Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding
Planning & Beyond® is for financial advisors who want to go beyond the numbers and build deeper, more trusted client relationships.
Hosted by Ashley Quamme, a licensed therapist and financial behavior specialist, this podcast helps advisors better understand the psychology, emotions, and behaviors that shape client conversations.
Each episode offers practical strategies you can apply in discovery meetings, prospect conversations, difficult money discussions, and major life transition planning. Through conversations with experts in behavioral finance, financial psychology, and financial therapy, Ashley explores how advisors can strengthen communication, navigate emotional moments, build trust, and support clients with more confidence.
If you want to improve the way you connect with clients, ask better questions, and bring more empathy and clarity into your planning process, Planning & Beyond® will help you sharpen the human side of your advisory work.
Topics include:
- Mastering discovery and prospect meetings
- Navigating difficult money conversations
- Understanding client psychology
- Building trust and deepening client relationships
- Managing emotional client situations
- Improving advisor-client communication
- Applying behavioral finance strategies
- Supporting clients through life transitions
New episodes release weekly. Subscribe for practical conversations on the human side of financial planning.
Learn more at Beyond the Plan.
Planning & Beyond® - Where financial planning meets human understanding
70. Women and Wealth: How Advisors Can Better Serve Female Clients with Cary Carbonaro
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Ashley is joined by Cary Carbonaro, author of Women and Wealth, for a conversation about what financial advisors may be missing when it comes to serving women. Cary talks about the gap she has seen in wealth management, from the low percentage of women advisors to the way female clients are often treated as an afterthought.
Cary also shares why this work is personal, what led her to write the book, and why she believes the industry needs to become more female-friendly before the next wave of wealth moves into women’s hands.
For advisors who assume women are uninterested, disengaged, or already being served well, this episode may challenge that assumption in a needed way.
Episode Highlights:
- Why women are still underrepresented in financial advising
- What advisors may be missing about women as wealth management clients
- Why women often leave advisors after divorce or the death of a spouse
- How unconscious bias can show up in an advisory practice
- Why “she’s not interested in money” may be the wrong conclusion
- How communication, language, and marketing can unintentionally push women away
- Why serving women better starts with seeing them as full clients, not secondary participants
RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION
Cary Carbonaro, MBA, CFP® is an award-winning, internationally recognized personal finance expert with more than 25 years of experience in wealth management. She serves as Managing Advisor and Women and Wealth Ambassador for Ashton Thomas Private Wealth and is the author of Women and Wealth: A Playbook to Empower Clients and Unlock Their Fortune and The Money Queen’s Guide for Women Who Want to Build Wealth and Banish Fear.
Cary has been recognized by InvestmentNews as a Women to Watch honoree and DEI Trailblazer of the Year, ranked among Investopedia’s Top 100 Financial Advisors, and appointed as the sole female member of the Nasdaq Advisory Council. She is also a CFP Board Ambassador and creator of the Cary Carbonaro Women & Wealth Career Changer Scholarship, supporting the next generation of women financial planners.
Connect with Cary Carbonaro:
Connect with Host Ashley Quamme:
- Podcast Website: https://www.planningandbeyond.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quamme
- Beyond the Plan®: https://www.beyondthefp.com
- Monthly Newsletter: https://www.beyondthefp.com
What I'm saying is women are the brass ring. They are the future opportunity, the future clients. And if you know you don't have them now, it could be because you're doing the wrong things that you don't even know you're doing because you might have those blind spots. Like your website, your marketing, your LinkedIn, everything that you're doing might just be completely alienating women and you don't even know that you're doing it.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding. As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers. It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most. Which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind. You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships. You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations drawn from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more. Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so. Oh yeah, hi. I should probably introduce myself. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay. My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding. Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Let's dive in. Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, and today I'm so thrilled to have Carrie Carbonaro, my new friend and just regular bad A woman. She, we're having such a fantastic conversation before we hit record here. And she is, oh my goodness, if you're not familiar with her work, please like pause, go hit LinkedIn right now and follow her. She's a managing advisor, woman and wealth ambassador, author of the book Women and Wealth, and has recently created a masterclass with Amplified Planning with Hannah Moore. It's she's just doing some fantastic work. And I'm thrilled to have her here with us today to talk all about that. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. So excited. Yeah, yeah, super excited. We jumped right in on like the pre-record call, like all the vulnerable female things. I'm excited, Carrie, to talk a little bit more specifically today about you know your book, this masterclass, like really working with women. And, you know, the perspective that I want to keep here is thinking about advisors who are listening, how they can also work with women. What are the things that they need to be mindful of and know? And I know we're going to get into some fantastic things, but before we do, I'd love to just maybe hear a little bit about what kind of first opened your eyes maybe to this gap kind of in the industry of serving, you know, women and what women actually need. Would you mind maybe just taking a few minutes and sharing a little bit of that?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So, well, it's interesting because I don't know if I'm sure you know, but and I'm sure most of the people listening know, but it's about an 80-20, meaning there's about 20% of female advisors and 80% men. So we're already quite a small, we don't mirror the population, which is, you know, 51% women and we're 20. And actually, out of that 20, the ones that are actually rainmakers are even lower. I mean, I keep asking the CFP to do a study on that and see, well, how much of those 20% women, or technically 23% women, are actually rainmakers, because a lot of the women are in support roles or relationship management roles or compliance roles or legal roles, and so not necessarily going out and hunting and rainmaking for the clients, which is the high end of the profession, meaning you get paid the most. And so that role, unfortunately, is very low. I'm thinking it's about between five and 10%. It might even be less, because we don't have any studies on it. So, anyway, so just from that perspective of being a minority in the industry. And I remember it's funny, I've been in this industry for now 20, almost 25 years. And when I remember going, I didn't even realize it in the beginning that there were no men. Like I honestly just didn't even, I was just doing my own thing and I didn't realize it. And I remember going to a conference, a TD Ameritrade conference, which you know they don't exist anymore, but that's it, it was in Orlando, and the line for the men's bathroom was out the door, and the women, there was nobody, and I just walked in and went to the bathroom. And that is the complete opposite of every place you ever go, ever. And so I was like, wow, like it was an epiphany for me, like there's no women. And it was such a shock to me because I had been working with women my whole career as an advisor. And then I realized, well, first of all, we're underserved in numbers and we don't mirror the mirror. But then let's talk about females as clients of wealth management. So in our industry, our industry unfortunately has been created by men for men, and that's okay because that's what it was, and that was who the client was. And women were only looked at in two categories. Women were either divorced or widowed, and that's it. Nothing else. Women have an entire life cycle of who we are, but we were only two things in wealth management.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna say there's a lot of life that happens before those two events. Before those two events, that's not getting accounted for.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, exactly. I I have a whole circle of like life cycle events that are just like completely like left off, including menopause and perimenopause being one of them. Yeah. That's what we were talking about earlier. Anyway, so when we look at that at that continuum, you know, obviously women are not being served. And then when you look at, you're gonna, I'm gonna couple a couple of stats here. So you look at the McKinsey study, which I've known now for about it's definitely over a decade, but it's probably closer to 15 years when the McKinsey study came out saying by 2030, women will control two-thirds of the nation's wealth. Blockbuster. Blockbuster, you know, unbelievable. There's all these factors that are coming into the reason why it's happening. That's another whole, we could do a whole podcast on that. But anyway, this is happening and this is around the corner. And and so you couple that with, you know, 2009, the Harvard Business case came out that said financial services is the least sympathetic to women and the one that has the most to gain if they get it right. So women in general do not have great experiences with wealth management. And we have a mutual friend, Marl Marla Sofer, who has a company called Know Me, and she put together my one of my favorite, favorite posts on for International Women's Day last year, where she listed she had a picture of her and her friends, and then she had what each of them said about their experience with wealth management, and literally verbatim from their from their mouths, like in quotes. And it was horrendous. You know, every single one of them was like, I don't feel like I'm listened to, I don't feel respected, they're they're not on the same side of the table as me, I can't even have an opinion, they don't talk to me, they only talk to my husband, they lost me millions, they don't listen to what I say and it doesn't matter, so I don't say anything. Like it just goes on and on and on. So the anecdotes and this and the true stories of women within our industry and their experiences are where the gap is. And so when I started to see there's a major gap. Now, I don't believe that everybody is having this experience. Like as a female advisor, my clients are certainly not having this negative experience. They're having an incredibly positive experience. And I can tell you that because my if you know the story and my story, which is a lot of people know it, but I'll tell you the short version is that I moved all of my clients four times in five years. I'm the only person on the planet who has done that. And it is certainly was not a choice, it's a long story. I'll wrap it up in a in a quick, fast bow. But my for I was United Capital, I was a partner at United Capital, I was head of women's leadership, I had a diamond level practice, it was amazing, my life was fantastic, and then we got sold to Goldman Sachs, moved to without any I had no say in the matter, even as a partner, and it just happened. So then I could not work at Goldman Sachs. It was the worst experience of my adult career. I could not get out of there faster, and I couldn't get out because of my contract. So, you know, I hired an attorney, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, tried to buy my business back, they reneged on me. All the guys got to buy their businesses back. It was a horror show. But anyway, so then I had to get out. So then quit, ran out my non-compete, and went to another firm. Unfortunately, everybody else thought I was getting sued from Goldman Sachs, and everybody was afraid of Goldman Sachs. So nobody wanted me on the other side of that transaction. And everybody wanted me when I was taking the risk out of the transaction, meaning buying my clients back and then moving with no risk. But when I had all the risk around me, and I said, and I was right, they're not going to touch me with a 10-foot pole, and I was right because I knew that they discriminated against me and they knew that it they did, and so they didn't touch me with a 10-foot pole. And I was right, but it didn't matter. I had a terrible contract and a terrible firm on the other side of that transaction, but I had to do something because they were the only ones that would take me. And then I walked in the door after running out my non-compete and having my clients wait for me and my number two wait for me. And I walked in and I said, We're renegotiating my contract day one. And they said, No, we're not. And I said, Then I'm leaving. And they said, You just walked in the door. And I said, I'm leaving. I'm gonna spend the next year looking for another firm, which is what I did. And then I moved, it took me another six months after that, after finding them. So I moved another year and a half. So for now, where I am now and where I'm becoming a partner at my current firm. So four times in five years.
SPEAKER_00What an incredible story of just resiliency, but also I think about like knowing yourself and what's in the best interest of not just for you as an advisor, as a woman, but also for your clients too.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Well, and that's the that's the thing is people are always like, I can't believe that your clients followed you all those times. And I said, first of all, my clients, I am resilience bonded with my clients, which is a story I like to tell. But secondly, I am completely open and honest. They know everything I'm going through. They know the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing. They know it's only going to be to benefit them and not, I mean, yes, of course it's gonna benefit me too, but it's mainly gonna benefit them. That's the whole reason I'm doing it. I cannot be in a situation that is not supportive of me and my clients.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate you sharing that from a place of you know vulnerability. I've heard parts of that story before, but the way in which you tell it, I can just hear like how important and meaningful like this work is um for you, which I appreciate as a woman, but also somebody in this space who cares deeply uh for clients and for advisors too, right? Okay, if we jump into then, Carrie, this your book, this masterclass, right? This work of art, you know, that you have created. Let's maybe dive into it a little bit. Who is this for, this masterclass, this book?
