The catchphrase “The Year of the Woman,” adopted in 1992 after many women captured seats in Congress, resurfaced in 2018 amid the success of women in the nation’s midterm elections and the growth of the #MeToo movement. The financial planning profession needs to get serious about making this “the century of the woman.”

The industry can’t afford not to attract and retain more women advisors if it’s to continue to thrive and serve its expanding client base, according to many of the women advisors who’ll be speaking at Financial Advisor’s 2019 Invest in Women conference.

“I really feel like we are pretty much at a historic crossroad,” says Lynn Ballou, a regional director with EP Wealth Advisors in Lafayette, Calif., and a co-founder of its women’s initiative. Women have done a pretty good job bringing forth the issue that the industry needs more women advisors. However, “we can’t just keep talking to each other about something we already know is true or nothing is going to change,” she says.

It’s time “to reach across the aisle [to men] and have this be a human conversation, not a gender conversation,” she says. Adding to its urgency is the mass exodus of baby boomers retiring from the profession.

It’s not enough to simply pass the torch to the next generation, says Ballou. “Companies are going to go under if they can’t figure out how to create job ladders, career paths, benefits and flexibility for women and really for both genders,” she says. “That’s how the American worker is evolving in all professions in all industries.”

Advisors should reach out to high schools and colleges because “we need a financially literate citizenry,” says Ballou, who notes most states don’t require high schoolers to learn about finances. Young women and men must be introduced to the subject and the profession—including its many non-advisor positions—so they can consider it as a career path, she says.

“If we’re waiting to capture women as they change professions later in life, we’re really blowing an opportunity,” says Ballou.

Lisa Brown, a partner and wealth advisor at Brightworth in Atlanta, is excited more people are reaching out for financial help as wealth expands and tax laws change. However, there’s “not enough new talent coming into the industry to handle the growing number of clients that need to be served and served well,” she says. As more women amass wealth and make financial decisions for their families, demand for women advisors will continue to rise, she says.

Brightworth is knocking on the doors of colleges to tell underclassmen about the planning profession and to offer internships. The firm also likes to recruit CPAs because they’re detail oriented and understand taxes. The hardest area to train advisors in is taxes, says Brown, “and it’s the No. 1 area that spans across every element of financial planning.”

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.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women personal financial advisors working full time in 2018 earned 73 cents for every dollar earned by their male peers. In 2016, the women earned just 56% of what men earned—the biggest gender disparity among all professions tracked by the bureau.

Kimberly Foss, president and founder of Empyrion Wealth Management in Roseville, Calif., is concerned by the “churn and burn” pace that advisors at the wirehouses are expected to keep in order to quickly develop a huge book of business. From what she hears from young brokers, the production demands are even tougher now than when she departed Merrill Lynch for the RIA world over 20 years ago.

“Advisors pumped up on that might not make the right decisions for clients,” says Foss. She thinks RIA practices are more conducive to women because “we’re planners, we’re organizers and we look to the future.”

Catherine Seeber, an advisor at CAPTRUST in Lewes, Del., has found women advisors are more likely to succeed if they have mentors to help them through work challenges and if they find the right corporate culture. “They need to go where they will flourish and it’s not one-size-fits all,” she says. “They have to match their personality and their drive with the company that they decide to associate themselves with.”

“The biggest stumbling block for advisors is consumer perception of what advisors actually do,” says Seeber. Financial planners are emphasizing the value of all the things they do beyond the investment piece. Those with a primary focus (either with a particular type of work or type of client) are becoming the most successful, she says. Advisors need to develop client needs around client goals, she adds.

Reaching Underserved Markets

Women advisors are successfully carving out niches in underserved markets. Reshell Smith, a CFP and the founder and CEO of AMES Financial Solutions in Ocoee, Fla., focuses on minority women.

“I think we haven’t done a great job as advisors, overall, going to the places where [these clients] are,” she says, including churches, women empowerment events and festivals geared toward minority women. She believes any advisor could successfully work with minority women, but their “initial touch with a financial advisor,” she says, is generally someone referred to them through their friends, family or church.

Cheryl Glazer, who has a master's degree in taxation, runs a divorce and transitions financial consulting practice in Wynnewood, Pa. The divorce planning niche requires a lot of patience, diligence and dedication, she says. “You’re working with people in a very delicate situation.” Clients are often fragile, she says, and things can move exceedingly slowly.

Advisors must meet a number of challenges, says Glazer, including trying to get folks to agree, staying objective and keeping up with tax law changes. Advisors often have to give women going through divorce a financial education and the confidence to look ahead, she adds. Divorce and transitions planning could be a good fit for many female advisors because “women are great collaborators, and they’re good conciliators,” she says.

Unmet Demand

Melissa Joy spent 19 years commuting to an RIA firm in the Detroit metro area, but was seeking a better work-life balance when she opened her own firm, Pearl Planning, last year above a pizzeria in her hometown of Dexter, Mich. She continues to work with her clients from Detroit and around the country. What has been “unexpected but terrific for business,” she says, is the unmet demand coming her way from her community, where she’s the only advisor with the CFP credential.

“People are looking for the same building blocks,” says Joy, whether they’re in big markets or small markets. Retirement is at the top of clients’ minds, she says, as are college funding and figuring out how to invest after maxing out on 401(k) contributions. “It’s been a wonderful gift to integrate my professional identity with my personal life,” she adds.

The financial planning profession will be lucky to see more women join its ranks—and stay.