Equip advisers with psychological and NLP tools to better understand client hesitations, build rapport, and guide them through informed, confident decision-making.
When faced with a complex world, chocked full of opinions, facts and generalisations, many potential clients struggle to understand our marketplace and hesitate to make decisions. This is quite natural, as using pre-determined beliefs or shortcuts is the only way to cope with all the information available nowadays. Now, if you couple this with the typical age of the later-life client – perhaps 50 plus, they have a lot of life experience behind them, creating all sorts of shortcuts in their thinking.
Let’s examine this, shall we, and figure out some of the psychology behind clients’ decision-making.
- Why do they hesitate?
- What makes them resistant to change?
- And most importantly, how can we better understand and guide them toward the right solutions?
Along the way, we’ll explore practical techniques—drawing from behavioural psychology and even NLP—to help you connect with your clients, overcome objections, and build confidence in handling later-life scenarios.
With any client, particularly someone entering the later life advice discussion, we must begin by seeing things from their side of the fence. Before any meaningful data collection or fact-finding, we must sit down with them and find out how they see things, their goals, their views of potential solutions, and how they generally feel about the conversation that’s about to start.
With my work in the later life advice arena, specifically lending in later life, I’ve recorded just four biases that dominate most clients’ pre-conceived thinking
Naturally, we open our ears after asking some questions, but most of us are pretty good at this by now since we’re not rookies. Questions such as:
- “How are you feeling about this?”
- “What do you want to get out of our meeting?”
- “How do you feel about what we’re talking about?”
will get them talking.
The first behavioural psychology to consider is perceptual position, which comes from NLP – neurolinguistic programming. This NLP “tool” allows you to see things from both points of view – yours and theirs. Initially, you build rapport by physically matching several aspects of the clients to shape a connection and relax them. Consider matching their body position, energy levels, pace of speaking, and even the amount of eye contact they make. Matching is a fabulous “tool” from the NLP toolbox.
Then, you open your ears and start listening to their viewpoints. At the same time, we imagine three positions: your point of view and their perspective. You do this by taking the third position—the director’s view. A movie always has a director, and my favourite is Guy Ritchie. He will have a grandstand view of the whole scene—the actors, the scenes, and the actions—and make decisions based on all these to ensure a great movie is filmed.
Taking the director’s view will allow you to see how they see things and your position objectively – you see both perspectives. Your viewpoint right now will be to get on with the factfind. You have a judgement of later life lending and an opinion on equity release type mortgages, which you have honed over the years of being in business, taking exams, and helping hundreds of clients reach satisfactory conclusions.
But they may see things very differently from you. They will be surrounded by inconsistencies, shortcuts in their thinking, and behavioural biases. This is behavioural psychology, which influences how they see equity release options. Call them heuristics, shortcuts to thinking, or biases in their beliefs.
What we call them doesn’t matter; they stop them from progressing or making them hesitate. Of course, we see things differently, and many advisers will try to bombard their clients with their own opinions, almost battling them into submission. There is another way; allow me to explain.
Let’s use behavioural psychology first to recognise the client’s behavioural bias. Then, we can help them reframe how they see things by furnishing them with new information or some contemporary insights.
Students of behavioural finance have recognised dozens of specific biases or heuristics (shortcuts in thinking) when it comes to investing money: overconfidence, status quo, herding, loss aversion, gambler’s fallacy, familiarity, anchoring, confirmation, recency, and mental accounting.
With my work in the later life advice arena, specifically lending in later life, I’ve recorded just four biases that dominate most clients’ pre-conceived thinking:
- Loss aversion
- Status quo
- Confirmation
- Anchoring
“Your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on this mortgage” appeals to the client’s perception of loss aversion. No one wants to lose anything, especially their home, but the main emphasis of this bias is that people have a general aversion to losing things, and they do everything possible to avoid loss. Losing control is an offshoot of this one. Still, the main impact in the later life market is that some people have a natural fear of losing their home because they’ve read about equity release from the past about Mr Jones, whose outstanding debt rose so dramatically that he had to sell his home to avoid destitution.
