Niche practice designed around women leaves nothing to chance

Like a lot of financial advisers, Ann Alsina initially resisted the idea of a niche practice because it seemed to go against the grain of building a business by attracting as many clients as possible.

“People would tell me I needed a niche, and I said, ‘I need all the business I can get, I can’t be turning people away,’” Alsina said Wednesday during a presentation at the virtual InvestmentNews Women Adviser Summit.

Alsina, managing member at the Annapolis, Maryland-based advisory firm CovingtonAlsina, said that with the help of some coaching and direction from colleagues, she came to realize a good niche strategy is in many ways the opposite of excluding potential clients.

“People will opt in,” she said. “It’s not turning people away, because people buy into the brand.”
The CovingtonAlsina niche, which is in full display throughout the firm’s well-coordinated branding and marketing efforts, is women and wealth.

Even though some might argue that women, who represent roughly half the population, are too numerous to qualify as a niche, Alsina begs to differ.

“Women typically live longer than men, they spend less time in the workforce as a whole, and women as a whole earn less than men,” she said. “We have worries about Social Security benefits not being as large, making lower contributions to retirement savings, and long-term care needs.”

And those are just the practical applications. Alsina said that women in general want to take a different approach to wealth management than most men. And since the majority of financial advisers are men, Alsina believes she has settled into a unique niche.

“Women want to work with other women but also want to approach financial planning in a way that doesn’t involves sales,” she said. “Women love education, and women want to be educated about choices. They value advice and they want help, not just someone who will sell them something.”

In terms of raw data, Alsina said 90% of women will be solely responsible for their household finances at some point in their lives, while 31% of wealth in the U.S. is currently controlled by women. The baby boom generation is expected to transfer $30 trillion worth of wealth to the next generation, and 70% of women switch financial advisers after their husband passes away.

“We’re looking at a large portion of $30 trillion passing to widows, with 70% of them looking for a new adviser,” she said.

During her keynote presentation, Alsina made the case for why more advisers should develop their own niche.

“There are more than 600,000 registered reps in the U.S., so what separates you from them?” she said. “If you think it’s your CFP designation, there are over 90,000 CFPs in the U.S., and over 13,000 RIA firms in this country. And if you consider the number of firms that are dually registered, there are over 600,000 people out there who can work as a fiduciary.”

When it came to building the firm's niche brand, Alsina left nothing to chance. “I’m a big believer that everything speaks and sends a message, whether it is overt or more subconscious,” she said.

With that in mind, the firm’s migration to its niche about four years ago involved redecorating the offices with themed colors and conference rooms named after famous women. The detail goes all the way down the dishware in the conference rooms and the artwork on display..

“All the artwork in all our conference rooms speaks to that woman, right down to the dishes,” she said. “In the hallways, all the art is from my kids’ school. The message it’s sending is that I’ve been there, I’ve succeeded in business while raising a family, while managing a household.”

Once the office space and website were redesigned, the firm undertook a rebrand launch that goes all the way down the orange and blue colors that everyone in the office wears. Alsina said they keep jewelry at the office to enable employees to accent their outfits to match the firm’s color scheme.

On the marketing side, Alsina said the firm hosts about 40 educational events per year.

And whenever a nonprofit group asks for a donation, the firm donates a custom handbag in its orange and blue colors, as well as a gift card for a few hours of financial planning.

“It’s about continuing to push out into the community, continuing to support women,” she said. “I didn’t want to pander and just focus on women making less than men, or how women are hurt in this way. I wanted to speak to what makes women unique.”