Advisors have two competing and contradictory imperatives when meeting with clients.On the one hand, it's essential to establish an emotional connection and have clients feel truly listened to. You do this by engaging clients with good questions and by being alert for nuances in how they answer, maintaining eye contact and reading their body language.

On the other hand, we need to make notes to ensure that we capture new information and key points in our conversation.

The difficulty for some advisors is the focus on taking notes undermines your ability to fully concentrate on the subtle things that can be important tip offs in a conversation and prevents clients from feeling that they have your complete, undivided attention.

Recently, I spoke to an advisor who has eliminated a key barrier to making that connection - and has seen much better outcomes from meetings as a result.

Some years ago, she began having her assistant sit in on client meetings with the express purpose of taking notes of what was said and then typing the notes up for the client file afterwards. By doing this and this alone, this advisor was able to put her entire focus on the client interaction - and found her ability to listen to clients and establish a connection much improved as a result.

Another advisor achieves the same goal by asking some clients for permission to record meetings - and then has his assistant summarize those recordings afterwards. To minimize the administrative burden, he only does this for meetings with key clients - but finds that this makes meetings much more productive and effective.

Given the sensitivity of many meetings today, it's never been more important to establish an emotional connection and have clients feel they have your full attention. If this is something you're struggling with, consider trying this in a few upcoming meetings - like the advisors I've described, you too may be surprised by the difference this makes.