Attracting women clients: tales from the trenches

The following is an edited transcript of an Aug. 14 webcast, “Attracting Women Clients: Tales from the Trenches,” moderated by InvestmentNews editor Frederick P. Gabriel Jr. and contributing editor Mary Beth Franklin.

InvestmentNews: Jeff, tell us as the one man on our panel — and you can inspire the men in our audience — how you reach out to attract and retain female clients.

Mr. Stoffer: Most people want to know why, being a guy, I'm doing these [Women and Money] groups. I didn't wake up one morning and say, “Oh, I think women are my target audience.” But about a year ago I had this stretch where it seemed like 80% of my new clients were women — and mostly those who had inherited some money. As I look back, I was beginning to ask questions of women that allowed them to talk about how they felt about their money, about the relationships they had with the people who left them money and about values, and it seemed kind of easy and natural.

About that time, I had this prospect who kept rescheduling our initial meeting. She usually gave an excuse. It had something to do with “I'm still gathering the information.” We did finally meet, and toward the end of the meeting I said, “How was it for you, getting all your financial information together and coming in here and talking to me?”

She just laid it all out there. She said, “Oh, it's extremely difficult, and I felt so embarrassed that my affairs are in such disarray. I'm ashamed that I don't have more saved at this stage in my life … I feel a lot more clarity on what I need to do now. Thank you.” Something clicked in that exchange. I really felt her sense of relief and gratitude just in talking about it.

I've been interested in emotions and money for a number of years now, and I'm coming to appreciate how much of our behavior with money is unconscious.

EMPOWERING WOMEN

InvestmentNews: Heather, let's turn to you. You have a broad practice dealing with various types of women. Can you tell us about it?

Ms. Ettinger: When I came into the industry about 29 years ago I quickly noticed that women were not being invited to the table and not being taken seriously, when in fact many had the potential to be very influential with their wealth in their own right.

I began being involved with some remarkable philanthropists who, as women of wealth, mentored and guided me about their perceived gaps and needs from the advisory business … They asked me to build an education program for women, both about finances and investments, but also about empowering women around charitable giving.

So if you fast-forward to today, we've built a formal practice fondly referred to at Fairport as Women in Transition. Half of my partners are now women, and we educate women through our trademarked program, “Solutions for Women,” which caters to women's learning styles, and through providing unique deliverables for niche markets within the broader women's market.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, you do a lot in social media, blogging, reaching out to women. Could you tell us about your practice?

Ms. Curtis: I started focusing my marketing efforts on attracting women clients about four years ago, with very successful results. Prior to that I didn't have a niche at all, and it was very difficult in such a competitive field to attract the clients I wanted. So after taking a 12-week branding course, I made the leap and decided to focus on savvy women and their families. I realized that I could add a lot of value in helping women and not worry about all the clients I might not be reaching.

In part of that branding course, I learned a lot about social media. At first, I spent time at women-centric networking events and speaking in front of women's groups to meet women and find out what their needs were. But then I started to learn more about the various social-media platforms. I've added that to my marketing mix in a very big way. Now, many times, women find me through a web-based search.

STRUCTURING AN EVENT

InvestmentNews: Jeff, let's talk about some nitty-gritty details about the Women and Money events you hold. How many people do you invite? How do you structure the format? How long does it last?

Mr. Stoffer: I reach out to a lot of women … mostly through my newsletter, networking and such, but I'm looking to get 10 or 12 women, optimally. What I've been working with is trying to do a series of, say, four to six consecutive weekly meetings, then picking a theme. It mostly has to do with people's emotions and money, and their money history — money and relationships with family, needs and wants, and values and happiness.

The sessions are usually about an hour and a half. The first hour, I'll work with the theme. Then I'll think about a couple of possible discussion topics or little exercises where people can break off and pair up and share a money memory or something like that. Then I open it up for discussions. With some of the themes — particularly needs and wants, and values and happiness — a lot of good things come out of just being in a group setting and sharing.

InvestmentNews: Where does this lead to in terms of your practice? Are these women generally clients? Are half of them clients and half of them friends of clients? Do you get referrals as a result of this? What's the real-life application?

Mr. Stoffer: I think this is the work that needs to be done before people can make some meaningful changes in their financial lives to understand their money history or at least their relationship with money and financial events in their past that have contributed to how they behave with money today. Somehow it gives them understanding and courage to go forward. Combining it with the financial planning process is really powerful, particularly if you can get people to articulate their values and what they truly need to live a happy and satisfying life. Matching that up with how they actually spend their money is the powerful part.

I think the jury is still out on how it leads to more business — at least for me, because I've only been doing this a short time. But I think eventually it's going to build on itself and that there will be more buzz about it, because I've seen good stuff happen in these groups. Women will start meeting outside the group because one knows how to use Quicken and another one doesn't, or they'll support one another in other ways. The women seem to really respond to it. I think there's a need for it.

PICKING THE SETTING

InvestmentNews: Bring us into one of these groups and tell us what it would it look like?

Mr. Stoffer: The first one I did was in a woman's living room. The woman who came up with the idea for the group offered her house to do the first one. Since then, I have moved it to a local hotel and just got a suite so we're sitting in a living room and around a coffee table. It's kind of a conversation and pairing up to share with some theme that I have come up with for that meeting.

In one instance, a woman, who happened to be my client, was saying that she believed that she needed to do work that she loved for a living but that she couldn't support herself. Within just a couple of seconds, some of the others were questioning that core assumption, and I just sat back and watched. They were having a great conversation where they were saying, “Have you thought about doing this or doing that?” They were really helping one another in challenging these assumptions or unconscious beliefs that we have about money.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, you've written an e-book called “The Happiness Spreadsheet” (Amazon Digital Services Inc., 2012) to get women to focus consciously on what's important to them and how to direct their spending to things that really matter. Can you tell us about that?

Ms. Curtis: The idea to write that e-book developed out of my financial planning work with clients. One of the first things I do is a cash-flow work sheet, so we go over all the expenses. Like Jeff, I found that this brought up a lot of discussion about how women felt about their money and how they were using it. Many times they were ashamed or embarrassed, or not happy about it. I'm always trying to think of a new and unique way to market to my potential clients, and I hadn't written an e-book before. This type of reaction came up so often that I thought, this is a great chance. I can use it as a marketing tool and as a tool for my current clients to use while looking at their spending.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, questions already are pouring in about marketing these special events. Your e-book is one possibility.

Ms. Curtis: Yes, and I took that a step further; I do workshops on “The Happiness Spreadsheet.”

InvestmentNews: How do you get the word out?

Ms. Curtis: I use social media for almost everything. I found that Facebook is the most effective way to invite women to events, which surprised me. So that's just a tip. Events on Facebook are a good way to go.

InvestmentNews: Heather, tell us about one of your events. You've talked about “back deck” parties. Who's the target market, and how do you make it happen?

CASUAL CONTACT

Ms. Ettinger: We developed the deck parties specifically to address the needs of executive women. Some of their challenges include lack of time, but also the desire to connect and build human capital by advancing their career through professional contacts.

Typically, they're on my back deck or my partner Emily Drake's — something that's very comfortable and casual. Homes just are very inviting if that's a possibility, and we target attendance of only eight to 12 women.

Specifically, we are identifying women who have said, “Oh, Heather, I want to meet Mary Beth Franklin. She could really help me in advancing this part of something I'm working on.”

So what we do is make those connections for them at the deck party. Typically, we have about half clients, half prospects or centers of influence, and, honestly, we never sell anything. Our clients tell our prospects why they should work with us.

We've found this to be a very effective way to address the fact that women, particularly working moms, don't have much time. They want to connect with other women who can help them professionally, and they love recommendations from their friends, which is essentially what happens.

HOW MANY TO INVITE?

InvestmentNews: Hea-ther, one of the questions coming in from the audience is how many people to invite to get that eight to 12.

Ms. Ettinger: Typically, about twice that. If I'm gearing toward 12, I'm going to invite somewhere around 25, possibly as high as 30. You'll always get a couple of last-minute cancellations. But the key here is that you have to make the personal connection on the invite.

So, yes, we will send out an Evite so they can all see who else is being included. Obviously, it's typically work e-mail addresses, but then we also follow up with a regular e-mail and phone calls encouraging them to come and reminding them that this person that they wanted to meet is attending. You definitely want to have that connection with them.

InvestmentNews: Heather, one of the questions that just came in is, “Are most of your female clients single?” Can you tell us something about that?

Ms. Ettinger: Probably 80% of the women who attend deck parties are not single. They're married and juggling a family and career. We really try to do events supporting women.

We said, “OK, we want to do an event that helps us get in front of either spouses, some of our male clients who may be a little bit dominant in meetings, or widows, divorcees and some of our single-women clients.” So we typically do another event around that.

You absolutely want to encourage them to bring a friend. It makes them a lot more comfortable in coming. Then we do seating within the facility to make sure that we spread out the different people on our team so that we have a chance to have very personal conversations … over lunch or whatever it may be.

HOSTING ISN’T ADVERTISING

InvestmentNews: Cathy, do you have any compliance issues with the Federal Communications Commission regarding advertising on Facebook or other social media?