SPEAKER_01Well, here's the book, by the way. Let me explain my where it came from and how the origins and everything, right? So when I got out of Goldman and I came out on the other side, I said my life's work is to change this industry and make it female friendly. So that is what gets me out of bed in the morning. It's what gets me motivated, it gets me, whatever is related to that topic is what turns me on, so to speak, right? Yeah. And so anything related to that is what I'm what I want to do. And so the first thing I thought was I need to share my story about what happened with me at Goldman. And I also need to share my experiences with my clients to shape advisors, teach advisors, train advisors how to work with women and make them feel like my clients feel. And then you throw the great wealth transfer on top of that as this trillion-dollar wealth opportunity that's around the corner and we're not prepared for it as an industry. Now, some advisors are, and some women advisors are already doing it. So they may learn a little tip or trick or something from my book, but most of them are really great at it because they have the, you know, they're doing the education, empathy, empowerment, the three E's, they're already doing that. So really, I wrote the book for the men. So I wrote it for the other 80%. I uh but what I find so interesting is it's the women that are buying the book and not the men, which just really freaks me out. I just don't understand it. But I also think it's the title because the original title of the book was Compel Her, Don't Sell Her with the same tagline, a playbook to empower clients and unlock their fortune. So that was the original title, and I lost the battle with Wiley, and Wiley changed it to Women in Wealth, a playbook to empower clients and unlock their fortune. So I've had male advisors say to me, who I know, I just bought the book for the female advisors in my office. Uh-uh. And I said, I wrote it for you. And then they said, Well, I'm not going to read a book that says women in wealth. And I said, Would you read a book that says compel her, don't sell her? And they said, Yes, I would have read that book. So I think it might be a titling issue. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't know. I'm trying to overcome it. But in the meantime, it is getting in the hands of men through the women who are reading it. I see. So that was the original idea for the book. So now the master class, it's so interesting. So Hannah Moore, you know, has the externship, which she is really the industry leader and pretty much the only game in town when it comes to training new advisors, students, and career changers in our profession. There's literally nobody else in the space. So me and her, actually, Suzanne Syracuse, who is uh a mentor and partner to both of us, said there's massive synergy between the two of you guys. And and I knew Hannah for years also. But she says, I think you should be the first class and the first guest instructor on their platform. And we were like, okay, what does that look like? And how do we do this? And let's put it together. And and and it's funny, me so my undergraduate was in teaching. So I consider myself a teacher before anything else. Like I'm a teacher. I just happen to teach about money and I teach my clients about money, and I teach anybody who will listen to me about money. Now I want to teach about making the profession female friendly and changing the way women have experience wealth management services and the client experience and all of it. So what's interesting was I said, oh, I can totally do this. I can whip together a masterclass and I'm gonna take the book and I'm gonna make it eight modules, and I'm gonna create PowerPoints and a script and quizzes and wow, so easily hard. So easily, right? We'll just whip those out. I did not expect it, took me nine months, and I'm talking a lot of time. Like if I knew how hard it was, I don't think I would have done it. Like if I knew how much time it would have taken. Like, well, I also say that about my practice too. Sure. Like building my practice, if I knew how difficult it was, I wouldn't have done it. Meanwhile, I'm already there and I'm already at max capacity with my client base. So, which is why I have the time to be able to do these amazing things that I want to wake that I'm excited to get out of bed for and and change the industry about. But anyway, in the meantime, I put together eight modules and I was like, we're gonna go deeper, we're gonna add some additional things that are not in the book. And so, you know, so we did like, I'll just like give you the modules. So, like, we did the women in wealth opportunity, which is about all the stats and the reasons why and my story and things like that. The history of women and money. And that is so interesting. And most people do not know about it because it's not like a course you take. I'm a history undergraduate. So I was like, oh my God, I'm combining history and money, and it's like the most amazing thing in the world. And but what's so interesting is I had a I had a question yesterday from one of the participants in the in the master class, and she said, Why do you think it is that women don't talk about money or that women don't, you know, like the way men do? And I said, honestly, I believe it's because of the history of women and money because they were excluded for so long. I mean, I don't have, I don't know that for a fact, but that to me makes sense. And when you see how recent the history was of women being excluded, you will fall off your chair. And so I'm really excited about that chapter. Then how women really think about money, which is, you know, we have different lens, our gender lens, colors, things. And also, we just it's very different. It's a very different experience than men, you know, men wanting to beat the S P 500 and women just wanting to know that they're going to be okay. And, you know, the male sports analogies being thrown at them all the time are like not resonating at all. The language is not resonating, and the acronyms and the jargon not resonating at all. So, you know, how do you reframe that discussion? Then we were talking about this earlier, but why women leave advisors and a whole chapter on that? And the stats are 80% of women leave their advisor when they either get divorced or this or the spouse dies. And so that stat has not moved in decades and decades. And so obviously that we have a problem. And so, even though a lot of men don't think it's them that are losing the clients, but that's okay. That's what the stat is. Then we have serving women holistically, then we have communication, connection, and conversion. So kind of like how to attract women, how to talk to women, how to market to women. And then the final one is putting it all together and building a female friendly practice.
