Women Represent An Underserved Market

by Julie Crawshaw

Aware of the rising population of professional women with money to invest, Deborah L. Skolnick wanted to target women with high net-worth. When she joined Goldenberg Rosenthal/ Jenkintown, Pa., as marketing director four years ago, she found a partner with a passion for the idea who could lead it to success. That partner is Lori F. Reiner, CPA, director of GR’s Services to Women Entrepreneurs, who keeps a high profile in the community.

“We have a woman partner who feels very strongly about building up this market and has championed it,” says Skolnick, who was CPA Marketing Report’s 2001 Accounting Firm Marketer of the Year. “That’s what makes it successful.”

Skolnick and Reiner began promoting services to women by taking all of the services the firm performs for any business and packaging them for women. GR publishes a special newsletter for female business owners and sponsors women-only “cocktails and conversations” events for clients and prospects. Those events allow time for networking before the program feature begins.

In addition, female members of GR’s marketing team are required to join and become visible in a specific women’s organization in the community. Team members also speak to community groups and write articles about women entrepreneurs whenever opportunities arise.

GR targets specific women by their business revenues, Skolnick says. The firm targets middle-market businesses of $10 million and above but lowered the bar for women-owned businesses. Because the firm’s financial services are available only to tax and accounting clients, GR targets womenfor their business accounting and personal tax work, then migrates them to financial services, Skolnick explains. "We’ve definitely increased our women-owned businesses client list and we expect it to continue to grow,” she says. “We’ve become a resource for women.”

Skolnick notes that female business owners have the same problems as their male counterparts, but she finds that women entrepreneurs tend to place a higher value on advisory relationships, responsiveness and reputation.

Marti Barletta, Owner of Trendsight Consulting/ Chicago, says that financial advisors who don’t target women investors are bypassing the fastest-growing investment market in the country.

Barletta, who frequently works with private asset management companies in the high net-worth market, says advisors sometimes disdain well-heeled women who don’t fit their preferred client image. Like their male counterparts, Barletta says, 90% of female millionaires earned their own wealth, and most of them are entrepreneurs.

“McDonald’s franchise owners make incredible amounts of money, but my experience has been that most private asset managers assume the only people who have $1 million to invest attended the same Ivy League schools they did,” Barletta says.

Affluent women are almost never prospected for financial services, even when their wealth becomes public knowledge, Barletta adds. One woman in a study Barletta conducted was in a group of eight executives who received substantial buyout packages when their company sold. Although her seven male peers were intensively prospected intensively for financial services, she did not get one call.

“You’ve got to wonder about that,” Barletta says. “Dozens of people made conscious decisions to target the men, but not one tried to reach the woman. I can’t imagine looking at a list of eight people and deciding that seven of them are worth my time but the eighth one is not.”

Barletta notes that current projections show women will acquire 94% of the growth in personal wealth through 2010. Women, she adds, have started almost 70% of the new entrepreneurial endeavors over the past 15 years.

Business statistics show that businesses owned by women are more likely to survive and profit than male-started businesses. And the segment of women-owned businesses with 100 or more employees is growing the fastest.

Contact info: Deborah L. Skolnick (215) 881-8800; Marti Barletta (847) 446-5861.