Advisors love to talk about listening. They read about it, nod along in workshops, and swear they do it well. But the moment the meeting starts, instinct takes over, and their questions start closing doors instead of opening them.
Advisors don’t mean to shut prospects down in discovery meetings, but they do. In our Discovery Lab review of a hundred meetings, more than 90% of the questions were closed-ended. And that’s the problem: Closed questions don’t just limit discovery; they end it.
What is a closed question?
A closed question is one that limits the range of possible responses to short, factual answers rather than reflection or exploration.
For example, when an advisor asks, “Are you retired?,” the client can only answer yes or no, which stops the conversation from deepening. Even a question that sounds open, like “When do you plan to retire?” is still closed because it narrows the answer to a fact or a date.
Closed questions gather information instead of insight and tend to keep the advisor in control of the dialogue rather than opening space for discovery.
What closed-ended questions really do
Closed-ended questions serve a specific, narrow purpose: They extract facts.
“How old are you?”
“Are you still working?”
“Do you have a will?”
These aren’t bad questions, but they’re limited tools. They generate data, not insight. They gather details, not depth. They move the conversation forward, but only in a straight line, and often in the wrong direction.
A useful closed question in a discovery meeting might be something like, “Do you have any dependents?” It’s efficient, factual, and ensures accuracy in the client’s financial picture.
Questions like this help advisors gather essential data for planning, but their value is limited. They provide context, not connection. Once the fact is established, it’s the follow-up open question (“How do you want to support them over time?”) that turns data into discovery.
The problem isn’t that these questions exist. It’s that they dominate. And when they do, they crowd out the kinds of questions that actually build relationships. The open-ended, human-centered ones that let clients speak in their own words, from their own experience.
Limited questions limit trust
Closed-ended questions don’t expand the conversation; they contract it. They reduce the client’s role to responding, not reflecting. Instead of hearing what the client truly wants to say, the advisor only hears what they’ve asked for, often a yes/no, either/or, or numerical response.
There’s no space for story, emotion, or nuance. And without that, trust has nowhere to take root.
Worse, short answers create a vacuum the advisor feels compelled to fill. And so they do, by explaining, pivoting, or firing off the next question. That’s part of how we ended up with another troubling stat from the Discovery Lab: advisors talking nearly 70% of the time.
The two patterns feed each other. Closed questions shrink the client’s presence, and the advisor rushes to fill the silence.
The habit points to something deeper. It’s baked into the design of the entire conversation.
The plan isn’t the relationship
Nowhere is this more obvious than in how financial plans are introduced. For many advisors, the plan is the centerpiece of the engagement and closed-ended questions are simply the intake process. They’re gathering raw materials to construct a solution.
Yet, here’s the sticky part. Advisors often skip explaining why they’re gathering this data. They don’t ask permission to build a plan. They don’t position it as a collaborative tool. They don’t connect it to a bigger, more personal purpose.
Instead, the process feels transactional: answer these questions, we’ll show you a plan. The unspoken assumption is that the plan will make everything clear, that it will magically surface all concerns, calm all doubts, and chart the best course forward.
But that’s backwards. Clients don’t trust the plan. They trust the person. And that trust is built through conversation, not calculation.
When structure kills connection
When advisors lead with closed-ended questions, they miss the chance to show genuine interest. Worse, they may signal, without meaning to, that the client’s deeper story doesn’t matter.
The irony is that most advisors do care deeply, but the structure of their discovery process doesn’t allow that care to show. It keeps the interaction focused on technical inputs instead of emotional truths.
Closed-ended questions also reinforce a subtle power dynamic. They tell the client what the agenda is, what’s relevant, and what kind of answers are acceptable. They shape the conversation around the advisor’s lens. Even when unintentional, this sends a message: The advisor is in control. Not just of the planning process, but of the conversation itself.
And if the client doesn’t feel they can steer the conversation, they’re far less likely to reveal what really matters.
Some advisors even hide behind the plan. They rely on its complexity, its tidy charts and projections, as a shield, avoiding the discomfort of asking questions that don’t have clear answers. Questions like:
- “What are you most concerned about these days?”
- “What’s keeping you up at night right now?”
- “What would a great outcome actually feel like?”
These aren’t hard to ask. But they’re vulnerable. They invite stories, not spreadsheets. And for advisors trained to think in terms of solutions, open-ended space can feel unstructured or even unproductive.
Discovery isn’t about efficiency
Advisors prize efficiency. And in most areas of their work, it’s a strength. But in discovery, the drive to be efficient can short-circuit understanding.
When the goal becomes finishing the checklist instead of following the client, the conversation narrows and the connection weakens.
Discovery works best when it trades speed for presence. It’s the moment when clients decide, consciously or not, whether they feel seen, heard, and understood. And if that foundation isn’t laid early, no amount of planning precision can rebuild it later.
When questions go wrong
Relying too heavily on closed-ended questions isn’t just a missed opportunity. Sometimes, it’s actively counterproductive.
It gives the illusion of progress while keeping the conversation at the surface. It can lead clients to disengage, not because they’re unwilling to open up, but because they’ve never been asked to. It can make the advisor seem more interested in compliance than curiosity, more focused on filling out the form than understanding the person sitting across from them.
That’s not rapport. That’s not trust. And it’s not discovery.
What real discovery takes
Closed-ended questions have their place. They’re useful when you need a specific answer. But they can’t carry the weight of the whole conversation, and they sure can’t carry the relationship.
If discovery is meant to deepen connection, uncover what matters most, and build trust, then we have to stop treating it as data collection and start treating it as a human conversation. That begins with asking better questions. Open-ended ones. The kind that doesn’t just check a box but opens a door.