John Diehl: [00:00:01] Hi, I'm John. [00:00:02][0.8]

Julie Genjac: [00:00:02] and I'm Julie. [00:00:03][1.3]

John Diehl: [00:00:04] We're the hosts of the Hartford Funds

human centric investing podcast. [00:00:08][3.4]

Julie Genjac: [00:00:09] Every other week. We're talking with

inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you

can transform your relationships with your clients.

[00:00:18][8.7]

John Diehl: [00:00:19] Let's go.

John Diehl: [00:05:58] You know, Julie, one of the fun things about

doing this podcast is that from time to time, we get a chance to

share with our listeners kind of a special episode, and that's why

I'm looking forward to this one today on today's podcast app. So

we're not going to have a guest as we usually do, but really, we want

to take this opportunity to share with our listeners the results of a

recent survey that Hartford Funds completed, surveying investors

about their attitudes on marketing content and financial advice. And

Julie, I don't know about you, but one of the things that I have been

asked over and over throughout my years in the industry is how much

attention should we pay to gender differences in terms of our

approach to our clients, the type of advice we offer, even whether

male or female clients would prefer male or female advisors? Have you

kind of run into the same thing in the course of your career?

[00:06:54][55.2]

Julie Genjac: [00:06:55] Absolutely, John. In fact, it's been a very

common topic and and as you know, in my coaching that I've done with

financial professionals for many years, I've had the pleasure of

working on their business plans with them. And it's interesting

because I've seen time and time again listed on financial

professional business plans for the focus area or the niche markets,

or however one wants to phrase it. But women, and I think it always

leads into a very interesting conversation around how would a

financial professional go about targeting women? What does that look

like and if there's merit to that approach? [00:07:33][37.7]

John Diehl: [00:07:36] I remember years ago I wasn't long into the

industry, and I asked my wife, I said, You know, if if I weren't a

certified financial planning professional, if I weren't in this

industry, would you prefer a male or a female financial adviser? You

know what she answered, she said. I want the one that gives the best

advice, which I think is kind of interesting, right? We laugh at

that. But I think for financial professionals who are out there

saying, Well, do I don't I? What's the right direction to take? I

mean, I've I've heard from our partners at the MIT lab. We have to be

very careful, right? Because you just mentioned niche marketing and

treating women investors as a niche market. They're like over the

majority of the population. Is it legitimate to even call that a

niche? [00:08:23][46.7]

Julie Genjac: [00:08:25] Well, exactly, and the one thing that I've

noticed is I've never seen men listed as the ditch on the business

plan. So that's what's always had me thinking and. And your wife

sounds brilliant in that. To me, it's all about individualized,

customized. Do you understand me? Do you listen to me? And are you

helping me with my goals? To me, I think that's really the heart of

the situation, and I'm excited to hear about some of the findings of

our survey today. [00:08:53][27.9]

John Diehl: [00:08:55] Well, that was really the purpose of what we

did. We went out and surveyed investors about their preferences for

receiving financial advice and also about the marketing materials

that that kind of conveyed that advice and the manner in which they

received those. So, Julie, I don't know. Do you want to share any of

the specifics about who we surveyed, how many folks in that kind of

thing? [00:09:18][23.9]

Julie Genjac: [00:11:03] Yes. So we surveyed nine hundred and four

consumers with a household income of seventy five thousand and above,

as well as an investable asset level of seventy five thousand and

above. And this was conducted late in twenty twenty one.

[00:11:19][16.1]

John Diehl: [00:11:22] So as we think about it, Julie, as you receive

review these survey results, what would you say is the headline

result that kind of hit you first? What what's the major takeaway

from what our survey revealed? [00:11:34][12.0]

Julie Genjac: [00:11:36] So, John, as I looked at it, obviously there

were a lot of really interesting data points, but what really stood

out for me, I think, were were a couple of statistics. So first and

foremost. More than half of investors, 52 percent exactly agree that

men and women certainly have different financial needs, but only

twenty four percent. So only a quarter of those surveyed wanted to

work with a financial professional that really tailored the advice to

them based on their gender. So I thought that was interesting first

and foremost, and then nearly half forty six percent to be precise of

our survey, individuals said that men and women should receive the

same educational material on financial topics. So again, very

interesting to me that there's recognition that obviously men and

women have different needs based upon their gender, but not

necessarily an overwhelming desire to receive advice tailored to

gender. [00:12:36][60.4]

John Diehl: [00:12:39] And I think that's consistent with some of the

things that we've heard over the years from our research partners

with the MIT library who said we've got to be very careful because

any time we grouped people together, like all men, all women, all,

you know, one characteristic or another, this is how they want it to

be, I think. I think you would agree that it's really important that

we look at everyone as individuals. Everyone has individual needs.

