetic to others, it’s often perceived significantly better if you don’t refer to yourself at all. Instead of “I understand” simple restate what they are feeling and ask them if you understood. For example, if the client says, “I am scared of losing money” your reply of “I understand” is okay, but a better, more empathetic response would be “So you feel that some investments are not right for you because they have a high potential of loss? Is that right?” The “I” in any answer makes the conversation about you not them. The topic is them, stick to it.

Has anyone every heard of Bill Bacharach? He sells this system for getting planning clients and although I am not promoting the system, I would like to mention one key ingredient.

He has a way of getting to the heart of the matter with clients and getting them beyond their material desires. Basically, he walks them up Maslow’s pyramid to higher and higher levels until the conclusion is in almost all cases that things are just a way of getting something more out of life. Again, I am not a huge fan of his total package but it does have elements that are special.