Heather Ettinger on Supporting and Understanding Women’s Wealth Needs

@heatherinsight on #BecomingReferable

Show Timeline:

04:51 Ways to assess client fit on psychographic characteristics
07:38 Why the financial industry doesn’t ‘hear’ women and how to fix this
15:12 What ties women together as clients and how do we support them?
18:27 Changing the conversation from about money to focus on what’s important in your clients’ lives
23:18 The ‘Luma Proven Process’ and giving your client a game plan that adds real value
30:43 How to target and support women while also doing the same for men in the families
35:55 Questions to ask yourself to understand how you can differentiate yourself from competitors

Links:
Website:          https://www.lumawealth.com/
Twitter:            https://twitter.com/heatherinsight
LinkedIn:         https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherettinger14/

Want more?
Stephen Wershing: http://advisorchecklist.com/blog/
Julie Littlechild: http://www.absoluteengagement.com/blog

Episode Transcript:

Julie Littlechild:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that helps you become the kind of advisor people can’t help talking about. I’m Julie Littlechild, and today, Steve and I have a great conversation with Heather Ettinger. Now, Heather is the CEO of Luma Wealth, a firm that is absolutely on a mission to not only understand, but to support women’s wealth needs. Heather, I think takes an incredibly thoughtful approach to focusing on women, so you’ll find her insights incredibly helpful no matter who you target, or who you want to target in your business. And she clears up some myths around whether women can actually be a niche. Heather describes how Luma delivers a client experience that reflects a really deep understanding of their target market. She talks about how she and her team are changing the conversation around money and how all of this can be executed well and consistently. Heather’s a real visionary when it comes to building a business, and I know that you’ll find this discussion inspiring. And with that, let’s get straight to the conversation with Heather. Heather, welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast.

Steve Wershing:              
Yeah, welcome Heather.

Heather Ettinger:            
Well, thank you so much Julie and Steve. I’m a fan of the work that both of you do. And Julie, as you know, for years I kept telling all my advisors, “If you go to no other session, go to Julie’s.” So huge admirers. Thank you for the work that you guys do. It’s really important.

Julie Littlechild:                
Well, thank you so much.

Steve Wershing:
Thank you.

Julie Littlechild:                
I know we’ve, we wanted to talk to you for a long time, so I’m excited. And I have so many questions, as I know Steve does as well, but can you just start by giving us a bit of an introduction to the work that you’re doing at Luma?

Heather Ettinger:            
Sure. So what really I think sets Luma apart is that we are a community of male and female advisors serving women and their families, no matter what they may look like. So it might be a pink professional aunt, no kids, it might be a traditional marriage, it may be a same-sex partnership, it may be a widow, divorcee, whatever. But whatever that family looks like, we want to be very inclusive. And we serve specific niches and target markets, and then we really are trying to help them manage the life of the family. We all know, and we’re certainly seeing it with COVID, that the bulk of managing the family life falls on women. So we need to not only look at their financial resources in the light of what they need longer term, but also in light of what they may need day-to-day in managing the life of the family.

Julie Littlechild:                
So pink, did not know that was a thing. Thank you.

Steve Wershing:              
Yeah, that’s new.

Julie Littlechild:                
Thank you for that first of all. I know your focus is on women and their families, but I also know that you’ve identified certain subgroups or segments within that. Can you talk a little bit about how you then subdivide and focus on women?

Heather Ettinger:            
Sure. I think first of all, we certainly have a target demographic and psychographic, and I hope for your listeners they pay attention to this because it is really important that we say what type of clients do we work best with? And for us, those are often clients who are in or planning for a transition. They definitely value advice over product, they delegate, but want to be engaged, and they’re really looking for clarity, a sense of philanthropy, gratitude, interested in family stewardship, those types of things. And truthfully they want a relationship. So it’s not a transactional relationship only, it’s really a continuing education. And so in that, currently we focus on widows, divorcees, women of inherited wealth, breadwinner women, where she is either equal to, or the lead breadwinner in the family, and then women entrepreneurs and business owners. And those are the five biggest target markets that we serve currently.

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