Changing the Conversation :: Directions For Women

Changing the Conversation

It’s a Question of Perspective

May 15th, 2011

Attending a seder recently, I listened to the hosting Rabbi explain that he believed Jews were the originators of special education.

He explained that the portion of a seder where questions are asked by four very different sons–the wise, the simple, the wicked and the young–are then answered by four different answers that speak to the differing places the sons are coming from; that the answers are the embodiment of special education–recognizing that everyone comes to learn about life from different strengths, experiences, and needs. And the answers we hope will reach these individuals need to be designed to reach different individuals differently

“Wow,” I thought, “changing the conversation.*” Seems we’re part of a long, worthy tradition.

* Click here to read our blog, “What does it mean to ‘change the conversation?’”

Categories Women and Finance
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what does it mean to change the conversation?

by Eleanor Blayney

January 11th, 2011

In light of our subscription program for advisors, we are taking a moment to review some of the basics of our initiative.
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We talk a lot about changing the conversation about personal finance for women. But why is this important, and what does it mean?

It’s important because women have been underserved by the financial services sector. Many report being patronized or intimidated by financial advisors. If they are part of a couple, they may feel unheard as a result of the discussion being pitched primarily to their spouses or partners. Many don’t feel ready for the challenge of personal financial management, having grown up without examples of mothers who worked or who were responsible for the important household financial decisions.

It’s important to change the conversation because women are rapidly gaining in economic power. They are in the workforce to stay, and have accumulated assets of their own. They are the inheritors of wealth because of their longer life spans. To survive and thrive, financial advisors have to figure out better ways of reaching women. They must realize that the traditional male-defined ways of doing business are not going to work. Women aren’t that interested in the competitive game of money with its constantly changing roster of winners and losers. They are interested in what money can do for their families, for their communities and networks, for their lives.

Changing the conversation will involve a shift in emphasis and delivery rather than a wholesale discarding of subject matter. We still need to talk about investments, debt management, tax reduction, and retirement plans with our clients. There will still be topics that are technical and complicated – estate planning comes immediately to mind – which we must make sure women understand, even when they are totally uninterested or overwhelmed.

Here are just some of the ways that Directions for Women would like to change the conversation about personal finance:

Advisors would talk to women clients:

Less about being rich, more about being enriched
Less about price, more about value
Less about balance sheets, more about balance
Less about transactions, more about engagement
Less about financial capital, more about social and human capital

These conversations would take place more often at kitchen tables, and less often in formal conference rooms. Advisors would tell more life stories, and present fewer graphs and charts.

Most importantly of all, advisors would listen more, and talk less.

Changing the Conversation – Dangerous Business?

by Eleanor Blayney

December 3rd, 2010

I was making small talk with the man sitting next to me at a holiday open house. We turned, inevitably, to the discussion of what we “do.” He was micro-lending to government enterprises in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I was changing the way personal financial advice is delivered to women. Of the two professions, I would have said his was far more dangerous. In his opinion, however, it was my work that was full of land mines and embedded explosive devices. After all, I was dealing with the issue of gender.

He was clearly uncomfortable at the mention of women and finance in the same sentence. He presumably had guessed my approximate age, and possibly had me figured for one of those 1970s, bra-burning feminists who hated men, but wanted to be just like them. “Why single out women?” he asked. No doubt he saw my efforts to financially empower women as another form of misguided “affirmative action:” giving women extra attention and guidance as a way to make up for all the years where women were kept financially in the dark. “Why should women be any different when it comes to money?”

I knew I had to work carefully to avoid closing his mind even further. So I started with all the factual stuff, hard “nuts” of information that even a blind squirrel would happily chew on. Women’s longer lives, their years out of the workplace to bear and raise children, their ineligibility for workplace benefits if they work part-time: all these facts adding up to women needing more wealth, but handicapped in trying to accumulate it. It was, however, when I mentioned that Social Security benefits are computed on 35 years of earnings, which penalizes mothers and caretakers whose average workplace tenure is approximately 29 years, that I could see he was beginning – just—to respect what I had to say. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he conceded.

I then tentatively introduced the observation that women think and talk differently about money, citing the neurophysiology and sociolinguistics supporting this assertion. He was making eye contact with me now, no longer searching for a diversion on the buffet table. However, it was only when his wife joined the conversation that he became convinced. Hearing only the tail end of our conversation about why personal finance is different for women, she announced, “Well, of course it is. Everyone knows that…”

We said our goodbyes a few minutes later, with the Pakistani microlender saying – quite genuinely – “It sounds like you are doing some interesting and important work.”

Categories Personal Finance for Women, Women and Finance
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Direction$ Alliance Update

by Eleanor Blayney

August 11th, 2010

Note to advisors: We have had reports from some of you who have not received our follow-up email from the call. If you are on our list or attended our call, make sure that DirectionsForWomen@me.com is added to your contact list so our emails to you won’t end up in your Junk Mail. Otherwise, please email us at the above address and ask to be added to our list.

This afternoon, Direction$ hosted a conference call with more than 100 financial advisors to discuss “Changing the Conversation of Personal Finance for Women.”

It is an exciting development to engage all these minds in our initiative, and we look forward to future calls in September.

We will be harvesting the comments and ideas shared during the conference call and posting this harvest in another blog, to appear in the next few days.

Here is a summary of the initiatives Direction$ is pushing forward, and we would love your input and feedback on these ideas. Please help us to continue the conversation by commenting below.

Continuing coverage in the press, both professional and consumer, to bring more attention to the financial planning needs of women and the role of Direction$ advisors in changing the way we work with women
Building partnerships with experts in disciplines distinct from financial planning, such as linguistics, gender studies, psychotherapy, cultural anthropology, behavioral finance, neurology, storytelling and narrative artists. How can these disciplines help us speak to women more effectively and understand their attitudes and issues with money, risk management, wealth?
Building an amazing, conversation-changing website that will be a vibrant, exciting place to start, continue, and extend the different discussions we want to have around the subjects of women and money. We see this website as the go-to place for women consumers and the advisors committed to serving these women, for the empowerment, education, and engagement necessary to help women become strong and competent financial decision-makers.
Development of college level curriculum on women-centric financial planning issues.
Launching prototype consumer circles in Atlanta and the Washington DC area to refine and develop our circle philosophy and process, as the way to create safe space for women to have conversations about money.
Thoughtful reflection on what you are telling us you want and need in an advisor community.
Development of business models that can support and grow our passion for changing the conversation around personal finance for women.

Again, please use the comment section in this blog to give us feedback on these directions, and the role you might like to play as we move forward together. Feel free to also continue the conversation in our “Direction$ Alliance” community on Facebook. There you will find forum discussions on such topics as “Engaging your women clients throughout the relationship.” You can either go to Facebook and search for the “Directions Alliance” group, or simply click here to visit the Directions Alliance community on Facebook. Once you arrive at the community, please hit the “Like” button and begin participating. There is strength in our numbers.

We hope — if you took away nothing else from the conference call — that you are nevertheless clear about the vision of the Direction$ Alliance as a member-driven and inspired community. Our goal is to create a place for us to meet and start exchanging our experiences and wisdom to make us all better planners and advisors to women.

With our deep appreciation,

Eleanor, Elizabeth, and Peg

Click below to follow the Directions Alliance community on Facebook.