53. The “Why I Care” Story: How Financial Advisors Build Trust Faster with Deirdre Van Nest Artwork

Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

Planning & Beyond® is for financial advisors who want to go beyond the numbers and build deeper, more trusted client relationships.

Hosted by Ashley Quamme, a licensed therapist and financial behavior specialist, this podcast helps advisors better understand the psychology, emotions, and behaviors that shape client conversations.

Each episode offers practical strategies you can apply in discovery meetings, prospect conversations, difficult money discussions, and major life transition planning. Through conversations with experts in behavioral finance, financial psychology, and financial therapy, Ashley explores how advisors can strengthen communication, navigate emotional moments, build trust, and support clients with more confidence.

If you want to improve the way you connect with clients, ask better questions, and bring more empathy and clarity into your planning process, Planning & Beyond® will help you sharpen the human side of your advisory work.

Topics include:

Mastering discovery and prospect meetings
Navigating difficult money conversations
Understanding client psychology
Building trust and deepening client relationships
Managing emotional client situations
Improving advisor-client communication
Applying behavioral finance strategies
Supporting clients through life transitions

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Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding

53. The “Why I Care” Story: How Financial Advisors Build Trust Faster with Deirdre Van Nest

July 02, 2026 • Ashley Quamme

0:00 | 45:34

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A prospect sits across from you with a decision to make. Before they share the full truth about their money, their fear, their family, or the choice they keep delaying, they are quietly asking one question: Can I trust you?

In this episode of Planning & Beyond®, Ashley sits down with Deirdre Van Nest, keynote speaker and founder of Crazy Good Talks®, to talk about strategic storytelling and why your personal brand “why I care” story matters. Deirdre explains why this story is not simply about why you got into the business. It is about helping clients understand why their lives, decisions, and outcomes matter to you.

Deirdre shares the personal experience that shaped her mission and how that awareness now fuels her work helping advisors communicate in a way that builds trust faster and moves clients toward decisions they might otherwise delay.

Ashley and Deirdre also break down three types of strategic stories advisors can use: the personal brand why I care story, the desire story, and the analogy or illustrative story. Each one has a different purpose. One builds trust. One creates desire without sounding salesy. One makes a complex idea easier to understand and remember.

The conversation also challenges a common message advisors often hear: don’t talk about yourself. Deirdre offers a more nuanced view. Tune in to learn more.

You’ll walk away with:

How vulnerability can build trust without oversharing
Why storytelling is a skill you can build, not a talent you either have or do not have
How one advisor used his story to improve prospect-to-client conversion
Why your story does not have to be tragic to be powerful
Ways to use your story in meetings, video, referrals, and client communication

This episode is for the advisor who wants to communicate with more clarity, humanity, and confidence. Because when clients understand why you care, they are more likely to trust what you know.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About the Guest

Deirdre Van Nest is a keynote speaker and founder of Crazy Good Talks®, a firm that helps revenue-producing entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and leaders turn communication into a measurable business advantage.

She and her team help clients build trust faster, convert quicker, and communicate at a level most never reach, so when they walk into a room, they do not just enter it, they own it.

Connect with Deirdre Van Nest: