Home / Education / Tapping into the power of female clients

As an adviser, you want your clients to be educated on the importance of financial advice.  Research has shown that a one-size-fits-all approach to communication isn’t the most effective tactic and while it’s near impossible to customise messages person to person, it turns out that it’s quite easy to customise them by one big factor – gender. 

It’s widely accepted that there are differing preferences in communication styles and learning techniques between most men and women. The question is – How can you adjust your message in a way that’s enlightening, not alienating, for your female participants?

It is common knowledge that women have longer average lifespans than men, yet they tend to underestimate how much they need to save for retirement. Women generally expect they’ll need less in retirement savings than men because they are retiring with less, but the truth is that they will likely need more.

Armed with this knowledge, Invesco Global Consulting began the process of creating a method to assist advisers attract and better communicate with female investors and clients. During the creation of the program, we tested numerous options for titles with specific references to women.

One of the first things we heard from female investors is that they do not want to be singled out by their gender. In fact, any title that included a gender reference such as “What Women Know About Money” or “The Female Financial Advantage” consistently scored in the bottom 20% in our research study in comparison to other gender-neutral titles.

Why? Because women often view these approaches as carrying a subtle suggestion of inferiority, as if the “women’s version” was created for those who don’t qualify for the regular version. We found that a better approach is to create educational and marketing materials with the preferences of women in mind, that don’t highlight them as “special” or “different”.  In other words, simply work to meet the needs of your female participants without labeling them.

This is the approach Invesco Global Consulting took when creating our investor education workshop “Your Prosperity Picture” (notice the lack of women-specific labels in the title). We found that there are three key principles that resonate with many female investors, and we incorporated these in our program:

1.           Provide experience before explanation

2.           Align life goals with financial goals

3.           Be positive

Principle No. 1: Provide an experience before an explanation.

Before you start getting into the granular detail about your female clients’ portfolio, give them an experience, an activity – the purpose of this is to get them talking.

But what kind of activity? There has been extensive research done on the power of visualisation exercises. Science has shown us that if you visualise a particular goal that requires financial resources, such as traveling or pursing a hobby, it helps to condition the brain to look for information and resources that might help in achieving that goal. Walking clients through a visualisation exercise that focuses on their goals can be a great way to begin a financial workshop or client meeting.

Principle No. 2: Align life goals with financial goals.

One of our studies has shown that women who feel their financial advisers have successfully helped align their financial goals with their life goals are over 40% more likely to be satisfied with their adviser/client relationship. In our “Your Prosperity Picture” workshops, we explain   the process of creating a visual financial plan with your clients that illustrates and orders their short-term and long-term goals by the number of financial resources that will be necessary to make those goals happen. Connecting your clients’ vision to the benefits of your financial advice will set the stage.

Principle No. 3: Be positive.

This article opened with some sobering facts about women and longevity risk, but we would advocate to not include these in a client conversation. Invesco Global Consulting’s research has clearly shown that negativity doesn’t sit well with most female clients and trying to scare them into action can backfire. In fact, the principle of being positive is so powerful that it transcends gender.

It’s proven to be one of the most important and consistent language trends that we have seen since we began our language research in 2009. Rather than focusing on the possibility of negative outcomes and how to avoid them, focus on the motivation of achieving what’s possible. Position your benefits plan to help your clients reach their goals, rather than taking a doom-and-gloom approach.

In general, women and men have different learning styles and communication preferences, but women don’t want to be singled out. A plan designed for these needs won’t include “women” in the title but will follow three key principles: providing experience before explanation, aligning life goals with financial goals, and maintaining a positive message.

Invesco Global Consulting is a unique resource that exists to help advisers in the three areas all advisers consistently focus on – winning new business, retaining existing clients and growing their wallet and market share. We focus solely on the importance of the client relationship, methodically researching the language of our industry and the emotions associated with it to create actionable and implementable practice management and business strategy programs, assisting advisers across Australia.