Hannah, a midcareer advisor, took pride in her deep market knowledge. In her mind, being prepared meant being ready to prove she knew her stuff. Her discovery meetings often opened with charts and projections, a confident show of competence.
At one initial meeting, she launched into her usual rhythm until she noticed the couple across from her staring blankly. Eyes glazed. Bodies still. They weren’t disagreeing. They were disengaging. She pressed on, explaining a market trend, but something in their posture told her the real conversation was happening silently between them: This isn’t about us.
When she finally paused to ask if they had questions, the husband spoke first about his father’s uncertain retirement. Then the wife added her worry about college costs. Numbers weren’t their first language right now. Fear was. Hannah closed her laptop. She leaned forward and asked, “Help me understand what retirement security means to you.”
The air shifted. Shoulders dropped. They started talking, not about percentages or asset classes, but about mornings on a porch, routines they loved, and the schools their kids might attend. Hannah listened more than she spoke. When she did speak, she bridged her expertise to the life they described, not the other way around.
By the end, she hadn’t led with performance. She hadn’t needed to. The couple trusted her because she had made space for what mattered to them first. Her competence mattered, but her connection opened the door.
The science of trust: Warmth before competence
Research backs up what Hannah’s pivot revealed: People assess emotional tone before they assess expertise. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy and colleagues have shown that in new encounters we instinctively evaluate two core traits: warmth (trustworthiness, friendliness, sincerity) and competence (skill, intelligence, effectiveness). These two factors account for roughly 80% of how we judge others, and warmth comes first.
When connection is missing, even accurate, well-reasoned advice can land flat, or worse, be ignored.
Evolution may be the reason. For early humans, knowing whether someone meant harm mattered more than whether they could build a fire. Only after intentions were clear did abilities matter. A study in Trends in Cognitive Sciences confirmed this sequencing: In short interactions, participants consistently judged warmth-related traits, trustworthiness and friendliness, before rating intelligence or capability.
For advisors, the implication is blunt. Technical skill alone won’t win trust. Clients need to feel respected, heard, and emotionally safe before they can absorb your expertise. In an age where prospects can Google investment strategies or binge-watch financial planning videos, knowledge is not scarce.
What’s scarce is the advisor who can guide people through emotionally charged decisions with clarity, empathy, and steadiness.
Ironically, starting with warmth often makes you seem more competent, before you’ve presented a single chart, because people interpret your listening, curiosity, and respect as signs of control and mastery.
Where advisors go wrong
Many advisors default to leading with competence, but this can backfire if it replaces connection.
- Talking too much. In some meetings recorded in Horsesmouth’s Discovery Lab, advisors speak up to seven times more than the prospect. That’s not a conversation. That’s a one-way broadcast in the shape of a meeting. In a 60-minute session, that means the prospect talks for only eight minutes, barely enough to feel heard.
- Credential stacking too early. Listing degrees and designations in the opening minutes can feel like building a wall instead of a bridge. Without first establishing a sense of connection, credentials are more likely to create distance than trust.
- Skipping the emotional layer. Advisors who jump straight to facts miss the chance to address the fears, hopes, and motivations driving the decision. Clients may nod along but disengage internally, withholding information you need to give good advice.
When connection is missing, even accurate, well-reasoned advice can land flat, or worse, be ignored.
Exceptions that prove the principle
While warmth usually takes precedence, there are moments when competence must lead the way.
In crisis situations, a pending loan default, a sudden inheritance, or a looming market crash, clients need rapid, decisive action. Warmth alone cannot solve the problem, though even here, a brief word of reassurance can help steady the room before you outline the plan.
The same applies with certain highly analytical prospects, such as engineers, attorneys, or executives, who may view logic as the gateway to trust. For them, beginning with evidence or a well-prepared model can be the most effective starting point.
Still, even in these cases, a single values-based question early on signals that you recognize the human stakes beneath the data.
How to shift your approach
Advisors who want to build trust faster and deeper can adjust three core behaviors:
- Lead with curiosity, not credentials. Ask open-ended questions like, “What’s important to you about this decision?” Then listen without rushing to fill the silence.
- Validate before solving. Acknowledge the emotion before addressing the problem: “I can see why that’s weighing on you,” or “That’s an important question. Let’s unpack it together.”
- Show understanding before showing expertise. Reflect back what you’ve heard, such as “What I’m hearing is that your biggest worry is outliving your savings,” before explaining how you’ll address it.
Small habits can amplify these behaviors in subtle but powerful ways. Pausing for two full seconds after a client finishes speaking creates space for their thoughts to settle and signals that you are truly listening. Mirroring their own phrasing when you restate their concerns reinforces that you have heard them accurately and on their terms.
And beginning each meeting with one personal question unrelated to finance helps ground the conversation in the human relationship, reminding both you and the client that trust is built on more than numbers.
Lead with connection, follow with competence
Hannah’s instinct to lead with expertise was common, especially early in a career. But her mid-air pivot to connection reflects a deeper truth: People think more clearly when they’re not bracing themselves. They can process more nuance, weigh more options, and take in more of your technical insight.
Competence may get you noticed. Connection keeps you trusted. Advisors who master one without the other risk mediocrity. Advisors who can do both, in the right order, become indispensable.
Thoughts to carry forward
- Prospects instinctively assess warmth before competence, making emotional connection the gateway to trust and the foundation for impactful advice.
- Advisors often undermine trust by leading with expertise, talking too much, overloading on credentials, or skipping the emotional layer, rather than first listening and validating.
- While competence may lead in crises or with highly analytical clients, blending it with warmth and human understanding is key to lasting influence.