“Education creates engagement and engagement is what leads to long-term relationships with clients,” she says. “So you have to figure out how to deliver your messaging and how to deliver your knowledge in a way that makes sense for that client. There are some female clients that just absorb and need information in a different way.”
O’Connor Juanas adds that advisors have to understand what the drivers of a client’s wealth are, particularly when it comes to women, and that women should be treated and served in the same vein as men.
“Their sources of wealth are differentiated and that’s the thing that should be driving how we service them – whether they’re an entrepreneur, a founder, a divorcee, someone that’s inherited wealth, someone who’s an executive,” she says. “When I work with women, I don’t just look at them in terms of their gender. I look at them in terms of how they live day-to-day and what’s driving their wealth, and I think that firms need to continue to embody that approach because that’s the only way to success.”
While the industry heavily relies on performance and tends to focus on returns, O’Connor Juanas noted that returns and performance aren’t always the key drivers to success in long-term relationships with clients.
“It’s about the other drivers in terms of planning,” she says. “For example, ensuring your children are going to be able to go to university and that you’re set up strategically from a financial perspective to achieve that. It’s all the kind of software touch points that talk to what the goals of the client are versus just, I’m going to be able to deliver 20 percent net returns on your portfolio year after year.”
