Connect with women or risk losing business: panel

“In North America, and really globally, one-third of the wealth is held by women and more and more we see that growing in future,” said Betsey Chung, vice president and head of marketing and client strategy, BMO Private Client Group. “It’s been growing around eight per cent annually for the last decade.”

Chung gave three reasons for this constant growth: more women are entering the workforce both full-time and part-time; they have a longer life expectancy than men; high divorce rates.

Despite that fact that women are now likely to be in control of wealth and financial decisions, advisors have done a poor job of meeting their needs, according to Richard Mills, co-head, executive vice president, managing director, BMO Nesbitt Burns.

Only 30% of Canadian women are satisfied with the services provided by their advisors, said Mills citing studies conducted by Nesbitt Burns. As well, almost 40% of women feel that their advisors and the industry do not take their financial needs seriously.

“Clearly that [opinion] is something we have to fix,” said Mills. “One, because that’s just the right thing to do and two, because of the opportunity’s that’s there.”

One of the ways the industry can ensure it is connecting with current and future female clients, according to Mills, is by bolstering its female advisor workforce. BMO studies show that 31% of women prefer to receive advice from female advisors. However, Mills notes that at Nesbitt Burns women make up only 15% of the advisor workforce.

While Mills believes his firm is willing to hire more female advisors, few women apply for the job. “I would say that there is no prejudice against hiring women amongst our management group,” he said, “but we don’t get enough resumes and so we’ve had to look at how to solve that.”

To try and bridge that gap, Nesbitt Burns has two people responsible for the hiring of rookie financial advisors, with a particular emphasis on female candidates. As well, mindful that many advisor rookies are starting in their role as a second career, said Burns, Nesbitt Burns actively reaches out and recruits from the legal, accounting and even teaching professions.

Of course, building a larger workforce of female advisors takes time and doesn’t help financial advisors working with clients today. Instead, advisors should consider taking a financial planning approach to their business, suggests Mills, to make sure they speak with female partners, who traditionally are often absent from client meetings.

“If you build your business around a financial planning approach then almost by definition you have to include both sides of the family,” he said. “You have to bring the spouse [into the conversation].”