The Most Underrated Skill Financial Advisors Need to Grow with Intention

Ever catch yourself saying something and think, “Whoa... I sound just like my mom (or dad)”? What usually follows is about ten seconds of existential dread. 

That moment? That’s rhetorical theory in action. And no, I’m not talking about Aristotle and the art of persuasion in a toga. Rhetoric is influence. It’s how human experience shapes influence. It’s how we move people from skepticism to trust, from passive interest to meaningful action. That’s why, every now and then, you catch yourself saying something your parents used to say. Their words shaped your thinking.

Now, you may be asking yourself, okay, thanks for letting me know what rhetoric is, but why should I care about rhetoric as a financial advisor? It’s because you’re managing meaning. You’re influencing not just what they do with their money, but how they see you, themselves, and their future.

By getting into the rhetorical mindset, you can change how you lead, grow, and scale.

You’re Already a Rhetorician 

Running an RIA is an act of rhetorical leadership. Whether you realize it or not, you’re already making rhetorical choices every single day as a financial advisor.

• The way you frame your value in a discovery call
• The words you choose on your “About” page
• The tone you strike in your marketing—whether it’s warm and conversational or polished and precise

These aren’t just marketing tactics. They’re rhetorical moves.

Because rhetoric isn’t just what you say, it’s how you position ideas, how you empathize with your audience, and how you craft the timing and delivery of those messages. It’s the nuance of meeting someone where they are, and moving them forward from there.

You do this naturally when you explain complex tax strategy without using jargon. Or when you shift from charts to stories because a client is overwhelmed. Or when you send a short, thoughtful follow-up email instead of a multi-page PDF, because you know what kind of message your client can actually absorb.

In other words, you’re already a rhetorician. At the core of your work is this essential task: creating clarity where others feel chaos.

That clarity builds trust. Now, why do you need to have trust? (A rhetorical question, of course.)

Because without trust, no plan is followed, no referral is made, no email is opened, and no firm is scaled. Trust is the fuel of every relationship in your business. And clarity, delivered through strategic communication, is how you earn it.

The good news? You don’t have to become someone else to build that trust. You just have to become more aware of the rhetorical choices you’re already making, and learn to use them more intentionally.

And that’s where rhetorical theory becomes a tool, not just for writing or speaking, but for leading.

The Rhetorical Situation (and Why It Matters to Your Firm)

Lloyd Bitzer, a foundational rhetorical scholar, defined a rhetorical situation as having three essential parts:

• Exigence – a problem or opportunity that demands a response
• Audience – the people capable of being influenced
• Constraints – the limits and expectations that shape how you can respond

Now, let’s translate that into the world of your RIA:

• The exigence: Your prospective clients are overwhelmed, under-informed, and often deeply anxious about their financial future. They’re scrolling through conflicting advice on Reddit and YouTube, fielding pitches from firms that don’t understand them, and quietly wondering if they’re behind. That’s the tension begging for a thoughtful response.
• Your audience: These aren’t just prospects that meet your niche; they’re real people navigating transitions, fears, hopes, and unknowns. They need more than spreadsheets; they need to feel heard, validated, and guided.
• Your constraints: You’re working within regulatory guardrails, limited time, compliance requirements, and legacy perceptions of what a “financial advisor” is and does. You might also be juggling being the CEO, CMO, and lead planner all at once.

So, why does any of this matter?

Because once you start viewing your communication efforts, whether it’s a first call with a prospect, a homepage rewrite, or a quarterly client update, through this rhetorical lens, everything shifts.

You stop trying to speak to everyone at once. You start responding to the real, living context in front of you. You start designing experiences that are responsive, strategic, and human, not just efficient, not just compliant, but meaningful.

And here’s where things get powerful: Rhetorical thinking doesn’t just help you communicate better. It helps you lead better.

When you know the situation, you know how to respond. That’s true whether you’re managing a prospect pipeline, launching a new content strategy, or handling a tough client conversation.

This doesn’t mean you can’t utilize AI tools to create existing templates; it means that when you do, you must look at what is being written and ensure that you have met each of your exigencies, audience, and constraints in order to have rhetorical awareness.

Rhetorical awareness gives you something that most firms miss: intentionality.

That’s a huge differentiator when you’re trying to scale. Growth without intentionality leads to noise. But growth with rhetorical clarity leads to trust, alignment, and momentum.

Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Scaling with the Rhetorical Trio

Sure, ethos, pathos, and logos sound like something straight out of a Western Civ lecture. But they’re tools you’re already using, and when you start using them on purpose, they can become strategic levers for scale.

Let’s break them down, rhetorically and operationally.

Ethos: Credibility That Carries

Ethos is about trust. It’s your credibility. And for most financial advisors, the foundation is already there—your CFP® designation, your niche focus, your XYPN membership, your years of experience. That’s a great start.

