OK, financial services providers, here’s a tough fact: 70% of widows walk. That means she doesn’t feel any loyalty for the financial advisor her husband chose. And this is a big problem for you. The average age of widowhood for women is 60 years old– and she’s going to live 20 years beyond that. Keep those wealthy widow clients!
Watch the video: Don’t Let the Wealthy Widows Get Away!
With healthier diets, different lifestyles and advances in health care, we’re all living longer. At first glance, this would seem to add an extra decade to the end of life, but on the contrary! It’s more like adding an extra decade to the middle, somewhere around age 50. These days, 55 is very alive. The stereotype of ages 50-70 may be “the sunset years,” but the reality is that it’s more like high noon!
Boomer women encounter the added decade of life very differently from the way midlife men do. While both men and women approach their 50th birthdays with a good deal of apprehension, as it turns out, the midlife transition is a good deal easier on women.
Most men reach 50 alarmed about sliding downhill for the rest of their lives. They want to stay where they are, to keep what they’ve got. Some try to recapture the feelings of their youth—they act on their rebellious impulses. Some don’t know what to do with themselves after retirement and no longer have a power role in society. They stay at home and putter around the house, declining to exercise or socialize.
To women, 50 comes as a gift. For most, it’s a major life shift, from the “mom” mode to the “me” mode (In case you think I’m overgeneralizing about the mom mode, consider that by the age of 40, 84% of women have had children). At the same time as the kids are leaving home, leaving mothers with more time, those moms get a little extra boost of post-menopausal zest. They use the added decade of life to go back to college or start a new business. It’s finally “my time,” and they make the most of it. They feel lucky to have the luxury of focusing on themselves, finding their inner individuality, and fulfilling long-suppressed dreams.
The potential for marketing to these Boomer women should be quite apparent—but how does one go about developing marketing strategies? The most powerful ways for marketers to create relevance and appeal for women is to elicit “That’s me!” moments—when a woman sees herself in the situation and your product or service as the solution. As women approach their 50s, they are even more in tune with “That’s me!” moments than before. And we already know this is a sizeable marketing target—the National Association of Baby Boomer Women share that there are over 39 million Boomer women in the US.
Selling to women one-on-one is fairly easy to master. If you understand women’s gender culture and respect her decision-making process, you’ll be miles ahead of most other salespeople.
But selling to couples is trickier. The adage “three’s a crowd,” comes into play because you’re managing three personalities and styles– the woman, the man and yourself. And when you’re selling complex, high-investment products or services, like financial planning or home remodeling, it can start to feel like you’re a counselor as much as you’re a salesperson!
Identify the answer to this question to get started:
When the couple is buying something for her— her car, her computer, her new kitchen, if the salesman talks to the husband, he gets one warning, often from the husband. If the salesman continues, they leave. There is no room for mistakes here.
When the couple is buying for him, you still need to talk to her. Whether it’s a man cave or a yacht, the wife needs to be sold also. There was once a young yacht salesman who figured out how to sell to couples. He said that he doesn’t target the husband; he already wants the boat. He sells to the wife because she’s the one who needs to be convinced. And he became one of the most successful salespeople in his company using this strategy.
Remember, women have enormous influence on the conventionally male big-ticket items, whether she intends to be the primary user or not.
When you’re selling financial services to women, it can be easy to miss who controls the finances behind the scenes. In affluent families, control of wealth and finances may not be as straightforward as it seems. Marti’s story of one affluent Boomer couple reveals that women often have “hidden” financial control.
Watch the video: Women’s Hidden Financial Acumen
For financial advisors, developing a relationship with the husband is not enough. 70% of widows leave the financial advisor chosen by their husband! Here’s how to get to know the couple.
Watch the video: Know The Couple OR How to Meet the Wives
Here are six points to share with your financial advisory team about why you should be marketing financial services to women:
So put these points up on your bulletin board, add them to your internal communications and make sure everyone understands the opportunity you’re missing if you’re not marketing to women!
Affluent women are everywhere– 50% of millionaires are women, and they are poised to inherit 70% of the $41 trillion in inter-generational wealth transfer expected over the next 40 years. Women have the money, and they will only get more of it.
But that’s only one (really big!) reason to sell financial services to women. Here are four more:
To learn more about selling to women, watch some of my Selling Financial Services to Women videos. I’ve put together this super-helpful playlist, sure to provide useful to-dos and to-DON’Ts that help you up your sales game.
In terms of customer service and satisfaction, women rank financial services dead last in a list of over 50 industries. For those of you in financial services, don’t worry. You are tied for last– with the auto industry! Yikes!
But half of all millionnaires are women, and this market is only growing. What an opportunity for a hero of selling to women!
Watch the video: Women Hate Financial Services. What a Sales Opportunity!
We know that 55% of affluent women think wealth managers could do a better job serving women. And 73% are overall “most dissatisfied” with the financial services industry.
And no wonder. Almost nobody even bothers to prospect women (let alone building great client relationships with them)! According to LIMRA:
Some financial advisors have told me that men don’t prospect women because, “Women investors prefer women advisors.” Nope, I’m not buying it! Economist Dr. Sasha Galbraith revealed that merely 11% of women prefer a woman advisor, with 85% having no preference concerning their advisor’s gender.
In a market where women will soon control 70% of private wealth and 50% of millionaires are women, I’m almost in shock that financial advisors would basically ignore this lucrative segment. Besides her affluence, women make better clients.
If you aren’t prospecting women already, what’s holding you back? Please leave a comment and let me know– I’m incredibly curious.
Wow, I bet you didn’t know that 50% of millionaires in the U.S. are women, did you?
Millionaires make up 9% of U.S. adults:
These days, most wealthy women earn their own wealth. Of women with at least $3m in investable assets, 61% earned it themselves, according to Russ Prince and Hannah Grove in Women of Wealth. Women like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, fashion designer Tory Burch and Spanx inventor Sara Blakely are becoming the new face of wealth.
And here’s another shocking fact:
LIMRA, the insurance and financial services trade organization, finds only 50% of female producers prospect women, with only 20-25% of male producers prospecting women. Marketing to these wealthy women is not only smart– but it’s also less competitive!
Consider this heads-up my favor to you. But you’d better act fast before someone else earns the loyalty of these high net-worth women.