Philip Palaveev
Philip Palaveev
THE BIG PICTURE
• They want to see a link to the advisors’ social media accounts.
• They want to see blogs and content created by the advisory firms.
• They’ re looking for the presence of female advisors on the teams.
Interestingly, they are less interested in the history of the firms— which happens to be the story the founders love to tell!
So Who Will Be Chosen?
My grandma used to say that there are passengers for every train. There are also clients for every advisor.
In our survey, we created four profiles for hypothetical advisors and then asked investors about them. The four advisors included“ Adam,” an experienced advisor charging low fees;“ Brenda,” a woman who works for a firm with a good reputation and boasts strong investment performance;“ Charles,” an experienced advisor who works with a firm with a great reputation; and“ Debora,” a woman who works for a firm with a great reputation and who was recommended to the investor by a friend.
It turned out that Adam was the least appealing, garnering only 16 % of the votes. His lower fees were not an attractive marketing proposition.
Brenda and Charles won 29 % of the investors, and Debora was close behind with 25 %.
Women are only slightly more likely to choose a female advisor: 56 % said they would choose another woman while only 53 % of men said they would.( Still, notice that the majority of men chose a female advisor.) Women were also likely to look for the presence of women on a firm’ s website, though it’ s a priority only for about 9 % of them.
We also found that men are pickier about price, though only about 19 % of them choose it as a reason for going with an advisor.
An advisor’ s experience became more important when the investor was wealthier and older. Since age and wealth were also correlated, we couldn’ t tell how independent each of those variables was.
Brands really impress investors in the affluent category( those with $ 1 million to $ 5 million in net worth).
After we changed the characteristics of the four profiles, we asked consumers to choose a second time. This is what we learned:
• Low fees seem to attract the least number of investors and tend to undermine otherwise appealing characteristics. It seems clear that advertising low fees is not a good strategy.
• The recommendation of a friend, the experience of the advisor and the reputa-
In a previous survey, we found that investors planned to interview up to three firms but in reality spoke to only one or two.( This shows you how much you need to stand out. If you’ re number five on the list of firms to interview, you might as well be No. 405.)
MAY 2025 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | 17