Advisers and paraplanners should consider how and why they act in order to relate to better relate to their clients.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment's paraplanner conference in Coventry on Tuesday (14 June), business coach Bob Malloney said advisers' relationships with clients would improve if they worked to understand their own behaviour.
This would allow them to modify how they act around their clients to help put them at ease.
Mr Malloney argued there are four broad categories of behaviour: drivers and expressives, and amiables and analytics.
The first two tend to be impulsive and do things quickly while the second think things through and do things slowly, while expressives and amiables are people-focused and drivers and analytics are task-focused.
He said: "Whichever one you are, look at other people and think 'what sort of category do you fall in?'. The evidence is all there but you have to look for it.
"Try and modify your approach to be more like them and then you will get the benefit of it with a stronger relationship.
"They will be much more likely to like you and engage with you. You will be singing from the same hymn sheet. It is worth putting a bit of effort into."
Mr Malloney said one way of distinguishing someone's behavioural category was their dress sense, with drivers dressing more conservatively, expressives dressing more boldly, amiables tending to blend in with pastel colours and analytics dressing tidily, preferring geometric prints.
damian.fantato@ft.com
