Life Event:Targeting the Single Older Woman as Client
Client life events are planning tools for advisors. Life events are inevitable; virtually every client will have some life event occur in the next year that might put money into motion. You have a chance to generate sales, referrals and deepen relationships with clients.
Older women present a client base that has been neglected and overlooked.  It’s a real opportunity for you to provide investment advice. First, the single older woman portion of the population is sizable and growing due to a significant difference it the life expectancy ratio between males and females. Second, older women control an increasingly larger share of personal wealth.
More than 90 per cent of women will be entirely responsible for their own financial affairs at some point in their lives–most often through divorce or the death of a partner, according to the Bureau of the Census. By age 65, 60% of women live alone, and of those 48% are widowed, 7% separated or divorced and 5% never married.
The need for investment advice includes:
- Reevaluating and adjusting living conditions and expenditures, especially those related to health and income,
- Evaluating investments for increasing risks,
- Finalizing estate plans and last instructions,
- Pre- and post-divorce financial counseling and,
- Creating legacies to children and grandchildren.
The average age of widowhood is a surprising 56. Widows in the over-65 age bracket outnumber widowers five to one. ¬†The reason: women’s life expectancy is approximately seven years longer than men’s.
- Overall older women want:
- Relationships not just transactions
- Explanations, not just recommendations
- Questions answered at the right level of detail and
- Service, not just performance
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Developing a Blueprint for Your Business – Part One
“When you HEAR something you forget it; when you SEE something you remember it. It is not until you DO something that you understand it.”
– Ancient Chinese Proverb 
In many ways, the process used to develop a blueprint for your business is similar to the investment consulting process you use with your clients every day. It can be broken down into five distinct steps: 
Step 1: Develop a Personal Mission Statement
Step 2: Assess the Status Quo 
Step 3: Define Goals and Objectives 
Step 4: Design the Plan 
Step 5: Implement the Plan 
By following this process, investment professionals will significantly increase their chances of making a successful transition to consulting. 
The hard part  is finding the time to go through this process. Business planning, in and of itself, does not generate revenues (at least, not in the short run). As a result, most of us postpone this type of work in the interest of doing things that “put money in our pocket.” The problem is that most of us never get around to doing it at all.
Read the rest of the article in the RIA Central community.
Developing A Blueprint for Your Business – Part Two
In Part One, we talked about Developing a Personal Mission Statement. Here in Part Two we’ll be talking about the need to Asses the Status Quo.
Step 2: Assessing the Status Quo
“If you have always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.” Charles Kettering
The second step in the Business Planning Process is to look at where you are today. Assessing The Status Quo is about analyzing your existing business to determine how and why everything is done. In conducting this analysis, it may be helpful to view your business as a set of systems. A system is simply a collection of elements that work together to produce a result. Your business is basically made up of two types of systems- client-based systems and practice-based systems. 
Client-based systems are those systems that directly or indirectly affect your ability to satisfy the needs of your clients. These would include activities such as marketing, portfolio management and client service. Practice-based systems are those internal systems that affect your ability to run your business. These would include information management, human resource management and strategic planning.
Read the rest of the article in the RIA Central community.