By 2030, women are expected to control two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. Pause a moment and take that in. That’s less than thirteen years away. Will your practice be prepared? To be positioned to serve a changing client base establish recruiting goals that reflect future client demographics. That may mean a targeted strategy to recruit women. Clients are often most comfortable when they see themselves represented in the staff. Let’s look at what’s behind these trends and how to attract female financial professionals to your team.
A few facts
In 47 percent of households where both spouses work full-time, the woman’s income is equal to or higher than their spouse’s. Although slightly more than 46 percent of the workforce, women represent 51 percent of professional workers. Since the 1980’s more women than men earned bachelor degrees. Ranks of women as physicians, dentists, and attorneys continues to trend upward – in fact, 48 percent of medical school graduates are women. This is just a sampling of shifting economics.
Financial professionals benefit by adding female clients for many reasons. Women are more likely to view their financial position holistically, not necessarily seeing investing, retirement planning, and insurance needs as separate issues which increases cross-selling opportunities.
Both disability insurance and long-term care insurance can be considered essential coverage for women. They are far more often the beneficiaries of both coverages. The chance of incurring a disability is higher for women. Read The Changing Client Landscape for Disability Insurance for more about talking to your female clients about disability insurance. Two reasons long-term care insurance can be considered essential for women is:
- More than two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women, and
- Long-term care costs for women are twice as high as for men, averaging more than $180,000.
Tips to successfully recruit women
If your firm is staffed by middle-aged men, it might be time to add some fresh faces. Below are four ways to make your firm a more appealing place for women to work:
- Provide flexible work schedules. Historically, women are the primarily caretakers of children and the elderly. A fixed schedule can be a deal breaker for many women. Adopting new client meeting options, like Skype, FaceTime or GoToMeeting allows your team to work from anywhere. An added benefit is that these meeting options are very important to attract millennials as new clients.
- Provide new recruits with a mentor and a defined training plan. Establish clear goals with the mentor, what is expected, frequency of contact, how success is evaluated, and a formal feedback opportunity. Pre-establish training responsibilities with staff members. Review the training plan with the recruit, evaluation points, and feedback opportunities.
- Offer guaranteed compensation. Commission only compensation can initially be a career barrier for some women. As a group, women take fewer financial risks. The combination of the uncertainty of starting a new career along with forfeiting a salaried position for one that is commission-only may be a risk too great to assume.
- Encourage and support earning industry designations. An earned designation increases the advisor’s confidence and establishes credibility with the client.
Attracting women to your practice as producers and clients is a smart way to grow your disability and long-term care insurance sales. Call your DIS representative for ideas to adjust your client presentations to specifically appeal to the unique needs of female clients. We also have several resources to bring a new producer up to speed. Check out The DIS Crash Course and LTCi Ultimate Case Design resources
