Leading adviser review site, VouchedFor, is calling for more women advisers, in recognition of International Women’s Day taking place today and the gender imbalance across the financial services spectrum.
VouchedFor have reaffirmed what most of us probably know from our own observational skills, that women are currently under-represented in the advice industry, comprising only 16% of financial advisers.
Naomi Keith, Associate Partner at Aspire, says the industry needs to make clear the benefits of the job for working women.
“People believe that being a financial adviser means doing maths for a living. We need to change that misconception to attract more women to the industry.
“Being a financial adviser offers flexible hours and the ability to work from anywhere. It requires emotional intelligence, it’s about building relationships with people – and it pays well – what’s not to love?”, Keith asks. “For women (and, indeed, men) who choose to balance career with parenthood, financial advice is perfect.”
Keith also believes female advisers can carve out an obvious niche working with female clients. The theory is borne out by data, confirms Alex Whitson, Managing Director of VouchedFor.
“Data from Elevation, our enhanced client survey, reveals many examples of male advisers achieving brilliant client experience scores from female clients.
“However, on average, female clients tend to build stronger relationships with female advisers than male advisers. They speak more often, are more comfortable contacting their adviser outside of normal scheduled meetings, and are more comfortable sharing personal challenges.”
The result is that 49% of female clients of female financial advisers say they’d be ‘passionate advocates’ of their adviser, compared with 39% of female clients of male advisers.
Whitson continues, “We’re proud that the proportion of women advisers using VouchedFor (19%) over-indexes the industry, but we want to do more.
“So we’re offering any women advisers who sign up to VouchedFor in the month of March one month’s free access to Elevation to help them build momentum and gain more clients.”
