A cautionary tale
Last week my husband shared an advisor’s Client Newsletter with me. He had received it from a colleague with a note saying “good read” and he forwarded it to me thinking I might be interested.
Before I continue with why I even think this is a topic worthy of a blog, full disclosure. My business partner, Paulette, and I usually write our blogs together – this one is an exception. While we are 100% in sync regarding our thinking about the financial world and our goals – our backgrounds could not be more different. Paulette comes from a financial background while, until less than I decade ago, I knew very little about investing – except to make monthly deposits to my account with an advisor I hardly knew.
My point here is that I am not writing this blog from a StrategyMarketing.ca perspective but rather remembering back to how I felt years ago when I received information like this. In fact, I am shocked, given the massive societal changes and perspectives towards investing, that newsletters like this still exist. But Paulette assured me that sadly they do!
I do not know who this advisor’s clients are except to say that he is an older gentleman, so I strongly suspect that most of his clients are either men, or couples where he likely interacts primarily with the male partner. The newsletter, although well designed with a spring theme, goes on and on, rife with jargon about bonds, yields, inflationary pressures, percentages of this and that and prognostications of what this could all mean. It then continues with more jargon, singing the advisor’s own praises, the practice’s superior client services, proprietary investment tools, and so on – leaving one to conclude that only he/they can save the day. It reads like a brain dump!
Not wanting to limit my assessment, I asked my husband what he thought of the newsletter. Interestingly, he too said the advisor sounded more than a little pompous – not someone he would happily work with.
The bottom line is that newsletters like this not only leave women cold but, in fact, are written with the intent of showcasing the brilliant approach to investing used by the advisor – and in the process it makes the reader feel dumb. This type of language and material kept me intimidated for years, afraid to ask questions or even contemplate changing advisor because – back then – I didn’t know what I didn’t know – that investing and planning for my own financial future didn’t have to be complicated – that actually working with an advisor who helped me understand could be helpful.
I dare say investors today, men and women, are far more savvy and increasingly looking for advisors they can have a relationship with, especially those who are about more than showing how “smart / indispensable” they are.
This then is my cautionary tale – this advisor will likely lose the family assets as the men he’s been dealing with begin to die and the women look for someone else because they never had a relationship with him in the first place. So, I say, with my StrategyMarketing.ca hat firmly back on my head, if you want to grow your practice and succeed, you will need to better engage female investors – the fastest growing market segment today – which means understanding that you cannot win them over by trying to show how smart you are through your client communications. Today, it’s about connecting with clients on a human level and you can only do this effectively through your newsletters, webinars, blogs and other mediums if you always remember – it’s not about you!!
For more information on retaining and acquiring high net worth female investors – visit us at www.strategymarketing.ca