According to Lauren Locker, the founder of Locker Financial Services in Little Falls, N.J., the two biggest challenges the industry faces are building a more diverse workforce and building client trust. The traditional advisor is still an older white male and “we need to get more women into doing this,” says Locker, who is beginning her 27th year in the profession.

Many people think of advisors as the “Wolf of Wall Street,” she says, instead of as financial planners. Advisors need to communicate to clients what they do and help the next generation explore and understand the profession after getting “them to know that we exist,” says Locker, an adjunct professor at William Paterson University. She teaches a financial fundamentals course to 18-year-old prospective financial planning students and talks to them about the soft skills they need to succeed as planners.

A Good Fit

Stacy Lewis, a principal wealth advisor at Atlanta-based TrueWealth Management, is surprised to see so few women when she attends conferences and industry events. “I feel the advisory business if perfectly suited towards women—we listen, we’re empathetic, we like to connect with people,” she says.

Such skills are often a bigger differentiator for advisors than the investment management piece, says Lewis. Advisors at different firms pretty much all have access to the same investment data, but “the differentiator is what we can do to add value to client’s lives,” she says. This includes helping clients remain rational rather than emotional in volatile markets, helping clients make sure their children will be OK if something happens to them, and helping clients figure out whether they should take Social Security payouts and exercise stock options now or later, she says.

Laura Mattia, a partner with Stonegate Wealth Management in Sarasota, Fla., is developing the new personal financial planning degree at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business. Mattia wants to help more women advisors enter the profession for a couple of reasons.

She thinks women who work successfully in finance can serve as role models. “What I find particularly frustrating is that younger women are continuing to delegate financial decision-making to their husbands,” she says. Their lack of engagement, which could put them at risk later on, she says, “is not related to college education; it’s related to these old-fashioned social constructs.” She also thinks women advisors can be good resources for clients who feel less intimidated working with a woman.

Mattia also sees a general need for more industry education. Advisors often “don’t understand the pros and cons of what they’re peddling,” she says, and clients who are sold the wrong products are being damaged.

Retaining Women Advisors

The financial planning profession must make a better effort to retain women advisors who are fleeing for various reasons, says Bridget Venus Grimes, founder and president of WealthChoice and co-founder of the Equita Financial Network, a collaboration of independent, women-led financial planning firms. One deterrent she points to is the big pay disparity between women and men advisors.