However, that being said, I think gender differences, especially in

light of longevity. May indicate the financial professionals what

areas we should maybe emphasize. So sometimes when we're trying to

discover those areas that a client may be interested in like, heck,

let's just, you know, just throw it out on the table. We know

mortality tells us that women are often times more longer lived in

retirement. But there are a lot of issues that are related to that

longevity that sometimes I don't think jump immediately to mind. I

think, Julie, of helping advisors and their clients understand

survivorship benefits in pension plans or understanding survivorship

benefits in terms of Social Security or IRA rollover techniques.

You're right. What are my options if I'm the survivor now? I'm not

going to say that men and women don't equally share in wanting to

know what the right thing to do is right. We may all be presented

with those, those different scenarios. But I think in general, we

need to know as advisors that oftentimes it is a woman who will be

the survivor and will need to make these decisions. So we want to

make sure, for instance, that this is something that she's familiar

with. [00:14:22][103.6]

Julie Genjac: [00:14:25] Absolutely couldn't agree more. John and I

know for my personal situation and I know I've said it before, that

my great grandmothers are one hundred and four and one hundred and

five respectively, so my longevity is certainly amplified. And that's

just one very small example. And in our work that we've done with Dr.

Joe Coughlin and the MIT Age Lab and Dr. Joe, I think that it really

well. Take, for example, a woman that has worked professionally for

for many, many years, many decades and has had a career and maybe

even has had C in her title. All of a sudden, if she turns sixty five

or seventy five, whatever the age may be, it's hard to start asking

for help. And so I think just considering some of those personalized

situations and circumstances and engaging in those individual

conversations with a financial professional really start to help her

engage and really plan and prioritize for the next phase of her life.

[00:15:25][59.5]

John Diehl: [00:15:27] When I think it's important to understand for

financial professionals that you know, it never hurts to go back and

reinforce investing fundamentals regardless of gender, I mean, I

remember Julie last year I was called in to help an advisor with a

very high net worth client of theirs, who brother and sister were

called to manage the family finances. Brother had been doing it for a

while and wanted to get his sister more involved in it. Or by the

time I talked to her, I came to realize she was a finance major in

college. She herself was an incredibly successful businesswoman. And

I started thinking to myself, Well, what am I going to teach her,

right? She's probably got more education in finance than I do. She's

done it in the real world, starting her own business. And yet when I

initially started the conversation with her, she said to me, John, I

haven't looked at this kind of stuff in a really long time. This

isn't what I do day to day. So here I was discounting based on her

level of education based on her, her success in the marketplace. You

know, I almost breezed over these things that are very basic

investment fundamentals. That really is what she was seeking for,

just because it was something she didn't use every day.

[00:16:43][75.9]

Julie Genjac: [00:18:04] Well, John, I know that I just experienced

something similar personally. My husband and I turned a particular

age and we decided that it was time to put long term care policies

into place. It was something that we had put off for many years. We

just hadn't made it a priority. And when we engaged our financial

professional, he said, Oh Julie, I know that you've been in the

industry for two decades. We don't need to go into the particulars.

And I said, actually, I would really appreciate a reminder and some

education, and I ended up taking six pages of notes. I reminded

myself of concepts that I learned so long ago. I learned new things.

But most importantly, I had that peace of mind that I really

understood how all the pieces were put together. And I think that, as

you said, John, that assumption based upon someone's former

experience, their current profession or their path in life that they

either do or don't need that education can be dangerous. And so

making sure that we're having those personalized and individualized

conversations. I know for me it was very much valued and will be very

valuable as I move forward. [00:19:07][63.3]

John Diehl: [00:19:10] Well, Julie, I know you mentioned that our

respondents said that, you know, advice largely should not be gender

based, but our respondents did indicate some areas where they thought

that men and women maybe did differ in terms of areas of

concentration, if you will, that they thought would be different. And

among the leading areas that they thought would be differences, work

career considerations. About 60 percent of our respondents said,

yeah, there should be different based on male versus female long term

care planning and also budgeting. So as you hear these things, Julie,

does that surprise you in any way? And what do you think the top

implications are for financial professionals as they think about

these differences? [00:19:54][44.5]

Julie Genjac: [00:19:57] You know, that doesn't surprise me, I think,

John, you touched on it a few moments ago about just first and

foremost, women's longevity obviously impacts all three of those

areas very significantly. So I think some of the facts about

longevity and also about caregiving. Again, if we look statistically,

women are often times more likely to leave the workforce for a

certain period of time or permanently in order to fill that caregiver

role. Not always, of course, but statistically more often. And so I

think those absolutely play into the need for individualized

conversations, slightly different planning considerations, et cetera.

