Today I’m writing to you from sunny Florida where my family and I are visiting relatives for the upcoming holiday. My mother is an amazing cook and my youngest brother is a trained chef.
Between them, each meal is a culinary adventure.
With so many delicious dishes, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about food and, more specifically, one of the 8 dimensions of wealth and well-being, nutrition. If you’re not yet familiar with the 8 dimensions of wealth and well-being framework, it is a tool we introduce in our workshops and use with our clients to get a more complete understanding of a client’s values.
The 8 dimensions are:
- Energy / Exercise
- Nutrition
- General Health
- Professional Development
- Financial Fitness
- Mental / Emotional Health
- Spiritual Health
- Social Health / Relationships
By asking open-ended questions around each of these areas, we teach advisors how to get outside of their comfort zones to deepen client relationships and build trust.
The second dimension, nutrition, can be tricky.
One of our earliest clients struggled with this one. He didn’t know how he could ask clients who came to him for financial advice about nutrition.
“What am I supposed to say, I’m not a nutritionist?” he asked.
As an experiment, he agreed to replace his typical small talk with an open-ended question that focused on the nutrition dimension. Instead of asking about the weather or the latest sporting event, he asked clients to tell him about the best meal they had that week.
What he learned dramatically changed his interactions with clients.
First, the clients had to pause to consider their answer and that gave our advisor an opportunity to actively listen. Then, they shared some juicy nuggets. With this one simple question, he learned that clients he was regularly inviting to steak dinner seminars were vegetarians! Also, he broke the ice so well and with such authenticity that, for the first time, clients he’d been advising for years invited him to social events.
One small change, a question about food, shifted the relationship.
What about you?
- How would you answer the question “what is the best meal you’ve had this week?”
- When do thoughts of food impact your decision-making?
- What nourishes you?
We love hearing your stories. Please feel free to share here or send a note.
- If you’re interested in food, but not really cooking, I like this list of the best food books that aren’t cookbooks.
- Who are you when you’re hangry? Here’s a quiz you can take to find out.
- And, plug in your headphones for this handy video about hanger!