Ms. Curtis: No, because I don't consider it advertising. On social media and all these platforms, I generally talk about personal finance topics, and I don't consider posting an event advertising. I'm pretty aware of all the compliance issues, and I try very hard to stay on the right side of them.

InvestmentNews: A question from the audience: “Is there a cost of admission?” Could each of you respond? Jeff, are your seminars free? Do you ask women to make a charitable donation? How does it work?

Mr. Stoffer: I charge $25 for one session, and I offer a little incentive if they want to do multiple sessions … [The events] basically pay for themselves, at least in terms of the room rental and the food and things like that. It's a nominal cost, but I feel like it's important that they have some skin in the game — so it should be charged for.

InvestmentNews: Cathy and Heather, do you also charge, or do you see more value in making this a free offering?

Ms. Curtis: I charge for “The Happiness Spreadsheet” workshops. I do not charge for other events that I do to entertain my clients and my prospects.

InvestmentNews: Heather, what about you?

Ms. Ettinger: In general, we do not charge. Definitely not for “Solutions for Women.” For deck parties, the women bring a bottle of wine … and our catering cost then is only about $350. Somehow that makes them feel kind of like they're participating in it. The other events we do not charge for, either.

InvestmentNews: How do you budget for these events, and do you cooperate with other professionals or product sponsors? Heather, could you take that first?

Ms. Ettinger: Our average cost for deck parties is about $300 to $350. Because we are very specific and very intentional about who's coming, we have yet to have one where we didn't land at least [one] $10,000-revenue client. So it's a pretty good return on investment.

I believe in building a marketing plan for the year and designing a reception around community events so you keep your costs down.

For example, we recently supported a one-woman show called “The Ladies of Last Chance.” We had about 100 clients and their friends there, and we spent about $2,000. We probably have another three $10,000 prospects in the pipeline, and it created a tremendous amount of good will with existing clients.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, could you give us your views on the same topic?

FUN AND FINANCE

Ms. Curtis: I do an annual event called “Food, Fun, Fashion and Finance.” I invite my women clients and prospects, and I have them bring friends. I invite other professionals.

For example, I'll have a CPA come and talk about tax law changes, or an expert on health care talk about the health care law and what's going on with that. Then I'll invite a fashion stylist to talk about fashion. I bring in other professionals to make a more interesting day out of it.

InvestmentNews: Jeff, besides the seminars, do you do other events throughout the year, and what sort of marketing budget do you allow for that?

Mr. Stoffer: I haven't done too much in the way of other events yet. These aren't just clients that come to the Women and Money groups. Actually, [most attendees] are not clients. But Heather and Cathy have some great ideas. I think there are good things to think about.

InvestmentNews: Another audience question: “Do you market to different women's niches in different ways? If so, what are they?” For example, do you send engraved invitations to your elderly widows and e-mails to your professional women? Heather, would you like to take that first, since you handle so many niches?

Ms. Ettinger: For older women who are a little bit more elegant, yes, you want to send them a very nice invitation and then follow it up with a phone call. For executive women, don't bother with the cost of doing that because they'll probably lose it or just not see it.

The best way to get to them is absolutely via e-mail or, potentially, social media. We do Evites and e-mail distribution. It really depends on who your audience is and making sure you understand their circumstances.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, you've talked a lot about social media. One of the questions from our audience is, “How much time does it take to devote to social media and to set it up from the beginning?”

Ms. Curtis: Initially, it'll take some time. I spent a lot of time on social media — I'd say at least an hour a day initially — in getting it set up. After I realized how useful it was, I did hire a marketing consultant to help me with the different platforms.

If you don't have the funds to do that, I would advise spending at least half an hour a day on social media — posting something on Twitter or Facebook or whatever platform you decide to start with. Don't just put up a profile. Be sure you go in and use it so that you're present and consistent.

InvestmentNews: How do you follow up with everyone who attends one of these events? Do you call them afterward, or do you just make contact with them while they're there? Let's start with Cathy.

Ms. Curtis: No. I have videos taken during the event and have them compiled into unique video presentations. Then I send out a newsletter to everyone that came but also everyone that didn't come; I get maybe 50% of the people invited coming to this event, so everyone gets to see the follow-up. You're just touching those people that many more times. Sometimes I'll recap each of the topics discussed and the key points that were made.

FOLLOWING UP

InvestmentNews: Heather, how do you follow up?

Ms. Ettinger: I think it's a little bit different for each program. In the Solutions series, where it's a small, select group, there may be specific things that we're following up with them based on some of the questions they asked.

We also do a handout. Rather than handing out all our slides and resources, we just have a check-the-box-of-what-you-want, and that way we make sure we follow up with them individually. So it could be resources, books, slides. It could even be your marketing materials. I've been surprised how many people sign up for our newsletter.

