Financial advisors who understand women’s time constraints are more likely to gain their trust and their business, according to a survey by the Center for Talent Innovation, a research and consulting organization.
Advisors who do not understand women’s needs, including the need to manage the details she does not have time for, are less likely to have a lasting relationship with women clients, says the study, "Harnessing the Power of the Purse: Female Investors and Global Opportunities for Growth."
The study compares the women who report being satisfied with their advisors and those who are not, and determined that advisors who consider these issues are 69 percent more likely to have a satisfactory relationship with women clients.
Similar advantages were found for advisors who create a safe atmosphere for women to ask questions and those who help educate them, the data says.
Advisors who do not consider these needs are leaving money on the table, the center says.
Women control $11.2 trillion in the United States, or 39 percent of the nation’s investable assets. Seventy-five percent of the women who created their own wealth consider themselves the primary decisions makers for its use. At the same time, 66 percent of the women who inherited wealth are the decision makers and 43 percent of the women whose spouse created the wealth consider themselves the primary decision maker.
“Women are, in short, economic powerhouses. They are not just influencing wealth but determining how their assets are allocated,” the center says. “Yet this robust female market is startlingly untapped.”
Fifty-three percent of women surveyed do not have a financial advisor. Of those who do have an advisor, 67 percent feel their advisor does not understand them or is not interested in them. The survey included 1,101 respondents in the United States with an income of at least $100,000 or investable assets of at least $500,000.