SPEAKER_00I love that.
SPEAKER_01So that is the masterclass.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then that is quite the masterclass. Like, let's be honest, right? Like you've gone from, I think about just the flow of this, like just understanding women, women from like a history psychological standpoint, which I think is important. Like we talk a lot about understanding, understanding your client, like what's underneath the surface there. What makes them tick? Why do we say that?
SPEAKER_01What makes them tick?
SPEAKER_00Right. Because what we see on the outside, often, you know, thinking about it like an iceberg, like what you see above the waters, there's a whole lot more there underneath. That's important to, it's important to understand. And so understanding just who women are from like a historical standpoint, but even just their psychology is brilliant. And, you know, how to build like that trust and like the relationship there, how they make financial like decisions and all the way through and like to building like a practice, right? That ultimately serves women better from like a client experience standpoint. Like what a fantastic, a fantastic flow there from a master course standpoint. This might be incredibly difficult. But if you were to like pick maybe like two or three things that you would want, like a male advisor who's listening right now, you know, this is the audience, this is who you're writing it for. Two or three things like, hey, this masterclass will give you this, or this is what I would want you to focus on. Like, what are those like little nuggets, maybe there? Practical little pieces that we can kind of tease out and maybe share with them.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, there's one thing that's really interesting because one thing that we haven't spoken about, but it's in the course and it's in the book is unconscious and implicit bias. Listen, yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay, let's go. Let's go, Carrie.
SPEAKER_01So that one is super fun because you don't know what you don't know.
SPEAKER_00Very true.
SPEAKER_01And so I have in the book and in the masterclass, I have a 20-question quiz to uncover what you don't know, what you don't know. So it's and and it's how female friendly is your practice, and then you can, you know, see where your blind spots are. And then I also have the Harvard Business Review implicit bias quiz.
SPEAKER_00I was going to mention, I was gonna mention that. Yes, and some other fantastic ones I know that I've taken along the way. So yes, keep going.
SPEAKER_01So that's a that's a great place to start because you honestly, you don't even know. You just it's a complete, complete blind spot. So that's a great place to start, I I b I believe, you know, and then you gotta go into like how many people have separate meetings with the white. If it's a couple. And you know, most people don't. I I would say probably probably 95% don't. Now, for me, I don't really have to because most of my clients are women anyway. So I don't have that problem. But if I if I did have a couple where the woman was not engaged for whatever reason, I would have a separate meeting with her. And I would find or I would take her out to lunch or breakfast or coffee and try to f figure out why she's not engaged and what she's interested in and how to tie that back to the the family goals and money and things like that. Because there's no women, there's no woman who is completely uninterested in money. They just might feel intimidated by the conversation, but they're not not interested in money. And I when I get that, I flip out when somebody says that to me because I'm like, oh no, you are 100% wrong. You just don't know her.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you don't know what's important to her.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say they've not taken the time because women, you start asking questions, right? And women will say things like they're concerned around like security and safety. Do I have enough? Am I gonna be okay? Will my kids have enough? Like they are deeply concerned about it. But to your point, maybe there are aspects that are intimidating, or maybe just some ingrained cultural beliefs that I shouldn't ask about it. This is more for this is my husband's lane. Like I don't, I shouldn't worry about her. I don't need to know, right? Like about it there. So I you're spot on.
