How to Market Financial Services to Women (Without Alienating Men!) Registration Page

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Claire Akin:

Hi and thank you so much for joining us. I’m Claire Akin with Indigo Marketing Agency and today we’re going to be presenting Marketing Financial Services to Women (Without Alienating Men). And I’m so excited to have our special guest here who’s an expert on marketing financial services to women. So today we’re going to cover a lot and we’re going to jump right into it because I know your time is really valuable. We’re going to talk about how marketing to women is different and we’re going to review a new female friendly sales process that’s probably really different from anything that you’ve done or seen in the past.

                Then we’ll talk about the four tools that you need today to market to women and the most powerful referral event you’ll host all year long. And we’re going to outline exactly how you can plan that and get that on your calendar for 2018 so that you can make 2018 your very best year yet. Then stick around until the end of the presentation because we’re going to be giving you a free gift from our special guest and it’s going to be really valuable so you’re not going to want to miss that.

                I just want to welcome Adri Miller Heckman. She is an expert in marketing financial services to women. She’s the bestselling author of The Keys to the Ladies’ Room: A New Business Model for Financial Advisors. She also served as the director of National Sales for Women and Co, which is a division of Citi corp. she was a national trainer for Smith Barney and today she’s a coach to financial advisors all over the country as well as a keynote speaker on this topic. And so if you’ve seen her at one of the broker dealer conferences, you’re probably familiar with her work, but we’re really happy to have her here today.

Adri Miller Heckman:

Thank you, Claire. I’m very excited to be here. It’s really interesting. Well, I built my business as a Smith Barney advisor in Newport Beach, California focusing on women. And this is when it wasn’t vogue or popular or as lucrative to focus on the women’s market. And it was my focus on women that built my practice, it was my focus on women that got men to become my best referral sources ever. And through the years I’ve been coaching and training advisors, and there was a conference call I held a few years ago and there was a gentleman on the call and he spoke up and he said a little defensively, he said, “Well, I treat all my women clients just like I do men.”

                And there lies the issue because the reality is women are different than men. So let’s talk about how that really applies, right? I want you to remember that there’s a biological event that takes place in a woman’s brain and it’s called diffused awareness. And you could look it up and Google it, and there’s been scientific studies. And it shows the difference between how women process information and men process information. And it really kind of takes us back to the days of the hunters and gatherers. The hunters had to be very focused. They thought about one thing, killing that beast.

                Whereas the gatherers, the women were in the field, not only are they picking the berries, they’re watching for wild animals and they’re also kind of keeping their eye on their children. There’s a lot going on in a woman’s brain. And so the male brain works in a more linear fashion. Think of the woman’s brain as working in a more circular fashion. A diffused awareness is where, think of these tentacles, multiple tentacles that go out of the women’s brain and those tentacles are going out and picking up tidbits of information.

                Those tidbits could be in front of her, to the side of her or behind her. But those tentacles send this information back to the brain. And that’s how women process information. So how do you use this information? Well, when a woman walks into your office, a man really doesn’t care how it’s decorated, but a woman does. A man really doesn’t notice how you’re treating your support staff, a woman does. A man really doesn’t care if you’ve got pictures on the wall with your family, a woman does. And while she is focused on what you have to say, she’s picking up a heck of a lot more than her husband is.

                Secondly, women are nurturers by nature, right? Men are providers and there was an interesting conference my husband and I went to and it was about marriage and it was presented by a gentleman by the name of Allen Hunt. And he spent the first 20 minutes talking about, “Ladies let me tell you what you need to know about men.” And it really came down to two things. What is important to men is that they are good providers and they are respected and they will forego being loved and they would prefer to be alone all of their lives than to be not considered a good provider and to be respected.

                Now, women on the other hand, what men need to know about women is listen, listen and listen. Women want their husbands to listen to them. It’s not always about solving the problem. Now when we take all of these factors, think about when a woman comes into your office and many times the first question is, so what are your financial goals? Well, if we go back to the hunters and gatherers, the goal is the bottom line. The goal is what I need, what I want to do. It’s a more linear approach. But when you speak to a woman and you say, “What is the purpose of your money?” You will get a very different answer because women are driven by a purpose that is outside of themselves.

                So all of this is designed to really tell you one thing. Acknowledge that men and women are different, and therefore to truly involve the woman, you must engage her in a way that works for her. So this is the old school process of building a business. I taught this for many years as a national training officer for Smith Barney. We had hundreds, maybe thousands of new trainees coming into the training center each year. Starts with prospecting, it moves to selling, it goes to closing.

