Lacy Garcia is the founder and CEO of Willow, an award-winning wealthtech platform powering advisors’ acquisition and growth with women investors. A former financial advisor and marketer, Garcia founded Willow based on her professional and personal experience working with women clients. Through Willow’s Advisor for Women certificate program and marketing platform, advisors gain the knowledge, content and credentials needed to acquire and grow trusted relationships with these clients. Certified advisors get matched exclusively with prospective clients. BlackRock (BLK) is a minority investor in Willow.
Russ Alan Prince: What is Willow, and why did you start the company?
Lacy Garcia: Willow is a wealthtech platform designed to help financial advisors to better serve, attract and grow trusted relationships with women and NextGen clients.
In my mid-30s, I found myself at a personal crossroads and needed to take control of my finances. I was stunned by the impersonal approach of the financial professionals I turned to for support. This lack of personal connection inspired me to create a wealthtech platform dedicated to helping women and NextGen clients find a financial advisor they can trust and connect with on a personal level.
We partner with advisors and provide them with in-depth training to educate them on the unique needs of women, millennials, and GenZ investors so they can properly support them through various life journeys. By doing this, we help these advisors create a practice where this growing population of investors feel understood, supported, and comfortable getting the answers they need without judgment. Once an advisor goes through our training, they are eligible to be matched with warm prospects.
We start by having a conversation with an investor about their interests, personal goals, and financial needs to match them with a financial advisor who shares similar experiences and interests. Our platform has been dubbed the “dating app” for finding an advisor. We combine semantic matching and generative AI to predict successful personal connections between advisors and clients. We go beyond traditional criteria like assets, investment strategies, and location to include personality traits and common passions to match investors with the most compatible advisors for their needs and preferences.
Prince: How does an advisor need to adjust their approach when working with women and NextGen clients?
Garcia: Due to the great wealth transfer moving ~$73 trillion within families (Cerulli Associates), advisors must rethink their approach to women and NextGen clients. Women want a personal connection. They want to work with someone who listens to them, understands them, and truly wants them to be successful. The top factors that influence how a woman gives an advisor a high net promoter score are getting a follow-up call and caring about them as a person beyond their finances. Additionally, according to a 2022 study by Fidelity, 85% of millennials and Gen Z indicated they would like behavioral coaching to avoid financial mistakes, procrastination, and rash decision-making.
When investors come to trustwillow.com to find an advisor, we ask them to describe their perfect advisor. The top three things we hear from investors are:
• Empathy and personal connection: They want to feel a personal connection to an advisor who is empathetic, understanding and who cares about their values and life goals.
• Trust: They want to be introduced to someone who understands them. By only introducing them to Advisor for Women and Advisor for NextGen Certificate Holders, we are able to begin establishing trust, even before they meet the advisor.
• Life Journey Expertise: They want an advisor who is knowledgeable, straightforward, and experienced in helping clients navigate life journeys and transitions that have both financial and emotional implications, such as divorce, widowhood, entrepreneurship, career transitions, retirement, family building, etc.
Advisors who are able to convey these things as they look to bring on new clients and develop existing relationships are going to be most successful today and in the future.
Prince: How do the Willow Advisor for Women and Advisor for NextGen Certificate Programs help advisors better connect with these cohorts?
Garcia: Willow’s certificate programs support advisors in developing the skills, knowledge, and online presence to connect with women and NextGen clients by focusing on what matters most to these groups. Each program focuses on the unique needs, habits, values, and preferences of its constituents. We also place a heavy emphasis on behavioral coaching and teaching advisors how to effectively integrate coaching into their practice. Each advisor has a 1-1 session with a Willow Financial Life Coach where we help them create an advisor profile to best showcase their “why.”
Willow’s white glove client acquisition platform provides advisors with warm matches who meet their criteria. By combining semantic matching and generative AI with human QA, an advisor is only introduced to warm prospects who they want as clients and who want to work with them. We focus on maximizing an advisor's valuable time by only introducing them to clients who we believe are a good fit.
Prince: What makes your approach to advisor-client lead matching different?
Garcia: Unlike the traditional “lead gen” model, we have developed an advisor education and white-glove matching platform that enhances the advisor-client relationship for both parties.
Helping advisors build an emotional connection with investors is central to what we do. Through the initial certificate program, we ensure that advisors have access to the latest best practices, coaching methodologies, and proven frameworks to do this, particularly in today’s “digital first” environment.
Ensuring people feel heard, cared about, and respected is what we strive to do in every online and personal interaction. When an investor engages with Willow they are not immediately sent to an advisor. Our customer success team has a brief discussion with each investor to make sure they understand the next steps, answer any questions, and are ready to move forward, providing white glove service. This helps investors understand that they have been heard and provides advisors with the comfort that any warm match we introduce them to is the right client for them and highly likely to convert. Right now, our advisors are seeing more than 70% of matches becoming clients. Our platform has been listed as 2024 Wealth Management Industry Awards finalist.
Russ Alan Prince is a strategist for family offices and the ultra-wealthy. He has co-authored 70 books in the field, including Making Smart Decisions: How Ultra-Wealthy Families Get Superior Wealth Planning Results.