SPEAKER_01Well, and when we get to that point, I have heard from some women and not women that work with me, but I've heard from some women, other advisors, clients, that the woman says, you know, I'm very busy. I delegate this money stuff to my husband. And I say, okay, what happens when you become a widow? Because the likelihood is quite high that you will become a widow, and then you are going to be 100% responsible for this on your own. Would you rather learn it now or then?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. It's it's true. You know, I will say to you, because I've had that comment too, like, I don't have time for this, or he handles this and I handle this.
SPEAKER_01Like this is how Yeah, divide and conquer. I get it. I understand.
SPEAKER_00We have right. And and we do that as well, like in our in our household too. But delegation does not mean that the female does not care, right? Just because you choose to delegate a area of your, you know, life, like finances, money, understanding that, just because you choose to delegate that doesn't mean that you don't care. And so I like to try to separate that. Like when I hear that, you know, I'll say, okay. But if we're delegating to and it's and something's going wrong, then like, do you care? Oh, yeah, of course. Like I care, like I want it to be done right. Right. It's like, okay, so we do care. We just maybe, you know, haven't put the things in place or, you know, have decided and made a conscious decision of like, you know, my partner's gonna handle this, right? But delegation doesn't mean that a client doesn't, doesn't care. And to your point, they're gonna need to learn it at some point.
SPEAKER_01Right, exactly. So I I I mean, there's so many ways to, I mean, to engage a woman, you know, I mean, because I always get asked that. That's pretty much the one of the biggest questions that I get asked is, you know, that the woman, how do I get a woman engaged? And, you know, and then I'm like, I have a chapter, it's in the masterclass and it's in the book about women in philanthropy. And women are have a higher propensity to give than men do. And so usually they have a charity that they're interested in or that means something to them and find out and see how the money can help that, or see how you can create a win-win-win for the charity for them and for you as an engagement with the client. I have uh a lot of stories where you know I'm creating charitable remainder trusts for, you know, all these great things that you can do, even a charitable gift annuity. I mean, like there's so many great things that you can use in planning and then to engage and bring the bring the woman into the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the engaged partner, the engaged spouse, like is an area where women in particular are very underserved. And I get it because it's easy to engage with the with the client that is engaged, that shows up, that asks questions, that I don't want to say like wants to be there, but doing the things like that's easy. It's harder, right? To then say, oh, how do I draw this person in?