“I don’t want to lose my home” is the justifiable remark. If you hear this bias, your coaching of the client will want them to consider the unlikeliness of this happening nowadays with the protections in place, but more importantly, the upside.
NLP calls this concept towards and away from. People are motivated mainly by preventing nasty losses, i.e., away-from or towards a gain or goal. This is context-dependent, so talk about someone’s home, and I doubt if any of us wouldn’t fear losing it. Ensuring there is no chance is the first conversation, but then we want to switch the client’s thinking over to the towards.
What gains would they have if they considered some lending into retirement? These can be explored through straightforward questioning. Reframe their thinking towards the upsides. For example, a couple might be moving to a home in a new area to be close to their children and eventual grandchildren and may not be considering extending their mortgage as they approach retirement. First, help them realise they can extend their mortgage well into retirement. This enables them to envision entertaining their grandchildren in the garden, which the higher-priced property may bring, or the spare bedroom to house them over the weekend.
Naturally, you will want to use emphatic language such as “I understand where you’re coming from,” “I see your viewpoint,” or the famous feel—felt—found. I can see how you’re feeling. Many of my clients initially felt the same as you, but when they realised how much the market had changed since then and understood all the protections you now have, they figured out how safe this can be.
Clients often fear losing control, but once they appreciate how the modern array of products differs enormously from those in the past, they welcome the control these give them. In the later-life lending market now, products are incredibly different to those offered in the 1990s. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.
Few people like change, and the fear of anything changing becomes more intense as life evolves. Some people prefer the familiar, “We’ve managed without a mortgage so far, so why change?”
In NLP, we call this sameness/difference, and it refers to people either leaning towards everything being like it has always been or yearning for change and something novel and different. Again, it’s context-dependent but a good character determination. Either way, clients may have this behavioural bias.
Stories help enormously here.
Peter and Margaret, in their 70s, had lived mortgage-free for decades. They resisted when their adviser suggested later-life lending to fund home renovations and support their granddaughter’s university fees. “We’ve managed without borrowing. Why change now?” Peter said.
The adviser shared a story of another couple who used later-life lending to enhance their home and help their family, explaining, “It’s like unlocking savings in your home.” He avoided jargon, focused on the benefits, and highlighted how many others were making similar decisions.
Encouraged, Peter and Margaret cautiously borrowed a small amount. Six months later, they had a renovated kitchen, peace of mind, and the joy of helping their granddaughter. “We wish we’d done this sooner,” Margaret admitted.
This story also accentuates the push for social proof. In other words, if other people you know are doing it, so should you.
The later-life lending market’s complicated products often accentuate the fear of change. Our industry is frequently blamed for making things more complex than they should be; we love an acronym and a piece of jargon, and since we involve ourselves with other industry players, we forget ourselves when with clients. We’re all guilty. It takes a real professional to make something very complicated appear simple in the eyes of a client. That’s true expertise.
“I believe in the traditional route of paying off my mortgage by age 65 since I’ve heard that having a mortgage beyond then is risky. I read exactly that in the papers at the weekend.”
Confirmation bias occurs when a client has a tried-and-tested opinion and ignores new information, preferring to have data confirm what they already believe. We all do it. New information confirms what they already know, or the information is contorted to do so.
Gently challenge them: “May I ask what have you heard that makes you feel unsure?” You might reveal some old references that they are still clinging to. Then, use some trusted resources and new insights that may sway their opinion, maybe some ideas from the FCA or the Equity Release Council.
Your client may be overwhelmed or worried about lending into retirement because they have some judgments that “anchor” their opinions. For example, some people hang on to the mortgage, doubling in size every ten years. This was evident when interest rates were around the 8% mark. With interest rates falling back to around 4 or 5%, this is not so. Grab a calculator and show them the rule of 72 in action. 72 divide by 5 = 14 years.