I also think that it's important to remember that sometimes when,

especially if we're talking about financial professionals marketing

to a certain group of individuals that oftentimes those marketing

materials aren't going directly to their intended audience. I'll give

you an example. I know that my dad sends me articles all the time

about topics or themes that he thinks speak to my particular

situation. Marketing materials that wouldn't necessarily have come

straight to me, but because he sees them and sends them to me, and so

I certainly think that that being specific but also targeting groups

in terms of the themes and the topics. It's a multilayered approach

and could potentially come to that particular potential client or

prospect through a different avenue that we hadn't even considered

when we were setting out to to engage that audience. [00:21:36][98.7]

John Diehl: [00:21:38] I think that's the difficult thing is that

when we make a decision to hold a, let's say, a women only event or

there's an opportunity where only men are going to be present, it

almost calls upon the financial professional to make a value

judgment, right in terms of, well, what would be the best content for

them. So again, even without even thinking about it, we start to

group people together. But I think what's important is presenting

those topics that have broad appeal so that anybody in any audience

could sit there and say, Wow, this is more in line now. With that

said, I know that women typically live longer. I know, as you just

mentioned, Julie Michie shares with us that often times it's the

woman, especially if she's the eldest daughter in the household. That

will be the one providing that care to the family members. So if I if

I broadly present, but we have to be careful here. I remember one

time I shared that today in the United States, Mitt tells of if

you're a woman 47 to 57 years old, especially if you're the eldest

daughter in your household, the care management of the care of your

parents will likely to fall to be your responsibility. Well, Julie,

let me tell you what happened. I finished my presentation. I went

back out to the booth where our sales representatives were in. This

woman came up to the booth and she was very upset and she looked

right at me and took me to task and said, That is not the way it

should be. That is. And I had to say, Look, look, it's it's not

saying that's the way it should be. I'm saying that's the way in many

cases, we observe it to be. I wanted to make sure that she knew I

wasn't saying this is how it needs to be in every case. And in fact,

I've had similar conversations with men who've come up to me and

said, I know what she said about women, but I've been caring for my

mom for 15 years now, so it's not an exclusive situation. I think

again and treating people with respect. We need to acknowledge that

every individual situation is different. Maybe we get a chance to,

you know, talk about topics that we may think may be applicable. But

I think at the end of the day, we need to let our clients kind of

drift towards those topics of greatest interest to them.

[00:23:50][131.5]

Julie Genjac: [00:23:52] I couldn't agree more, and you know, it's

interesting that you bring up those examples, John, because I just I

think of myself. If you were to look at my situation on paper, I'm

married, I work full time, I own a home. I have no pets. You know,

you might look at that profile and say, OK, this woman has no need

for any education or help on how to find education for another

generation. And that couldn't be further from the truth. I have a

niece and nephew that I adore more than life itself, and I care more

about educating them at this point than I do about planning for my

own retirement. That's a much more near-term goal for me. But if you

had just looked at my facts on paper, that major goal in my life

could have easily been missed. And so I think when you touch on this

generalization and bucketing of individuals based upon what we know

and it's sort of the high level facts, we have so much potential and

possibility of missing very important factors that really could help

that individual achieve the goals that they're that they're setting

out to achieve. [00:24:59][67.5]

John Diehl: [00:25:02] Julie, one of the other things that the survey

talked about was preferences in terms of receiving information. So

you know what channels? What is it? Is it face to face? Is it emails?

It's social media, so on, so forth. And I think that, you know,

generally speaking of a financial professional says, Well, I'm

guessing the answer is all of the above. You'd probably be right. But

was there anything that you picked up in our survey that you think

it's important for financial professionals to acknowledge or maybe

explore or be mindful of when they're trying to get these messages

out there? [00:25:36][34.2]

Julie Genjac: [00:25:38] Absolutely, I think some of the findings

probably won't surprise any of us listening here today, but that

younger generations listed social media as one of their more primary

focuses on in terms of receiving the information. So social media

websites and then obviously older generations preferred more printed

brochure media. But I think what's most interesting about this is in

terms of how do you speak to me? What was very interesting was that

younger generations were more focused on lifestyle centric materials.

How can my goals help me achieve a certain lifestyle, which I thought

was very interesting and I think absolutely is important for

financial professionals as they're devising their marketing plan and

thinking about who their target audience is in terms of their

practice growth, that if they can incorporate some of those concepts,

they may absolutely make more strides in terms of connecting with

younger generations. [00:26:44][65.9]

John Diehl: [00:26:47] Well, one thing I think I've seen over and

over again, because, look, I'm a contrarian by far anyway. Every time

somebody says, you're supposed to believe this, I'm always looking at

the other side of things. One of those narratives truly is that, you

know, younger people don't really need face to face conversation.