                Now when I speak to a room full of women, a hundred women in the room, and I say, “When you think of prospecting, what comes to mind? What do you feel?” And of course, the media answers are gross, yuck, distasteful, uncomfortable. And the same goes to the word selling and closing. So this approach, right, does not work for women. It doesn’t work for women clients and it doesn’t work really well for female advisors. So what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is a new approach, it as a female friendly approach that works beautifully with not just women, not just men, but the next generations.

                And the new process is really about, first of all, building relationships. The next step is about inspiring people to consider other options. And lastly, it’s about motivating them to do business with you. How you build a relationship is very different than prospecting. How you inspire people to consider other options is very different than selling. And how do you motivate people is very contrary to closing the deal. All of the old model feels almost manipulative. It feels that way for a lot of advisors and it definitely feels that way for female clients. So what we’ve done is really create a more female friendly model, right?

                And every aspect of your business is designed using these three important components. So what happens when you create a female friendly marketing plan? Well, I will tell you from firsthand knowledge, the first thing that happens is you attract more men. Now, in the title of the presentation Claire talked about how to create a female friendly practice without alienating the men. This is the number one biggest hurdle that financial advisors have when marketing to women. They’re fearful that they will alienate the men, and so they hold back on their marketing. But the opposite is true.

                When I built my practice in Newport Beach, California, anybody I spoke to, I built my business hosting events every single month, that was my primary source of growing my practice. But I would still have to cold call during those summer months when the events were not as effective. And it didn’t matter if I was cold calling, networking at a social event or hosting an event that had men in the room, I always shared my focus on women. And when you are speaking to men, their armor goes down. They don’t feel like you’re prospecting them so they become more interested in what you have to say.

                Not to mention their ego is tweaked a little bit because if they’re very wealthy and they’re very successful, why aren’t you focusing on them? And as you speak, you are immediately getting them to think about all the women in their lives that they love and that’s how it starts. My best referral sources were two men because they knew I would take care of the women in their lives. And I will often hear from advisors that go through my coaching program, “Adri, I start focusing on women and all of a sudden I get more men calling in.” They find it unusual, I find it typical.

                Secondly, you’re going to build relationships with women faster and I’m going to show you in this presentation one of the most powerful tools you will ever use in growing your business. And it’s not just for women. Thirdly, you’re going to inspire more referrals before she or he even become your client. Just like I mentioned, right? Mr. Solomon was a man I cold called. On the call with him, I said, very early. I said, “To be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Solomon, my real focus is women.” And he said, “Why?” And I told him the story about my mother.

                And before he ever, ever became my client, he referred three women to me. Affluent women, one had 500000, one had 1000000, and one was referred by the other women who only had 10000 but I told her I would manage her money if she brings people with money and she brought her fiance with 1.5 and then eventually Mr. Solomon became my client as well and he had 2 million. That would have never happened if I approached him saying I’m a financial advisor and I build retirement plans. And lastly, when you create a female friendly practice, you will transform more of your female clients into raving fans.

                I can’t tell you how often when my advisors go through my process and begin to launch their practice, their new focus on women, and there is a launch strategy that we use and it’s via email and they send out their story. They said they have never had so much response to any email they send out until they send out their story. And the women love it. So even your female clients do not know what you do. Most of your clients really don’t know what you do and they don’t even know how to refer you to people because they’re unclear.

                But when you build a female friendly practice, they will say, “You need to go to my advisor. There’s workshops for women.” He’s really engaged and focused on getting the woman to embrace the process as well. That will get you more referrals immediately. So let’s talk about how to engage women more effectively. You see, women really don’t want you to tell them what to do, right? They want to be challenged and educated. They want to be a part of the process, but they don’t know any different. And they have been told how to become engaged, they have been told how to learn about money. They have been told how to make decisions about money forever.

                My mother is a perfect example, she rarely ever went against my father. But in her late sixties, she called me and said, “Adri, I want a new advisor.” And I said, “Really? Why?” And she says, “Because Michelle never talks to me. She only talks to your father.” Now I don’t know if I can relate the intensity of her feelings because she went against my father and we moved to another advisor, a man who I knew to be female friendly. And it was so important to her to finally have somebody that cared about her and listened to her and engaged her. She was willing to go against the wrath of my father.

