Advisor Marketing: Success with Affluent Women

Advisor Marketing: Success with Affluent Women

The Affluent Women Market is a niche you simply can’t afford to ignore. Regardless of what niche you are working, every successful “advisor marketing” plan and small business marketing strategy should at least include the basic essentials to ensure you do not get fired when their spouse dies or worse never being hired.

When I began working with the affluent female market 20+ years ago, it was definitely under the radar. But today, females control 51 percent of all private wealth in the U.S. and make up 43 percent of the North American affluent market with more than $500,000 in average assets.

Affluent women are also decision-makers. Up to 98% of widows change their advisors when their spouse dies. This is important because the average age of a widow is just 56 — leaving them in charge of the family finances for decades.

Advisor Marketing Strategy: The affluent women opportunity

Understanding the needs and habits of affluent females can give you amazing insights in regard to tapping into the potential of this valuable niche market.

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America recently released a study on women, money and power. The study revealed that affluent females are interested in learning about:

* Planning for retirement/maintaining lifestyle (54 percent)
* Saving and investing with limited income (53 percent)
* The basics of buying smart (46 percent)
* Buying/selecting the right insurance products (41 percent)
* Defining basic financial terms (40 percent)

Participants of the study also shared that they’ve had trouble understanding all of the financial information they receive and feel overwhelmed by it. This can open the door for a sympathetic advisor who’ll take the time to explain the different elements of a sound financial plan.

I created my Women and Money courses because I know how strongly affluent women value education. I’ve found that they prefer learning in a non-threatening environment with their peers and they want to feel knowledgeable prior to hiring an advisor.

A Russ Allen Prince study of wealthy females found that slightly more than 41 percent are afraid when they make financial decisions. Most of the study participants had more than one advisor and 43.5 percent had four advisors. This confirmed my own findings that affluent women will employ numerous advisors until they have a plan they understand and an advisor with whom they feel comfortable.

According to this study, the following factors were critical in the financial advisor selection process:

* An advisor’s approach to financial planning (75.0 percent)
* An advisor’s ability to listen (70.4 percent)
* An advisor’s focus on personal financial goals (70.0 percent)
* An advisor’s ability to explain financial information (65.5 percent)

The same study also revealed that the biggest fear of 47.4 percent of all respondents was losing their money. My own research supports this finding and goes even further to identify the underlying issue: nine out of 10 females don’t want to be a burden on their kids and want an advisor who can give them the peace of mind that comes from financial security and independence.

Advisor Marketing Strategy: Choosing with which affluent women to work

Now that you know a little bit about the mindset of this affluent niche market, it’s time to find some clients.

Over the years I’ve heard peers say, “I don’t like to work with women.” Before I understood that there are four basic personality types and three types of affluent females, I felt this way, too.

Let’s take a moment to review the four basic personality types of all people, regardless of gender:

* Doers are short on patience and need to get to the bottom line quickly.
* Expressives love to talk and are rarely without words.
* Amiables avoid conflict and just want to be your friend.
* Analyticals like to analyze data and can find it difficult to make decisions.

Add to this the three types of affluent females:

* Traditionals are wives and/or moms who are generally dominant Amiable personalities and non-dominant Expressive or Analytical personalities. They’re often married to Doer personality types.

* Non-Traditionals are executives and entrepreneurs who are generally dominant Doer or Analytic personalities and non-dominant Expressive or Analytical personalities.

* Combinations possess elements of both Traditionals and Non-Traditionals and generally combine all the personality traits and most often Doer, Expressive and Amiable personalities.

Use this information to your advantage to create an ideal client profile and find the kinds of affluent females you’ll most enjoy working with. If you’re a Doer, for example, you may want to avoid working with Traditional, Analytical women because they don’t like to make decisions and generally have very little need for completing tasks in a timely manner.

Think about the clients you really like working with today, and try to determine their personality types. This will help you decide which types of affluent women will be most compatible with you, so you can start attracting them through targeted marketing and referral efforts.

For more marketing to affluent women or to attend a webinar on how to tap into this market go to Women.