But ethos is also about alignment. It’s about consistency between what you say and how you show up.

• If your website says you’re laid-back and approachable, but your email replies feel stiff and formal, that’s a gap in ethos.
• If your “About” page says you specialize in working with creatives, but your brand voice sounds more suited for a traditional wealth management firm? That’s a missed opportunity.

Scaling Tip: Ethos scales through consistency. Build a style guide that documents your brand tone. Audit your website, intake forms, client emails, and blog posts for alignment. The goal is to sound like you, even when it’s not you writing the message.

Pathos: Emotion That Moves

Money is never just about money. It’s about identity. Security. Control. Freedom. Regret. Hope.

That’s where pathos comes in, the emotional connection. Most advisors intuitively use pathos in client meetings (“How are you feeling about your future?”), But forget to use it in their content, marketing, or onboarding systems.

You’re not just selling services, you’re offering peace of mind, agency, and the ability to sleep at night.

• When you share a story about a client who finally felt confident enough to take a sabbatical? That’s pathos.
• When you show your own humanity on social media—what you believe, why you started your firm, what drives you? That’s pathos, too.

Scaling Tip: Pathos scales through storytelling. Build a story bank with real client wins, your own origin story, and key turning points that shaped your firm. Turn those into content, case studies, or automated nurture emails. Emotion creates memorability, and memorability scales trust.

Logos: Logic That Grounds

Let’s be honest, this is where you shine. You’ve got the plans, the numbers, the Monte Carlo simulations, and the tax-efficient withdrawal strategies. Logos is the logic. The structure. The sound reasoning that underpins everything you do.

Logic alone doesn’t inspire action. It reassures, but it rarely converts.

• That blog post breaking down Roth vs. Traditional IRAs? Great. But does it connect to what your niche client cares about?
• That financial plan presentation? Solid. But are you translating those projections into stories that align with their goals?

Scaling Tip: Logos scales through systemization. Templates, calculators, process decks, all of that is great. But go a step further: build repeatable workflows that help team members (or future hires) connect logic to what actually matters to your clients.

Rhetoric at Scale: The Secret to Growing Without Losing Yourself

This is where things get exciting. Once you understand how ethos, pathos, and logos work together, you can start building systems that not only work but also feel like you.

Pro tip: Most advisors over-index on logos and under-leverage pathos and ethos. But the best communicators know how to balance all three.

Scaling isn’t about adding noise. It’s about amplifying what already makes your firm powerful. And rhetorical tools can help you do that in three ways:

1. Brand Voice = Ethos at Scale

Your brand voice is your firm’s ethos when you’re not in the room. It should carry the same tone, values, and positioning whether someone is reading your blog, watching a webinar replay, or chatting with your client service associate.

• Confident but not pushy?
• Casual but still credible?
• Niche-specific but still accessible?

How to Scale It: Write a voice + tone guide. Use it to train team members, align freelancers, and generate AI content that actually sounds like you. It makes delegation possible without diluting your identity.

2. Storytelling = Pathos at Scale

Stories are stickier than spreadsheets. They create emotion, connection, and trust. And when can you bake storytelling into your sales process, client onboarding, and marketing funnel? You scale your humanity, not just your systems.

• Your origin story: Why did you start your firm?
• Client transformation stories: What changes have you helped make possible?
• Micro-stories: Even a metaphor or analogy can create resonance.

How to Scale It: Build a repeatable storytelling framework. Think: a set of five questions you ask every client for a testimonial. A storytelling format for every blog post. A swipe file of metaphors that work for your niche. Create templates that bring emotion in without reinventing the wheel.

3. Systemization = Logos at Scale

Once you define your rhetorical DNA, your core messages, your tone, and your key narratives, you can codify it. That’s when you stop being the only one who “knows how to say it right.”

• Step-by-step process for email follow-ups
• Templates for client communications
• Campaign flows for new service rollouts
• Internal cheat sheets for tone, positioning, and objections

How to Scale It: Use AI tools (like ChatGPT) to help you document and scale your voice, build content libraries, or translate complex logic into plain language, without losing fidelity. When your systems speak with the same clarity and intent you do, growth becomes sustainable.

Grow With Intention, Speak With Strategy

So, next time you catch yourself repeating a phrase from your parents, remember: Your parents’ rhetorical skills are on point; now let’s ensure yours are, too. 

When you start to see rhetoric not as a relic of philosophy class but as a tool for intentional influence, you unlock a new gear in your business. You’re managing meaning. You’re building trust. And that’s not fluff, it’s a core leadership skill. One that doesn’t just help you grow, but helps you grow on purpose, with clarity, with consistency, and with a voice that truly sounds like you.