Perspective versus Perception: Understanding Your Clients Better

f you can cut through the trash on social media, you can find leaders, authors and personalities that are worth pausing for. It’s worth taking 30 seconds to determine if an entire video or webinar has is something meaningful to listen to that makes me think and consider how I do business or lead.Last week, an individual caught my eye through his captions. I don’t even know the speaker or interviewer, but the topic stopped me in my tracks.

Perspective vs. Perception

The idea of how we handle clients and interactions really stood out to me while reading the interviewer’s words about perception and perspective. According to Websters Dictionary:

Perspective:

1. A mental view or prospect.
2. The capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance.
   1. // trying to maintain my perspective

Perception:

1. Awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation.
2. Quick, acute and intuitive cognition.

In many ways, the two are similar. But, in a financial professional’s role, the two are dramatically different.

Perspective

Perspective is what we carry around while we do our work with clients. We have the responsibility to have a perspective on markets, risks, planning and client needs. With so many clients using different professionals for different services, I’m not sure that anyone has a full perspective on any client’s situation. The important part to point out is that perspective is our view of the entire situation and includes relative importance. It is externally facing and impacted by events and environments around us all the time.

Perception

The biggest difference for me on perception is that it tends to be internally focused. It is how we see the world ourselves without taking into consideration the environment or external impacts. Unfortunately, this is how many of our clients see the world. Their perception of their current economic situation is how they see it but doesn’t include the full perspective. Most importantly, their perception can include how it makes them feel and make decisions. It’s super important that we recognize this difference and dive into what makes up their perception. As a mentor always reminds me:

The client’s perception is our reality.

That is the starting point that we must work with in our relationships. Perception is the reason clients sell at market lows, don’t know a safe withdrawal rate, and benchmark to incorrect indices.

The Journey

Although the client’s perception - regardless of wrong or right, educated or unpolished – is the starting point, it is not the end. Our Director of Practice Management spoke about his Olympic experience recently and used the phrase, “It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.”

The journey from perception to perspective can be long, difficult and full of bumps in the road. Here are some key points to consider as you meet new prospective customers.

1. The Law of Influence: The Law of Influence states “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you put other people’s interest first.” This starts with questioning skills. We have to better understand the client’s perception on their current situation. They likely have biases or missing information that creates the perception. They lack perspective and we must provide the frame.
2. Empathy: I struggle, both professionally and personally, to hit the correct level of empathy. But it is a key driver of putting other people’s interest first. We must understand their fears and desires. We can all work on this aspect of our professional relationships. Great questioning leads to better understanding.
3. Provide Perspective. Don’t Expect It: Our industry is complex. Our products are complex. Our solutions involve multiple aspects of our client’s lives that touch several professionals. It is imperative that we don’t expect them to have the same level of perspective as we do. I don’t have the same perspective of the construction industry for example. This means a continual flow of education to the client that will lead to better decisions by them. And the key point here is that it is their decision and not always our choice.
4. The journey starts with the client, not us. As an industry, we tend to position ourselves as the hero and the solution. That means that the client needs to move to where we are (our perspective). In reality, the client is already the hero of their own story. The successful planner will move toward them (and their perception). By moving from their perception to their visionary and transformational identity, they begin to experience our perspective of the larger issues.

Maintaining the Perspective

Keeping the right perspective means understanding the perception of the client. While each drives different behaviors, we don’t know the destination until we fully understand, see and feel the perception the client is experiencing. While a formal, written plan might solidify the relationship, a routine review process is important to maintain the proper perspective. Perspective comes from continually moving the perception of the client to a broader view.

The important perspectives in retirement income planning include longevity planning, inflation protection, healthcare, long term care, legacy planning and tax mitigation just to name a few. Most likely, the client has a perception on each. It’s our job to provide the proper perspective to the client of how their life will improve by working with us.