Women influence the vast majority of household financial decisions, are likely to outlive their spouses, and stand to receive a historic transfer of wealth, yet much of the industry still treats them as a niche. Scott Heinila sits down with Maggie Nielsen, co-founder of Purse Strings, to unpack what women actually want from a financial professional, why so many walk away from the advisor after a spouse dies, and what advisors can change in their meetings, processes, websites, and marketing to earn and keep their trust. The conversation closes with Maggie’s practical marketing playbook, from using AI without losing your voice to owning your own audience, and a pointed warning about what happens to firms that keep doing business the way it has always been done.
Is your practice built for the client who will actually hold the assets? Maggie Nielsen co-founded Purse Strings with her business partner and mother, who holds a doctorate in adult learning and spent years building onboarding education for the insurance and financial industry. What they saw was an industry with linear sales processes and marketing full of “white men on boats,” built by men, for men, to sell to men. After commissioning research that, as Maggie describes it, found the insurance and financial industry ranked least sympathetic to women, they set out to build a place where women can get plain-English financial education and connect with vetted professionals who focus on serving them.
Scott and Maggie challenge the idea that women are a niche market. Maggie points to women’s influence over roughly 95% of household financial decisions, an average age of widowhood of 59, and longer life expectancy, all of which make her the long-term client. Her car-buying analogy makes the point plainly: even when he signs the check, she decided whether the car fit the car seats and passed the safety tests. Advisors who plan only around his retirement are missing a very different retirement, often one that includes caregiving for a spouse and then aging alone, with the cost of care that comes with it.
What do women look for in an advisor? According to Maggie, not someone who promises to beat the market. Women have usually researched your designations before they sit at your table. They want to know how you can invest with their values, how you will support them when a parent needs care, and whether you will explain things until they truly understand them, without treating them as needy. Money is emotional, and the deeper question is often simply: will I be okay? For a new widow, that question frequently becomes, can I afford to stay in my house?
The conversation turns to the G1-to-G2 transition and why so many surviving spouses leave. Maggie’s advice is to build a relationship with both spouses before anything happens, so the advisor is never just “my husband’s guy.” Small things matter, from off-hand comments about spending habits to remembering how a client takes her coffee after ten years of meetings. Scott adds his own best practices: include both spouses in every meeting, slow down to serve existing households more deeply, hold appreciation events, and deliberately bring in adult children and whoever is named to make decisions. Maggie also calls on aging advisors to plan their own succession and introduce the next generation to clients well in advance.
Maggie explains how women evaluate a firm before ever making contact: the photos on the website, whether the firm claims to serve everyone, whether minimums, fees, and the cost of a first meeting are stated up front, and whether the team reflects the clients it says it serves. She outlines what Purse Strings offers advisors, including its Reach, Engage, and Earn: The Female Dollar workshop (which she notes carries CE credit), coaching, a membership that promotes professionals to Purse Strings’ communities of women, and referral networking among members. Scott notes OIP’s interest in subsidizing the course for its advisor network.
The episode wraps with marketing lessons that translate directly to advisory practices: be consistent, choose a few platforms and execute them well, and be genuine. Scott and Maggie agree AI is a tool worth using, but not as a substitute for your voice; don’t publish the first draft it hands you. Maggie also urges advisors to build their own email list, CRM, and newsletter, because a social platform can change the rules overnight. Her closing thought for every advisor: treating everyone the same is not a compliment, and women are not a niche, they are the market. Firms that keep focusing only on how business was done before risk becoming the next Blockbuster.