                Many women do not know there’s another way of doing business with an advisor, so stop telling them what to do. Secondly, they want to know who you are. They want to understand who you are as a person and their first assumption, “He only wants my business because I have money.” Well, I’m going to show you how to tell her you are passionate about working with women so that she builds immediate trust in you from the first five minutes of conversation with her. Thirdly, they want to process the words for them.

                The reality is women are multi-taskers. They got a hundred things going on, not one. They don’t zero in like men, right? They’ve got million things on their plate. So they need a process that works for their brain so that they can check things off. You need a process that works for women. And when you are really effective at engaging women, she will go back and tell her husband, “We need to change advisors.” And lastly, they really do want to be challenged to think. And we’re going to talk about that, how to change your events and seminars so that women really become engaged. So the key tools, and I’m having trouble getting the slides to change here. Let’s go back, previous. There we go. Claire, I think I lost…

Claire Akin:

Sure. Which slide?

Adri Miller Heckman:

Go back, there. Got it. So we’ll go from here. So what are the tools that you really need? Well, in the process that I created and in the business model, we have a number of tools. Everything works together beautifully. The first is you need a story. And that story is why women, why you care about women, and we’re going to talk about that but this piece you will use more than any tool ever. You will use it in a one-on-one, you will use it in an email, you will use it networking, you will use it as the introduction to your event. You will use it in articles if somebody is featuring an article about creating a female friendly practice, you will use it everywhere.

                Second, you need a compelling message for women. Now I’m going to tell you right now, this is not an elevator script. This compelling message, and we’re going to talk about in a minute and a little bit more in depth, becomes the foundation to your whole business model. It’s authentic, it’s real, and it’s written in the language of the women that you love to work with. Thirdly, women work well in community. Remember earlier we said they’re gatherers. They love to share, they love to communicate with other women.

                I’m going to show you how to build an event program that truly engages women and allows them to talk. And the more they talk, the more you win. And then lastly, you must stay connected to women, right? And that’s where we’re going to talk about a drip marketing campaign where Claire’s program, Indigo Marketing, can really help. But it’s not like it used to be. Women do not want white papers. Okay folks? White papers are out for women. They want to be quickly inspired, motivated, and engaged. So if you think back to the new model, it’s about building relationships, right? That starts with your story. It’s about inspiring people to consider other options. You do that by using vocabulary and issues that are relevant to women and then you motivate them to take action.

                So let’s talk about your story. Claire, if you want to switch the slide. The story why women is really, really critical. And I will tell you, I have coached maybe a thousand advisors and everybody has a story. And so when I spoke to Mr. Solomon on the phone and I said, “To be honest with you, Mr. Solomon, my real focus and passion is working with women.” And he said, “Really? Why?” And then I shared my story. I said, “Well, when I was a young girl, my dad was really good with investments. He always has been, he always will be. And he handled the finances. He always met with the advisor and to his credit, he always wanted my mother to get mocked.

                Now my mother was bright, very talented and very capable. But when she tried to get involved and she attended the meetings with my father because she couldn’t understand the concepts of P/E ratio in yield, because she couldn’t learn it the way he learned it, he made her feel stupid. And the worst part was, she believed him. She became a firm believer that she was incapable of learning about finances. And that’s when I knew my true mission. My real purpose as a financial advisor is to engage and educate every woman so that she looks forward to managing her money where she gains more confidence and feels more empowered in her ability to make smart financial decisions.” And that is when Mr. Solomon referred three women to me.

                Now, your story must also be totally authentic, it must be true to you. And we’ve been taught in financial services to be kind of stoic and a little distant. That’s not the case anymore. You cannot build a relationship where all the flow of information is one sided. And even the most personal of stories make a powerful connection. When you can share something that is intimate and personal about yourself, you will begin to build trust so much faster. I always talk to advisors, there’s a scale of zero to 10. Zero is you don’t even know this person, 10 is they’re your loyal client and raving fan.

                When you meet somebody for the first time, you might get them to maybe a three, but over time that three is going to kind of settle back to a two and a one. When you use your story, your relationship scale will jump to a five, will jump to a five immediately. You’re halfway there. So I will share with you that when you create this story and we have a process and a model and a method that we do it so it takes all the information that you’re putting out there and we really hone in on three short paragraphs.