Then, as far as the deck parties and the other women's events go, it is very singular. We come back. We powwow after the deck party with associates from my firm who have been there and assign who is going to follow up to which person with specific things.

I'd say the follow-up and the planning are the two most important things. The event is probably third.

InvestmentNews: Give us an example of the type of follow-up. Are you responding to a question that was raised, or what does that look like?

Ms. Ettinger: At the seminar, it might be somebody who seemed concerned about risk in the markets or bonds or financial planning, and how to start a conversation with her husband. We'll call them up because obviously we have a fair amount of experience in this area and start to give them some ideas. Let's take that last one, having the conversation with her husband. How they might start to have that discussion. I've actually even scripted that conversation for clients sometimes. So that might be it.

On the deck parties, usually it has to do with business connections that are coming out of it, or women looking to other women for referrals. It could be so-and-so needs an internist who gets executive women and their lack of time. I'll be like, “Oh, I've got one of those.” It's a chance to call her back and have another conversation. It could be [something that] seems trivial, but executive women are looking for referrals to other providers, so that's often what comes out of the deck parties. We want them to see us as a resource.

HELP THEM CONNECT

Ms. Curtis: I just want to stress — Heather's mentioned this a couple of times — the importance of giving women opportunities to network with one another.

Some amazing connections are made at these parties. I have a client who is an event planner, and she met someone at my party who found an architect to help her remodel her kitchen. Things like that, women will remember.

InvestmentNews: Jeff, what are the demographics of the women who come to your workshops? Are they executives? Are they stay-at-home moms, widows? What's the mix?

Mr. Stoffer: Probably ages 40 to 65. I guess most of them have been individual businesswomen, have small businesses; some in relationships, some not, but mostly that 40-to-65 demographic.

InvestmentNews: And what do you do for follow-up?

Mr. Stoffer: My core focus has been trying to make the groups exciting and interesting and valuable. Basically, I've been trying to get more feedback from the participants and even from some who dropped out about why they did so.

There tends to be a bit of attrition with a four- to six-week program. The challenge is finding the right groups or the right women to invite. Heather is talking like she's really got it down, and I'm still trying to figure this out in terms of how it works for the women's groups.

WILL WOMEN WORK WITH MEN?

InvestmentNews: Are there any impediments to being a man — like probably most of our advisers listening to this webcast are — marketing to women? Cathy and Heather, do you think that as women you have an inside advantage, or can anybody do this effectively?

Ms. Ettinger: Interestingly for the gentlemen in the audience, in the study “Women of Wealth,” which I co-authored, the majority of women did not have a preference on their adviser's gender until we got to widows and divorcees. Then it jumped to 4-to-1 in terms of preferring women to men.

But how I've coached the men here is that if you're walking into a meeting with a divorcee or a widow, you absolutely should walk in with a woman. It could be your client administrator, but you need to have another woman in that meeting if [the prospect or client] has gone through a significant life transition.

Her body language will tell you everything you need to know. If she turns to that woman, then you need to have that woman in your meetings. Honestly, it could be your receptionist. It could be anybody, but she is going to need that connection.

CHALLENGE TO THE GUYS

As far as the other events, my male partners are very much a part of our effort. But, yes, the deck parties, that's unique for us. I put a challenge out to the guys in my office to say, “You need to come up with an equivalent for your male clients.”

So yes on that, but as for education programs and doing broader events showing support for women in the community, doing marketing to women — especially on the education side — it certainly is not limited to women.

InvestmentNews: Cathy, could you weigh in on that?

Ms. Curtis: I think it matters how you reach out, what your website looks like, what message you're sending out there. Are you making it easy for women to want to delve in deeper into your site and find more out about you? Or is it an unfriendly website? I think that's really, really important.

As far as personal skills, I think just as many men have the personal skills to work well with women.

InvestmentNews: Jeff, how do you feel in this role?

Mr. Stoffer: I was skeptical about it at first and not really sure I should pursue it. One of the things that got me going was how much excitement I had for the idea when this woman suggested it. That sort of overcame the fear of why a guy was organizing a group for women.

I believe in the work, and I think it's important. But I asked a bunch of women and got positive feedback from some who said, “Jeff, you would be great at this. Some women actually would like to learn more about money from a man.” That kind of pushed me over the edge. It took some getting used to the idea.

Ms. Ettinger: One of the things we've found is that there are widows and divorcees in particular … who love male attention. So that's part of the emotional intelligence you've got to have at meetings. In some cases, men are going to be at an advantage.

I know a lot of male advisers who are extremely successful be-cause they have really good emotional intelligence, and they just connect and give her the male attention she's looking for. That's not meant to be crude. It's just meant to be honest.

Related Topics: Financial Planning