SPEAKER_01Right. And it's interesting because I'm doing an ethics talk at the CFP board next week. And one of the things it's a is about if you have a couple as clients, are they like a corporation and considered one? And the answer is no, right, they're two separate clients. Yeah, and so you have to whatever you're doing with one, you have to do with the other. And so people just literally don't just don't even know that or just forget it or don't care. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Blows my mind, which is so different than like in mental health when I was practicing like clinically. Like when a couple came in, they jointly owned the client file. So, like if a couple were to part ways or just need something, like if they needed me to release information to any provider, I had to have both parties like permission to release information because they both jointly, they both jointly own like the client file, the client record. Like they own that information together. And so you can't give permission, you can't just release information about one without having both parties' consent. And it has blown my mind that in financial planning, uh coming into you know this several years ago, that it is not that way for working with a couple and that you can unilaterally like make decisions like based on just one partner's feedback. Like it, Carrie, it blows my mind. And I think that is where, again, going back to where maybe from my standpoint, I feel like there's an opportunity to serve women better, right? Is working with that partner when they are not as in and treating it, right? Maybe like it's that corporation, as you said. It's a great way to put it. Great way to put it there. Okay, so if advisors, so your your book, your masterclass, they're fantastic like places to start. Maybe for advisors who are like, who this is really interesting. I don't have a lot of female clients, but maybe this is an area where I could, I recognize I could be better in, maybe because I have a spouse that's not as engaged, or there are adult children who I know are like daughters and thinking about just kind of that next generation and we're wanting to reach the next generation and they are female as well. Where are maybe a few of what are a few other maybe just practical tips or strategies that advisors can be thinking about?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's interesting because if you know that you don't have a lot of female clients, and it's interesting because I'll just tell you my practice is 85% female and 15% couples with usually with in every case except for two, that the woman is the primary breadwinner. So that's what my practice looks like. And I am a mirror opposite of most people's practice. When I f say that in a in a room full of advisors, most of the men fall out of their chair or like their mouths hang open and they're like, what? They didn't even know women were clients, like that they could be clients or that they make a million dollars a year or whatever. And so um, when I say that, people are shocked. Like, and so what I'm saying is women are the brass ring. They are the future opportunity, the future clients. And if you know you don't have them now, it could be because you're doing the wrong things that you don't even know you're doing because you have those you might have those blind spots, or you might be even your communication is not speaking to them. Like your website, your marketing, your LinkedIn, like everything that you're doing might just be completely alienating women and you don't even know that you're doing it. So I feel like if you want them as clients, uh start there. Start with your communication, start with what does it look like? So, you know, I also hear all the time, I get I get all the stories from everybody. Everybody gives me the stories. And so I get like, oh, we can't hire a woman, we can't, we can't find a woman, there's no women in the industry, or everybody's trying to get those few women in the industry. And I'm like, let me see your job post and then I'll like look at their job posts, and it's like completely male language and jargony, and and then also then you also have the other thing with women is that if you gave a choice of a woman to eat what she kills versus a salary, a woman is gonna take a salary. And so a lot of the positions are eat what you kill. And that is not as attractive to a woman.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Yeah. So that's another whole Yeah, yeah. At a firm level, right? Like if we are wanting to attract female advisors, looking at our job description, job posting, benefits, right? All of that. Like, are we do you have a maternity leave policy? Because guess what?
SPEAKER_01Most don't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Flexible, like flexible time off, especially if they are, you know, wanting to have a family or even just not like just flexible like time off, all of those things. That makes a lot of sense. And I would imagine that most firms like probably don't think about their job role and like description in terms of, you know, if we want to be attractive, or even career pathing, even career pathing for women.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's that's another whole issue. And actually, I mean, I'm working on a lot of this with the CFP board. And I promised Hannah that I was gonna get the CFP board to do a maternity leave policy that people can then cut and paste. So it's gonna hopefully it's gonna happen this October at the Women, where are the women's summit? And so anyway, that's that's in the works. But in the meantime, I think that there's there's so many things that I step one, just look at your communication. And are you appealing to women? Are you are you going where women are? Are you speaking, are you speaking the same language as them? Are you using male analogies? Or like, so for example, like on the jargon side, I do not relate at all with sports analogies. And you know, our whole industry is sports analogies because it's men, and it's okay, it is what it is. I mean, some women like sports, I'm just not into it. So I created an analogy, creating shoes to asset classes, and women went crazy over it. I mean, crazy. I mean, my clients went crazy over it, my my friends went crazy over it. I had so many women tell me I never really understood asset classes before until I read this. And then I had men tell me I learned about shoes.
SPEAKER_00Which is also important too. So fun fact, I talk about like decision making a lot of times. And for those of you listening, you've heard me talk about this, like as a flow chart, right? If we think about some aspect of decision making, right? We start with kind of the question and then you know the follow-up from there. And I give the example, Carrie, of my flow chart is do you need new shoes? Yes or no. And like my answer is always yes. Like, I don't actually know why there is a no option because that's maybe I'm just trying to play fair. But like my answer is always, always yes. So I would love to look at your shoes.