                And your story might be from your childhood, it might be from your own experience, it might be from a friend’s experience or a family member’s experience, or it could be from your 30 years of experience as an advisor and watching women go through changing events that totally derail their lives. But you all have a story and we must uncover that story and package it so it becomes a powerful tool. The next tool is your compelling message. Now again, people think this is an elevator script. No, no, no, no, no. Elevator scripts are manipulative, cutesy fabricated sayings that are supposed to intrigue people, but only make you look sleazy and unauthentic, right?

                The compelling intro is really four components. The first is how you describe yourself. And we all know that when somebody says, “What are you doing?” And you say, “I’m a financial advisor,” that generates no interest. You see, people already have an idea of what a financial advisor is and does and it’s not always good. In fact, most of it’s not good. So we want to create a title that is reflective of your message to women. And you might say something like, “Adri, what do you do?” I run an engaging wealth practice for women. That’s it. The next piece of your compelling message is, so what do you mean an engaging wealth practice for women?

                Well, this is where you articulate and clarify your focus in tribal market. What’s a tribal market? Women are not a tribal market, they are a demographic group. Women business owners, widows, divorcees, those are target markets, those are not tribal markets. Our compelling message is all about the tribal market. And the tribal market is a group of women who think like you, who act like you, who work well with you. So when somebody says, “What do you mean an engaging wealth practice for women?”

                And I might say, “Well, most of my clients are smart, capable women whose time is spent managing careers and family and have little time to manage their financial affairs. They don’t just want investment advice. They want to be totally engaged in the process so that they become more educated, more confident, and more empowered.” And here’s what’s interesting, your compelling message is not about you, it’s about them. Not once have I really shared what I do, it was all about them, right? And you know what’s interesting, it really doesn’t matter why these women come to me, whether they come after a divorce or maybe they became a widow or simply retiring. They all struggle with the same issues.

                And the next question is, “Well, what are those issues?” Well, do I have to go on a budget? Will it be a burden on my children? Will I end up like that lady? Those are the issues that are relevant to your tribal market. And then the last component are what I call the Tiffany boxes, where we take everything you do and package it into three beautiful Tiffany’s boxes. And when somebody says, “So what do you do for them?” I might say, “Well, first we create their lifestyle wealth plan.” That’s the first Tiffany box.

                Next we incorporate my balanced investment strategy, that’s the second Tiffany box. And lastly they become part of my savvy women’s club, that’s the third box. This compelling message works hand in hand with your story and in many cases your story ends with, “That’s why my true passion is blah, blah, blah and empowering women. And that’s why most of the women who are referred to me are smart, capable women who are busy with…” It just flows when you use this compelling message and you will rarely use it all in one felt swoop.

                There are times when you’ll just infuse a piece of it into a conversation line. That’s interesting because in my practice, the women that come to me all struggle with the same three issues. You may just infuse that small component and now people are looking at you and say, “So what do you do? That’s interesting. What do you mean by that?” This is how you begin attracting clients instead of chasing clients and it becomes the foundation to all of your marketing. You use the same verbiage, you use the same language, you use the same phrases.

                When my clients have created their story and their compelling intro, they have just created all the components they need on a powerful, engaging website for women, in their introduction, to a presentation, in their one-on-one meetings, when meeting with a COI, when cold calling on the phone. This is it folks. It’s there, it’s done. It’s complete. Now you’ve got your story, you’ve got your compelling message, we then move on to the next stage. And the next is creating the community. Women crave networks and communities. They learn more from each other than they ever do from us as financial advisors.

                So the old school seminars do not work for women. The best events, keep them small, 10 women is ideal. Why? Because they will engage. They don’t want you to preach to them from the pulpit, they want you to facilitate. I created a seminar called the Savvy Women Invest on Purpose and it’s very different. It’s not just the content is different, but it’s the style of presenting. You’re constantly asking the women what are women’s strengths and you’re flip charting it and how do these strengths apply to managing their money? What prevents women from getting involved in their financial affairs?

                You are challenging these women. You are asking these women, you are taking them, you are leading them down this path because to be honest with you, they have the answers. They just don’t know they have the answers. You want to get those women talking and then you want to present a repeatable process, right? There are many different kinds of events. It could be a branding event, it could be a workshop. It could be a qualifier event, right? It could be a specialty event. It could be a pay to play event. I don’t know which one or which combination.

