By Jillian Berry, PhD Candidate | Senior Director of StrongHer Money
Financial planning for women requires more than technical expertise. It requires a human touch and scalable service model built with life transition in mind.
Women experience major financial life events across their career, family, health, and relationships. Often, simultaneously. Yet many financial plans are built for linear, predictable lives.
The Advisors who serve women most effectively understand this. They don’t rely on intuition in the moment. They rely on frameworks, repeatable processes, and scalable systems that allow them to deliver adaptable plans when it matters most.
This is the foundation of StrongHer Money®, RFG Advisory’s exclusive program designed to help you as a Financial Advisor provide support through real-life transitions with a high-touch client experience that scales.
All six financial life events are opportunities to earn trust. Here, we walk through each life event, what Advisors often miss, and how you, with the right infrastructure, can step in and lead with confidence.
1. Launching a New Career, Role, or Business
Why This Moment Matters: A career move often comes with changes in income stability, benefits, routines, and expectations. Early decisions are often impactful in the long run as well.
What Many Advisors Miss: Many Advisors miss the opportunity to instill confidence in the near-term. It can be easy to move right into basic plan updates. First, uncover what they are excited and concerned about. This helps you tie the plan to the person.
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Define Early Wins & Clarify Long-Term Goals
Ask: “In this new chapter, what is most important for you to accomplish in the next 12 months and then the years following?”
Provide: Update their plan and use a repeatable template to create a one-page PDF outlining their response, and how their updated plan aligns. This can reinforce their confidence in the plan, and you as a trusted ally.
2. Combining Finances with a Partner or Spouse
Why This Moment Matters: Joining finances means combining habits, expectations, histories, and definitions of security. Most conflict isn’t about numbers; it’s about misalignment.
What Many Advisors Miss: Financial Advisors for women may neglect to proactively meet collectively with the couple and walk them through a decisions framework for how they will structure their finances.
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Values First → Structure Second
Values: Start with questions that uncover values that drive decisions.
“When finances are in order, what does that do for your relationship?”
“When it comes to the purpose of money, how would each of you rank the importance of security, happiness, and generosity?“
Structure: Walk with them through a set of decisions and create a Yours / Mine / Ours Financial Map. A deliverable that outlines account ownership, shared responsibilities, and individual discretion. This is an opportunity to serve and become the trusted Advisor for both members of the couple.
The StrongHer Money® Ambassadors program trains Advisors how to guide couples through values-based conversations such as this, and to memorialize the clients’ decisions in a scalable deliverable.
3. Becoming a Parent or Expanding a Family
Why This Moment Matters: When a family grows, cash flow can change fast. This and the stress of a new chapter can create uncertainty.
What Many Advisors Miss: Advisors may start with a focus on education savings or insurance solutions before creating confidence for today.
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Confidence for Near-Term → Plan for Long-Term
Give: Revisit their goals and spending preferences, and why they matter. Then adjust their plan and provide clarity around what the plan still allows them to pursue now, and in the future.
4. Career Pauses, Caregiving, or Personal Health Leave
Why This Moment Matters: A career pause can be positive and empowering, or disruptive and strenuous. Whatever the nature of the pause, financial confidence is key.
What Many Advisors Miss: Advisors may be tempted to rush into decisions and financial plan adjustments. In these moments, it is important to be a human first and an Advisor second.
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Empathy → Triage → Reentry
Engage: Lead with listening. Affirm you are there to support what matters most today. Once stability is reached, build a career reentry plan.
5. Divorce or Separation
Why This Moment Matters: Advisors know better than most that divorce is emotional, financial, and operational. Timing also matters. Details missed today can create friction down the road.
What Many Advisors Miss: Advisors may move right into rebuilding their financial plan and miss the opportunity to provide advice on some of the basics functional needs.
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Rebuilding + Basics Covered
Provide: When appropriate, provide a Separation Financial Checklist that includes financial housekeeping to-dos, account access and titling updates, credit considerations, beneficiary updates, etc. Walk through the list together and help them prioritize each step.
6. Loss of a Partner, Spouse, or Love-One
Why This Moment Matters: When a loved one passes, the world stops. Then, the financial and operational decisions arrive at the worst possible time.
What Many Advisors Miss: Even Advisors who lead with empathy and understand can miss something vital. Women who receive an inheritance, or insurance proceeds, often ask themselves, “how can I use this to honor the loved one who left it to me?”
What You Can Do – The StrongHer Money® Approach:
Think: Her Values + Deeper Purpose
Engage: After things have settled and it is time to look to the future, ask questions that uncover the meaning beyond the dollars and goals.
Ask: “I know we talk a lot about goals and planning, but is there anything that would make your inheritance more meaningful to you?”
Plan: Then, build a plan that is closely tied to this greater purpose.
An Advisor’s Role
A woman’s financial life is shaped by meaningful milestones. Some planned, some unexpected, all important.
You must combine strategy with humanity. Listen early, provide clarity, and build plans that adapt.
Resources for Financial Advisors Serving Women Clients
Advisors become ready to attract and serve women when they are equipped with repeatable processes, team-ready tools, and ongoing training.
This is exactly what StrongHer Money® is designed to accomplish. Advisors who partner with RFG Advisory gain access to foundational self-paced training, education, co-branded toolkits, community experiences, and individual business coaching.
StrongHer Money® helps Advisors attract and serve women with excellence. All with tools, education, and ready-to-use content that empowers you to authentically engage female clients in a scalable manner during all of life’s transitions. If you want to build deeper relationships with women and position your business for long-term growth, this is the moment to step up.
Schedule a confidential 20-minute call and learn how you can bring these strategies to life with the help of StrongHer Money® and RFG’s platform.