New information allows you to attempt to reset their “anchor” decision.
Here, we have four behavioural biases for you. Loss aversion, status quo, confirmation and anchoring. Here are the steps to address them with your clients:
NLP is a valuable toolbox of ideas or avenues to explore when faced with client views and behavioural biases or shortcuts. The toolbox has dozens of instruments, but I’ve highlighted four that are particularly useful to serve our recognised biases.
NLP tells us to change the client’s viewpoint by reframing it for them. You can reframe both the context of the conversation and the actual content. Imagine a painting masterpiece. You could change the frame, which is the context, or the actual painting, which is the content. Let me explain further with an example:
A child says: “I’m terrible at maths, and I’ll never get it right.”
Content Reframing Response. “You’re not terrible at maths; you just haven’t found the right way to learn it yet. Everyone improves with practice and the right tools.”
Context Reframing Response. “Think about when you first learned to ride a bike. It was tricky initially, but you figured it out with time and patience. Maths works the same way.”
This simple example highlights how reframing can shift negative perspectives to something positive and empowering.
“Equity Release feels like giving up my home.” Reframe this statement by changing the context of the conversation. Equity Release is a way to release money from your home before you die to enjoy the benefits this year. You still have your home, which will never be taken away from you while you’re both alive and kicking.
My favourite “tool” is to launch into story mode when faced with a hesitant client. “Imagine a world when…”
Future pacing helps people see the future that could occur if they took your advice. Paint the picture for them and allow them to see how things could turn out. Olympic Athletes use future pacing to practise their minds in winning the gold medal. I use it when I have an essential keynote presentation to make. I imagine the event has finished, and everyone is applauding, having enjoyed the talk.
Future pacing convinces the mind of the benefits of the advice because it illustrates precisely what outcome you’ll have. Imagine you’ve moved into a new property that you thought initially you couldn’t afford, having friends around for a housewarming dinner admiring what you’ve both achieved. Or “imagine Christmas with all your family around you in your new home.”
Asking questions, particularly when investigating client biases, can seem aggressive, especially if your client is slightly defensive. NLP talks about softening your questions with both voice tone and pre-frames. Let me explain.
Voice tone is important when asking questions. A slight lift in tone towards the end of the sentence or in the middle will have a hypnotic softening effect.
Additionally, pre-framing with statements such as “if you don’t mind me asking,” “may I ask,” or “it would be helpful if I could ask you” will also soften the impact of the tricky question that will follow.
This tool comes from NLP’s metaprogrammes. This tag isn’t essential—it just makes NLP people feel important and intelligent! Specifying vagueness raises questions such as “What specifically have you heard?” “Who else might say that?” or “How do you know that?”
These are especially useful when your client has either confirmation bias or anchoring. For example, they might suggest that they’ve heard nightmares about equity release. With enormous empathy and softening of your questions, you can ask, “That’s curious. May I ask how you know that?”
It’s very powerful but needs practice.
Let’s take a moment to circle back to where it all began and revisit the idea of perceptual positions. You’ve thought about this before, haven’t you? We touched on it earlier, didn’t we? And as you reflect, you might already notice how powerful it feels to step into that third perspective – the director’s view. By now, you’re beginning to realise how seamlessly this approach could transform your conversations with your next client, especially one who might hesitate when exploring modern options in the later-life marketplace. Imagine guiding them with ease, knowing they’ll feel reassured, supported, and inspired by your expertise. It feels good to think about that, doesn’t it?
When you apply insights from behavioural psychology with empathic, thoughtful language, you naturally create a space where your clients feel safe and empowered. This is how you help them achieve the best possible outcomes while subtly showcasing your commitment to professionalism and excellence. The words you choose and your tone speak volumes, don’t they?
Packed with NLP hypnosis have been the last two paragraphs, but you saw that, didn’t you? But don’t worry; we’ll go deeper next time whenever you feel ready to take the next step. After all, the timing is entirely up to you.
