Marketing wealth management to women with Charlotte Beyer
You know that women present an attractive audience for your wealth management or other financial services. “Women with Wallets,” a chapter of Charlotte Beyer’s Wealth Management Unwrapped: Unwrap What You Need to Know & Enjoy the Present, made me think about how you should market to women. Her book targets your potential clients instead of advisors.
1.Don’t treat all women as the same
Beyer points out that women are not all the same. Women who are newly widowed, single and highly successful in their field, married and staying at home with kids, newly divorced, or the beneficiary of a large inheritance will have distinctive needs. She tells women considering a firm to ask themselves if they feel they will be treated as an individual, not a stereotype.
To avoid gender assumptions, here’s what Beyer suggested in an email interview with me, “Look at each woman first as an individual, then discover her goals, her comfort with securities markets, and her hoped-for outcomes, both tangible and intangible.” She also suggests asking questions such as “How much do you know about securities markets?” and “How much time do you want to devote to your finances?”
2. Your employee policies matter, too
Showing respect for women clients and prospects isn’t enough. Your firm’s respect for women should permeate your firm’s culture.
Think about how your firm would fare if potential clients follow these four suggestions by Beyer:
- Request that a diverse team be assigned to you. This team should include younger and older, male and female, and ethnic variety as well.
- Inquire about the representation of women on the firm’s board and at senior levels, as well as the annual turnover/promotion of women professionals versus men.
- Find out how maternity leave policy works at the firm. Ask about flextime, paternity policy, and elder care leave.
- Ask what training or educational workshops are offered to women clients. Also ask what professional skills training is offered to women professionals in the organization.
In her email to me, Beyer said, “While many firms may not have answers that will satisfy the client, the willingness to examine current policies and be open to change is appreciated by clients. Cultural change comes slowly, and these questions can speed up the process.”
In addition, she said, “If a firm is proactive and begins to tackle these questions before they are asked, this shows a genuine desire to analyze gender issues. That will be detected quickly by clients and seen as a positive—even as the firm struggles to bring in more women advisors, for example. The turnover of women in financial services is well known. If a culture is not welcoming what women will remain with this firm? Good news: just asking the tough questions internally benefits that firm.
Looking for more book recommendations? Check out “My 2017 reading, with book recommendations for you.”
Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.
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. In her book, she quotes someone talking about how they help clients, saying “We tell our companies about the bad days—and there will be bad days—and how we will help them through.”
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