                When I built my practice, I used a combination. I did a women’s workshop every single month in my office and I did a money manager luncheon, which was a qualifier. They had to have at least a hundred thousand dollars of investible assets, and that actually included them. That combination was ideal for me. Some people will just do a pay to play. Yes, doing an event and a regular monthly event where women pave their own way is extremely workable nowadays. But I will promise you that 50 to 60% of the value of your events is not in how many women fill the seats, it’s in your marketing of those events.

                You start marketing your events on a regular and consistent basis, right? And everywhere you go, people are going to say, “I get your invitations to your events.” Right? They’re not going to say, “I get your white paper.” No. They’re going to say, “I always get your invitation to your successful ladies luncheon and I just can’t come. I love that.” And then that opens the door, “We have so much fun at those events.” And hosting these regular events allows you to create your most powerful marketing tool. It’s not a brochure, it’s not a business card, it’s your calendar of events.

                And I don’t really have time to go through the calendar of event card, but it’s a five by seven that is almost frameable. In each quarter you list your events and people won’t throw it away. And it also validates that this isn’t just a little fly by gimmick to get you in the room, it’s a real commitment and it shows that you are truly committed to women. And then the last component to a female marketing practice, you must stay connected with drip marketing and social media. You must have engaging content. When I get emails from people that are long and drawn out, I rarely ever read the whole thing.

                They want something short, fun, engaging. Engaging might be asking questions, hosting quizzes, doing exercises where they complete things. All of those are great ways to post materials. We have what we call the engaging drip marketing membership program where we have created engaging content for you to send out to your women clients. We send you two to three pieces every month. If you use Indigo Marketing, you just send it to compliance and share it with marketing. And these are designed by women to help advisors engage women.

                We try and make these brief. Sometimes we give you the option to personalize it, but most importantly it must be applicable to what’s important to women. In that drip marketing, you want to leverage your events and your invitations. Sometimes you want your drip marketing emails to drive the reason they should come to your invitation. And lastly, hosting events and using the consistent drip marketing will intrigue and inspire more referrals because women love to share with other women. That’s the reality.

                So what are the real benefits of marketing to women? I will tell you now. You will attract more women with wealth. You will inspire way more referrals because for the first time people will really understand what you do, why you do it, and how it works for women. Your marketing will become more powerful because with your story and your compelling message and your one on one presentation which we create and your website, it all is reinforcing the same message and brand. You will have more energy and focus in your business because you will not be all over the map.

                If an idea does not work with your tribal market, you don’t do it, stay the course. When you become crystal clear on who you are and what you do and everything you do supports that, your business will grow exponentially. At my company we call it fem X your business, creative female friendly practice and grow your business exponentially. And lastly, you will increase your assets, there are statistics that prove that, and you will increase and accelerate the growth of your business.

                And I think the most important thing to remember, there are two types of advisors that I work with. There are one type of advisor who is ready to go full on, full board marketing to women. Their website is marketing to women and they are carving out a niche in their community that no one can compare it to. The second advisors might have an independent practice or they work with a wire house and they have a wealth management practice that is well established, but they want to create and carve out a space for women.

                It doesn’t matter if you’re creating a woman tab on your website or your whole website, you will use all the big components I ever shared with you. So what’s the next step? Well, I would start with my guidebook. You can click on this link, get signed up for the guidebook. We have a number of programs in my practice and you can visit those programs at www.adri, A-D-R-I, millerheckman.com. But sign up for the free guide book. You can either get a physical copy or just have it send you the electronic version and it’ll give you more insight.

                You could also order my book Keys to the Ladies’ Room. I would go right through Amazon, you’ll get it quicker and you’ll get it. So I hope this part of the presentation will really help you understand why when you build a female friendly practice, you will attract more clients, more affluent women, you will get more interest from men, more referrals from prospects and clients, and you will also set yourself up to be appealing and attractive to the next generations. So Claire, I’m going to turn it over to you.

Claire Akin:

Great. Thank you so much Adri for all of that information. And just as a reminder, we’ll be sending out links to the financial advisors guide and the different websites that Adri mentioned. We’ll send you some links along with the replay after this call. And so I think Adri did a great job of reviewing how to avoid alienating men. And a lot of my clients and a lot of advisors out there already have their book of business and they’re a little bit reticent to embrace serving female clients.

