No two clients are the same when it comes to financial advising, but certain demographics can play a significant role in how investors view their relationships with financial advisors.
Factors like age, gender and race can influence how clients view their advisor's role and their preferred methods of communication, according to
Advisors looking to expand their practices should add more emphasis on client demographics in their approaches, the researchers wrote.
"While traditional advice remains essential, we're seeing clear signals that the future of financial advice must be more personalized, demographically focused and accessible across multiple channels," Pam Feldstein, executive vice president at TIAA Advice Solutions, wrote in the study. "As an industry, our opportunity lies in bridging proven advisory expertise with evolving client preferences to create more meaningful and impactful financial relationships."
The study, which surveyed over 1,000 individuals about their advice-seeking behavior and views of financial advisors, found that just 40% of people are satisfied with the financial advice they receive, pointing to a crucial gap between the advice given and client expectations.
What different groups look for in an advisor
Across demographics, clients primarily seek out financial advice for retirement planning and saving. But researchers found that the timeline for that behavior can vary significantly between men and women.
"Women prioritize retirement savings advice at career start and near retirement, while experiencing a concerning decline in advice-seeking during peak earning years (ages 25–54). This stage often aligns with caregiving and sandwich generation roles that present new financial challenges and a deeper need for advice," the researchers wrote. "Men, conversely, consistently seek investment and tax planning advice at higher rates than women, though both genders equally pursue debt management guidance."
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Demographics can also shape the attributes that matter most to a client when looking for a financial advisor.
Women consistently rate factors like professional expertise, reputation and years of experience more highly than men when describing what they value in an advisor. Men, meanwhile, place more importance on advisor relatability than women.
Race can also play a role in what clients look for in a potential advisor. Black clients place a higher priority on cost considerations than any other group in the survey. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as Hispanics, place slightly less importance on cost considerations compared to Black clients, while white clients place the least importance on advisor costs.
Communicating across generations
Demographics are especially impactful when it comes to client communication, advisors say.
"We tend to see our younger clients as ones that really crave financial education as we have a natural emphasis on Generation X and millennial clients," said Thomas Van Spankeren, a principal and financial advisor at RISE Investment Management in Chicago. "Their communication style is often digital, but one would be surprised to learn that they also enjoy a hand-written letter."
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Across generations, 62% of people surveyed said they prefer to communicate over a phone call with an advisor, according to TIAA and MIT research. That preference increases with age. Just 50% of clients aged 18 to 34 said they prefer talking to an advisor over a phone call, with that figure jumping to over 70% for clients 55 and up.
"Most of the clients I have that are 60-plus and local like to visit my office in person and do face to face as much as possible, whereas clients that I have that are in their 30s or early 40s, also nearby, will almost always do a Zoom or a virtual [meeting]. It's just the way people communicate," said Ross Dugas, founder of Scientific Financial in Houston.
Advisors looking to attract clients of all ages should take a "hybrid approach" to communication, mindful of differing preferences between different age groups, the researchers wrote in their study.
An advisor that a client can trust
The importance of identity can go both ways, Dugas said. A client looking for a financial advisor is often looking for someone who they feel can understand their situation. Sometimes that comes down to things like gender and age, but it can also include more specific experiences that an advisor shares with a client.
Dugas, who worked as an engineer for over a decade, said that many of his clients gravitate toward his practice because of their shared background in engineering and science.
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"I have a lot of scientists and technical folks that feel comfortable with me, just because … I understand where they're coming from, and we kind of have that common basis of just the way that we think," he said. "We're looking at a trust and an identity factor, and [when] you're going to get into someone's financial information, that's very, very sensitive, and it's important that you develop that trust."
Researchers at TIAA and MIT agree.
"The need for trust is universal," the researchers wrote. "The fundamental elements of trust — expertise, reputation and the ability to explain complex concepts clearly — remain consistently valued in advisory relationships and are universal across all demographics and income levels."