SPEAKER_01Um I will send it to you. And we can put we could put it in the notes if you want to.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think that would be that would be fantastic. Well, Carrie, I know that this is a conversation that there's so much here that you know, 30, 40 minutes really just can't, it just scratches like the surface, right? When we talk about and look at like how do we work with women, how do male advisors work with women, how do we make the industry more female friendly for advisors, but also for clients. I wish that we had about five hours to continue diving into this. But luckily, though, you have a fantastic book and then you have this masterclass that you're putting out. If people are wanting just more carry in their life, can you point us to some places where we can find you all the plugs, all the carry things?
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. So I have carrycarbonaro.com is my website that tries to hold all my stuff. But because there's so much stuff, it's kind of a little bit of a mess because there's just too much content. But you can play around on there if you feel like it. I try to hold all my things there. But I also have LinkedIn. I have a and I also have a LinkedIn newsletter called Compel Her, don't Compel Don't Sell, so and which is free. I also am on Facebook and Instagram at Carrie Cabonaro. I'm the only Carrie Cabonaro on the planet from my from my research. So I'm really easy to find. If you spell my name right, I'm really easy to find.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. Wonderful. We'll make sure that we include all the links to that. And if you're interested in this masterclass, Carrie, can advisors just head over? Is this hosted over on Amplified Planning, the masterclass?
SPEAKER_01It is on it is on Amplified Planning. And it's funny, I don't have the link. I can send you the link, but I you if you Google Carrie Carbonaro Masterclass, it will come right up.
SPEAKER_00It will come right up. And or Amplified Planning. I'm sure Hannah has it on there. I've not looked at that website here recently, but we'll make sure that we do a little bit of research. Try to make that lift easier for you for those of you that are listening here with us. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for joining us here on the show today. It's been such a pleasure uh having you on and getting to hear about all of the fantastic work and just advocacy that you are doing here in the profession for women, but also for men too. I don't think that that's been said, you know, we've talked about like women, but a lot of this is also for men too, right?
SPEAKER_01It is for men. Everything I do is for both.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that so much. Well, thank you to all of you for allowing Carrie and I into your ears and into your mind today. It's a part of your week that you don't have to give us, but you're choosing to. And I speak for Carrie and myself in saying that we're both incredibly grateful you chose to give a little bit of your time to us. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to keep the connection going as well. You can find me on LinkedIn where I share weekly insights on the human side of planning. If you'd like a little bit more beyond the plan in your week and your day, you can head over to our website. We have a monthly newsletter that goes out if you're not familiar, if you're not already on that. We share insights. We also share more on fantastic people who are doing really great work and we like to highlight and really are wanting to build a community. And so, folks like Carrie, folks like Cody Garrett, uh, Brendan Frazier, we try to make sure that we're highlighting the work that they are doing really just to make the field better. So sign up for that newsletter if you'd like some insight strategies and also to be connected with who else is out there doing fantastic work. Also, I want to share a little bit here and take a moment that we will be launching advisor skills school starting January of 2027. And if you'd like a little bit more information, if you're like, ooh, advisor skill school, that kind of that has a nice ring to it, what is that? If you'd like to know more about that, shoot us an email at hello at beonthefp.com. We'll get you some info there on what it is, what it entails. We'll be walking through a year of content all designed on making you a better conversation partner, implementing what we call our relational standard curriculum. So check us out there. Shoot us an email if you're interested. But most importantly, my friends, make sure that you follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss a future conversation like this one. And as always, remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond. I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more advisors like you who are dedicated to making a difference. For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at beyondthefp.com. You'll find articles, tools, and information about upcoming episodes designed to support your journey and practice. Stay connected with us on social media and never miss an update. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And remember, the best way to grow is to keep learning and sharing. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond the.
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