                And so I just recommend that along with what she said, which is making your practice female friendly, it’s a lot like making your website mobile friendly. You want to make sure that it looks great on every device. And so you just want to make sure that with your existing practice, you’re also adding female friendly elements and that you’re explaining to people that one of your specialties is in serving women, one of the groups that you serve or one of your areas of focus. And so you don’t need to change your homepage, you don’t need to change your branding, but just embracing this as one of your specialties is a powerful way to reach more people and to get more referrals.

                So I want to just kind of encourage you to do one event this year. Adri talked a lot about events and how marketing with events to women as a really successful strategy and the most powerful referral event you’ll host all year, I’ve seen this time and time again with my dad’s practice and also with my clients practices is a Valentine’s Day event. And so what I recommend doing is hosting a Valentine’s Day lunch for your female clients and their friends. Valentine’s Day is just two months away right now, it’s on a Wednesday this year, February 14th, 2018 so it’s the perfect day to have a midweek lunch for your clients and just let your clients know, your female clients, that they can bring their friends to have a really fun lunch, get together and to introduce them to you.

                They likely already have people in their network who they’ve been meaning to introduce you to and this provides the perfect fun event for them to do so. So I recommend choosing Valentine’s Day because oftentimes your widowed or divorced women are going feel kind of left out on Valentine’s Day, it can even be painful for widowed women and women love to get together for lunch with friends. So even your married clients will come to a lunch on Valentine’s Day to get together with their friends and celebrate together. And so it’s a great opportunity for you to get in touch with their network.

                And so take a look at scheduling your Valentine’s Day lunch now well in advance, have a client appreciation lunch, spend time with your existing clients, thank them for being a part of your firm, get to know their friends and give away a free report for women, which we will give you as a gift. And maybe think about giving them a little gift. So maybe it’s something relevant. Maybe it’s something for Valentine’s Day, whatever it is, just make it fun, casual, and make your event kind of special for the women who choose to attend. And so I encourage you to get started now planning your event.

                You can save $100 on our event marketing package and we’ll give you tips on selecting your location, planning your event, and a free report that you can give away at the event so that you give your clients and their friends something to walk away with. And so when they go home and they review the report, they can reach out to you to schedule an appointment and take the next step. So to take advantage of this offer, go to indigomarketingagency.com/valentinesday and start planning your event now. I just want to take a few minutes to go over for some questions for Adri. So the first question that we got was how can you make it easier for your female clients to refer other women?

Adri Miller Heckman:

It’s interesting. First of all, when it comes to referrals, I always think you inspire referrals. So once you become clear on why you’re focusing on women, that is the first step. But when you meet with women, so many of my clients will launch their practice and then have lunch or meet for coffee with some of their most influential clients or women in the community. And at that lunch, instead of saying, “Do you know a woman who could use my services?”

                I would narrow it down and I would focus on, many of the women coming to me are divorced and this is what they experienced. Who do you know that is divorced? Or who do you know is a widow or who has recently become a widow? Who do you know that is going through retirement? So oftentimes when you ask for referrals, you’re asking too big of a question. We want to zero in one of the issues of that group and then say, “I’m sure you must know some women that are going through divorce.”

Claire Akin:

Perfect.

Adri Miller Heckman:

And be quiet. So that really works well.

Claire Akin:

That’s great. Thank you. So the next question we got is what’s a good next step for women prospects to get started with you? A free introductory meeting, a phone call, an in person meeting, what do you recommend to kind of make an appropriate but inviting next step for women to take.

Adri Miller Heckman:

I would suggest that you go to my website and if you like what you see and you really are committed to creating a more female friendly practice. Because I will tell you this, there’s a lot of articles out there, there’s a lot of books, how to communicate with women, how to create a female friendly environment. That is just not enough, right? You’re only going to get so far with that. If you truly want to carve out an amazing practice that gets referrals on a consistent basis, then you need to go through all the steps.

                So go to my website at adrimillerheckman.com and then reach out on the contact me page and we’ll get you on to a 20 minute call with me so we can really look at your practice, what you want to accomplish and to determine which is the best program. And we’ve got a lot of freebies on the website. We’ve got a couple of quizzes that will help you recognize what are you missing in your practice. So visit the website first.

Claire Akin:

Great. So our next question is what are the most successful topics or reports or guides that you see in marketing to women?

Adri Miller Heckman:

Well, I’m going to refer to seminars and events. Most of the events and seminars that are out there for women are horrible. They’re basically the same format that you would use for men, but with women’s statistics. So Barbara Stanny’s done some fabulous work, barbarastanny.com. She wrote Prince Charming Isn’t Coming. She and I have done a number of calls together. She is not a financial advisor, she is a money coach for women. And she’s got some great books that she’s created. Her most recent one was Sacred Success and it’s really designed for women and money.

