A 45-year veteran financial advisor who calls listening "the most valuable skill in wealth management" is trying to teach it to a new generation of planners.
John Gatewood published his book, "
Part of those plans include creating a new certification known as a "certified listening advisor."
With the industry facing an estimated shortage of as many as 100,000 new advisors based on retirements and rising client demand, Gatewood said developing the listening skills of the next generation will be key to gaining clients who refer friends and family and never leave the firm.
"This is an amazing opportunity for young people," he said. "I believe that the ones that are going to win in the future are the ones that have digital fluency, and they're master communicators."
In the book, Gatewood recommends a five-part framework to help advisors become better listeners:
- "Ask open-ended questions — start with curiosity, not checklists.
- "Tell me more" — invite elaboration before solving.
- "When you said … what did you mean?" — clarify using their exact words.
- "Let me make sure I understand" — confirm accuracy.
- "What's your priority now?'" — focus your action on the priority.
But Gatewood defines those five steps as more of "a guide that helps you reach understanding and focused action" than a "rigid" prescription or script for advisors, he writes. "When you use this framework consistently, you'll uncover concerns people weren't planning to share, build real understanding faster than you thought possible, stop solving the wrong problems and make people feel heard, often for the first time."
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An overlooked but essential aspect of financial advisors' jobs
With the stated goal of "peace of mind" as the most common reason investors cite, by far, for seeking financial advice, some anecdotal and quantifiable research has also suggested that there are advisors who aren't doing a great job of listening to their clients.
Beyond being bad for business, that reputation can also turn off the very prospective advisors that the industry will need in the future, according to Melissa Bouchillon, a co-founder and managing partner with Savannah, Georgia-based registered investment advisory firm Sound View Wealth Advisors who once ran a regional Merrill training program for advisor candidates. Gatewood's framework will lead to "genuine, meaningful conversations" with clients in a way that reminded Bouchillon of her approach to treating her first meeting with a customer like a game of 20 questions with them, she said.
"People have a misconstrued notion of what a good advisor does," Bouchillon said. "The only way you can help people is, you have to listen first. … When you approach it that way, it just shakes the relationship up in a really positive way."
As "one of the most important skills," listening "does take work — for all us — not just financial advisors," according to Melissa Caro, the founder of coaching and training firm My Retirement Network. Gatewood's experience will bring "a great perspective" to fellow advisors in his second career as a trainer, and advisors can practice their listening skills in other parts of their day as well, she noted. That starts with focusing on what other people are saying, rather than letting the mind wander into other areas or making a show of nodding repeatedly and intensely.
"To sharpen that skill, I do this with my friends," Caro said. "Those are the places that you can really start to practice. Once you do that, you actually start to really sharpen your skill."
Learning from mistakes
Gatewood learned the importance of listening early in his career, when a widowed client with a multimillion-dollar inheritance didn't follow any of his recommendations and stopped returning his calls. He later found out from the client's daughter that her mother had been "terrified during the entire meeting," because she didn't understand what Gatewood was talking about and had been "too embarrassed to admit it," he writes.
"I was devastated and confused. I'd been so clear, so thorough, so… impressive," he writes. "That's when I realized I'd forgotten something basic yet vital. To listen. I'd been so focused on showing Margaret how much I knew that I'd completely missed what she needed. She didn't need more explanations or more technical sophistication. She needed permission to ask the basic questions she was too embarrassed to ask, and she needed someone to slow down and meet her where she was. I'd been trying to be interesting instead of being interested."
At the beginning of next year, Gatewood will step down fully from his current part-time role at his former advisory practice to begin building his new training program on a full-time basis. Among other resources for advisors and their firms, he plans to create half- or full-day workshops and the 12-week training and certification course for the new designation.
To Gatewood, communication mastery revolves around advice that shows clients an advisor "knows me so well, knows what it's like to be in my shoes, truly understands me and my family" and "speaks so clearly that it absolutely expresses what I'm thinking emotionally," he said. But that demands careful listening and a lot of preparation in advance of a client meeting that has nothing to do with investment strategy.
"People come and stay with an advisor because of how we make them feel," Gatewood said. "How much time do they spend thinking about, 'What kind of questions should I be asking so I can go deeper with this client?'"
