In part one of this article, we explored why women are still in the minority in this profession. But we also looked at how far they have come in our industry, recounting the stories of four successful female advisors. (To read part one, visit the Online Extras section of www.fa-mag.com). From the stories we shared in part one, a few themes emerged:

Women work extremely hard and often harder than men to get ahead.
Female advisors have in the past had their accomplishments minimized by colleagues and clients because of their gender.
Successful female advisors perceive gender as neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.
The female advisors we interviewed believe women are naturally good listeners and gifted in forming relationships.
Ever since Rosie the Riveter kicked open the door to the workplace during World War II, women have made their way into most industries in increasing numbers. Medical schools commonly report that more than 50% of those entering classes are women. The worlds of dentistry and the clergy have also experienced dramatic gender shifts. But it's taking longer to bring higher numbers of females into the financial services orbit. Today less than 30% of financial advisors are women.

Many think the things that make women good medical professionals and clergy members should also make them good financial planners. So why is there slower growth in our field? Is it a lack of confidence among women in their math skills? A lack of role models? Or is it perhaps a life balance problem-a challenge facing women to handle both growing families and a growing book of clients?

What To Do?
Given these problems, should our industry take proactive steps to increase its number of women? Some observers argue yes. Advocates believe the natural affinity of women for financial advising means they should get support for their careers. Others say no. Either way, here's a look at some of the issues facing women in our field.

There's a perception that women aren't as comfortable with math. Within the last couple of years, Reuters reported on studies showing that girls in the United States now perform similar to boys on standardized math tests at nearly all grade levels. Yet there's a widely held perception they score lower. If young women themselves think that way, it could be one of the reasons more of them don't enter financial services.

The fact is that relationship skills trump math skills in an advisor's daily work anyway. "[But] if the market tanks and clients are asking hard truths about their investments, the advisor needs more than relationship skills," says Deb Brede, an advisor with D.K. Brede Investment Management Company Inc. in Needham, Mass. "From a production perspective, advisors can be successful in the short term by being the 'front' person, but then you better have great people, such as portfolio constructors and analysts, behind you."

Women often feel they must not only meet expectations, but exceed them. That was the finding of a 2008 Catalyst Inc. study called "Women and Men in Canadian Investment Dealers and U.S. Financial Services," and it was certainly a theme with the five women we profiled.

Even if it is true that women are naturally oriented to be great financial planners, the female advisor needs to know her stuff cold, even more so than a successful male advisor does, successful female advisors say.

Some aren't sticking with the profession. Entering the career is one thing, but staying with it is something else. Erin Botsford of the Botsford Group (a firm with offices in Texas, Georgia and New Jersey) says some women treat the profession like a cottage industry, without making a serious commitment to it. In the long term, this can stunt their role in the industry and keep their ranks from growing beyond 25%.

One way to encourage women to maintain their careers is to form support organizations, such as the Washington, D.C.-based CFP Study Group, which has been around for 23 years. The 15 female members of the group-RIAs or senior advisors affiliated with different broker/dealers-dine together four or five times annually. All members have at least ten years of experience and are FPA members; most of them are business owners. They gather to discuss issues such as compliance, practice management, investments and fees.

"What's beneficial to me is that we think about issues differently and share perspectives to help each other," says one member of the group, Judy Redpath of VISTA Wealth Strategies in Reston, Va.  

There's a need for mentoring. Some corporations offer formal mentoring programs. More typically, women mentor each other. But those seen as mentors are often the most successful in the industry and therefore extremely busy, so the mentoring commitment requires great personal sacrifice.

Advisor Deena Katz, a partner at Evensky & Katz in Coral Gables, Fla., believes wholeheartedly that women who can reach out to other women, should-by both recruiting them and mentoring them once they are in the industry.

Women need to take more risk. Being your own boss and setting up your own tent is a great way to level the playing field. And the independent channel is a great place to do this, where a woman can shape her own business environment-everything from what she pays herself to what people she associates with to what services she offers.

The problem is that women may be too risk-averse to choose this path (though that's a problem for men, too).

Training programs have become scarcer. The formal training programs offered by the wirehouses are less common than they used to be, though high-profile discrimination lawsuits and enhanced awareness have at least helped ensure that the selection process for admission to such programs is gender-neutral.

So what about university programs dedicated to financial planning? Despite the gender-neutral selection process, even here there is seemingly trouble. Deena Katz, an associate professor, reports that it's only occasionally females make up at least half of her entering classes at Texas Tech. Instead, the applicants and enrollees to the Texas Tech program usually sport the same 3-to-1 ratio of males to females that the financial advisory profession at large does.

There are more opportunities, however, for women across the industry to get together and network through events. One of these is the Barron's Winner's Circle Top Women Financial Advisors Summit, held annually for the nation's top 100 female advisors.

Carrie Coghill of D.B. Root & Company in Pittsburgh has been named to the top 100 list for six years, and she attends the conference every year to meet with participants willing to share valuable ideas and strategies. "Women have unique qualities when it comes to managing client relationships. Having a venue for top women advisors to learn from each other has personally enabled me to come away from the conferences with ideas I am comfortable implementing in my practice."

Some people believe that we'll need to recruit women simply for demographic reasons: After all, we have to prepare for a projected increase in the number of affluent widows as baby boomers age. The question is whether these widows will stick with their families' old advisors or seek someone new, perhaps a woman.

Further complicating the issue is that there are other minorities underrepresented in financial advice.

"Why target women as opposed to any other minority not represented within the industry's numbers?" asks female advisor Alex Armstrong of Armstrong, Fleming & Moore Inc. in Washington D.C.

Getting The Word Out
There are only 310,000 financial advisors in the U.S., according to a recent report from Cerulli Associates, so this is still a small industry, one that needs to get the word out. The CFP Board recently announced efforts to increase consumer awareness about the value of the CFP certification, and the industry must also increase awareness about the attractive career possibilities it offers. The bottom line is that the industry must capture competent people from all groups. The FPA has a program to help high school students learn about the profession, and it recently introduced a new Web site titled "Women and Finance."

But it is likely that proactive women won't wait for someone to create a program to support them. They will, undoubtedly, create what they need for themselves. It's what they've always done.

Joni Youngwirth is the managing principal of practice management at Commonwealth Financial Network, a registered investment advisor, in Waltham, Mass. She can be reached at [email protected].