                I would go to my website and check out the Savvy Women Invest on Purpose. That’s probably the most engaging presentation for women. We’re going to be creating a new one, but you really want topics that relate to what’s going on in their personal life not about investing 101, right? Because think, you need to build a relationship with them first. And so maybe it has to do with lifestyle, maybe it has to do with finances, getting organized and reducing stress, whatever. Think of the issues that are important to women. And when you create that compelling message that I told you about, you will really get honed in on their biggest issues. Go to your compelling message, that will give you some great topics. But I would look at Barbara Stanny’s information because her books will tell you how women are thinking and feeling.

Claire Akin:

Great. And I would encourage you too, if you do some marketing towards women, just think about the format that you put your content in. So we do a lot of marketing for advisors using topics like social security. But I’ve noticed in reviewing the metrics of the advisors we work with, that women really love the quizzes we create for them about social security. So a campaign might look like, how much do you know about social security? Are you making these nine social security mistakes? And then maybe you follow up a week later with, do you have questions about your specific social security benefits? Schedule a call to discuss. And so just think about those kind of interactive formats for your content when you’re directing it towards women.

Adri Miller Heckman:

And Claire, those quizzes and things are really good to have in your back pocket. So that let’s say you meet a woman at an event and you have a great conversation, a great way to follow up is to send her an email and say, “I thought you’d love this quiz. Really enjoyed meeting you, thought this quiz would really help you get a handle on where you’re at. I’d love to help you take it to the next level.” And attach a quiz. Those types of tools really validate that you really are focused on women.

Claire Akin:

Right. And so having everything customized for your marketing to help them understand that this is what you do best and this positions you as a specialist.

Adri Miller Heckman:

Absolutely.

Claire Akin:

And so the last question we have today is, which social media platform is best for marketing to women? And I can say hands down for the advisors that I work with, we look at all of their metrics through LinkedIn, through Facebook, and through Twitter. And it seems like beyond women business owners who may be gravitate towards LinkedIn, I’ve really found that Facebook is the best way to engage with women. Is that your experience Adri?

Adri Miller Heckman:

Yes, and I realized that there are some advisors out there that work for the big wire houses and they’re restricted. But there’s no question, Facebook is the woman’s platform. LinkedIn is good for more of the business women. So if you’re tribal market are career women, LinkedIn is going to be a very powerful source. I don’t find Twitter as much. I would say that’s the least effective. But you’re the expert Claire, what do you think?

Claire Akin:

Correct. Yeah, definitely Facebook. There’s a variety of reasons. But also Facebook is great because you can target women. You could target women by age, by income level, by zip code. And so there’s a lot of capabilities there. So just make sure that your social media profiles are up to date and that you’re sharing your women centric content on the social media platforms that work for you.

Adri Miller Heckman:

And I will say this, every financial advisor I work with, I tell them, do not do your social media on your own. That is not your strength. Your time and money is best spent focusing on what you do well and that is building relationships, inspiring and motivating. Outsource the rest, right?

Claire Akin:

Right.

Adri Miller Heckman:

Indigo Marketing, they get it.

Claire Akin:

Right. And thank you for that segue. So if you’re not familiar with Indigo Marketing Agency, what we do is custom marketing for financial advisors. And so the financial advisors that we work with all have a unique specialty and they want original custom marketing campaigns to embrace that specialty. And so if you need help on anything from websites to search engine optimization to blogging, videos, social media, we have packages that can work for you. So get in touch. You can go to indigomarketingagency.com.

                I also share weekly marketing tips for independent financial advisors on my newsletter. So sign up at indigomarketingagency.com/newsletter and connect with me on LinkedIn. You can go to linkedin.com/in/claireakin, there I share with you my weekly marketing tips as well as my LinkedIn marketing tips. You can also buy the LinkedIn guide for financial advisors, which tells you everything that you need to know about using LinkedIn to target your qualified prospects and that’s on Amazon now, the LinkedIn guide for financial advisors. Ask me a question anytime, [email protected] and let’s keep in touch. Thank you so much Adri for hosting the webinar today. We learned a lot and I appreciate you being with us.

Adri Miller Heckman:

Thank you for having me.