They don't need personal relationship. They're digital natives. They

haven't been alive prior to the internet's existence. And so they'll

get all their answers from a website. And sometimes I know, you know,

some financial professionals may feel threatened by this. But by and

large, what I've seen and and this is reinforced a little bit by our

conversations with Dr. Coughlin and at MIT is that younger people

have also shared in more mentoring relationships along the way.

Parents who were picking the ideal education situation or what soccer

team to play for, what job to take mentors in in the workplace,

helping to guide them. They they really are getting a ton of guidance

and they don't believe that there is going to be any difference in

their desire for financial advice. They will supplement their there's

face to face conversations with research that they can do online, and

it's important to touch them in many different ways. But sometimes,

Julie, I think it's less about chronological age than it is about

life complexity, right? When we're when we're getting that first job

and, you know, I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't tell my children that

their lives aren't complex. I might get popped in the nose. But the

fact of the matter is when we start getting into our 40s and 50s, we

we start having some investable assets that get to the level that are

pretty serious to us. Our parents are getting older. We've got

decisions that we have to make. Life becomes more complex. And I

think with what you just said, helping to understand what those

lifestyle goals are, those are things that don't easily come out of

an algorithm. I like to tell people all the time my life is not an

algorithm. My life is an ongoing conversation. Things change. People

change ideas and objectives change. And this is where I think we feel

confidently that sound financial advice and financial advice. I'm

thinking more holistic advice. There's always going to be a need for

it, especially as life becomes more complex. [00:29:12][145.5]

Julie Genjac: [00:29:15] I couldn't agree more, and I also think from

a financial advisor perspective, in addition to addressing the

complexity and sort of that mosaic that we call life. I also think

when we think about a marketing strategy committing to something and

consistently executing and implementing. I can't tell you how many

financial professionals I've spoken to that have said it doesn't

work, and I'll say, Well, tell me what you've done. And they'll say,

Well, I did LinkedIn for three days, and then I updated my website

and then I put one ad in the paper. And it's all one thing, one

thing, one thing. And there hasn't been consistency and there hasn't

been a long term approach. And I think that also is so important in

terms of really making sure that that individuals are seeing us. As

we all know, it takes much more than one drip to capture someone's

attention in the world that we live in with the volume, the velocity

and the complexity of information. It certainly is much more than

that, a one shot approach. So I think making sure that there is a

plan and a strategy in place is crucial, and I think our survey

results would would echo that as well. [00:30:27][72.5]

John Diehl: [00:30:29] Well, Julie, just in a parting thought, from

my perspective, having presented to many different audiences over the

years, I think the most important ingredient of any presentation or

any conversation is really the audience that's receiving it. And I

would just urge financial professionals, look any of the topics that

we make available, especially our mic topics like a thousand days or

that quality of life and the three questions, those kind of things

when presented. Oftentimes that audience will supply the stories and

supply the reasons of their own. I've been in front of of women

audiences. They were usually together for different reason, but we

were brought in as a educational session or something like that, and

we'll start to cover some of the research that the MIT has presented

and they will start telling stories, right? And that's how we learn.

I mean, the attendees probably learn more from the stories that were

being told than they learn from me presenting whatever research

findings that we had. So creating a creating an environment where we

can set the framing, but then encourage engagement and encourage

people to tell stories, whether they're sitting there, one on one

with you in your office or whether they're part of a small group of

people that got together for an educational event. I think the more

that we can prompt people to tell us a little bit about yourself and

tell us how what I was just talking about impacted you or how you

dealt with a given situation, I really think that's what people find

rewarding. [00:32:05][95.7]

Julie Genjac: [00:32:09] Absolutely, the power of story is real, and

I think we all can point to a period in our lives where someone

else's story was exactly what we needed to hear in that exact moment

and really prompted us to take action and ownership. So I think

that's an excellent reminder. And hopefully each financial

professional with us today is thinking about the stories that they've

curated and that they're sharing with their clients and prospects in

order to deepen those relationships and to ultimately help them

prioritize their financial health. [00:32:42][33.0]

John Diehl: [00:32:44] Well, Julie, I would encourage our listeners

if they want to learn more about our survey results that we discussed

on today's podcast. Please go to Hartford Funds dot com slash survey.

Again, that's Hartford Funds dot com slash survey and also on

Hartford Funds dot com. You can find all of our content that we've

designed to hopefully initiate some of these really interesting and

in-depth, empathetic conversations. So, Julie, once again, thank you.

Thanks for your insight on this topic and to all of our listeners.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next time on the next episode of

the Human Centric Investing podcast. [00:32:44][0.0]

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