Despite being outnumbered by male advisors, many successful women advisors say women have natural traits that make them ideal advisors, and they want more to join the field. This story is the third installment in a series about women advisors. Read the first and second.

Building a book-based business can be challenging for anyone, even more so for women financial advisors, who are significantly outnumbered by their male peers.

But several women advisors told Financial Advisor IQ that the hustle can be well worth it and that the patience and grit associated with building a book can yield flexibility within one’s business and beyond.

“Although it’s very hard to get started … the ability to have control over your personal and professional life once you’ve made it is extraordinary,” Alli McCartney, an advisor at UBS’ Alignment Partners, said. “In a sense, the 20s and 30s are really, really tough to be a woman who ‘wants it all,’ but once you get past that, the level of control you have over your destiny is something that I don’t think any other career offers you.

“You can have a career, as opposed to a series of jobs,” McCartney, a 22-year industry veteran, added.

Once a woman builds a stable book of business, being an advisor can allow her the “flexibility to raise a family and have a career,” Nancy Bach, an advisor at Cottage Wealth Advisors | &Partners, said. She also gets to choose the size and scope of her practice.

“There is a lot of flexibility in your hours that you work, how much business you want to take on, and what kind of clients you want to take on,” Bach, with 25 years in the industry, said.

The business gives women a chance to be entrepreneurial, something that they are “incredibly effective” at, said Kristi Mitchem, a cofounder at &Partners and a former executive at Wells Fargo.

“Many of the traditional things which inhibit women in becoming successful actually aren’t, in some ways, as prevalent in the advisory space, because you’re building your own business and architecting your own success, as opposed to relying on someone else to promote you into success,” Mitchem said.

There are other aspects that make advising an ideal career for women, including gender-based character traits. A 2024 National Institutes of Health study of behavioral psychology found that women generally demonstrate better listening and relationship-building skills than men.

Those traits can be an asset when it comes to advising clients who are going through difficult transitions such as inheriting wealth after losing a loved one, Mitchem said.

“One thing that really defines women is an ability to listen, empathize, and internalize. When you think about a lot of the times when women are making a decision to move financial advisors — they’ve lost a spouse, they’ve lost a parent,” Mitchem said. “Because women do listen effectively, because they tend to be more empathetic, I think they’re a natural match [as advisors] for other women at those times of transition.”

It’s not to say that there aren’t male advisors who have high emotional IQs, but it does create an opportunity for women to use their natural characteristics to stand out, McCartney said.

“I think that we as women have a huge opportunity because not only are women starting to demand a seat at the table … but their sons and daughters — so that next generation is also looking for something that is different than the stock-slinging stockbroker,” McCartney said.

“There’s still that stereotype that men are the ones that are supposed to do the finances, but I think as things are shifting, more women are getting more comfortable with it,” Bach said. “I’m just hoping that more women will choose to become advisors.”

Reprinted with permission.