FAQs for Advisors

The Women’s Choice Award for Financial Advisors Program is the only recognition program for financial advisors that is based on the voice of female financial consumers. Financial Advisors qualify for this preferred distinction based on the recommendation of female clients.

Women trust the opinions of other women. The Women’s Choice Award is an important tool to help women select a financial advisor, knowing that the advisor is trusted by other women and provides quality services to their female clients. And it provides advisors with a competitive edge that comes only with earning the trust and recommendations of their female clients.

The Women’s Choice Award for Financial Advisors Program is the only recognition program for financial advisors that is based on the voice of female financial consumers. It includes client survey results that will be useful to the advisor beyond qualifying for the award. It is valuable as a marketing tool on its own or in conjunction with other awards you may have received.

Advisors for whom 9 out of 10 of their female clients say they would recommend them and who pass additional comprehensive criteria will receive the Women’s Choice Award.

The additional criteria include:

1. Actively employed as a licensed or credentialed professional in financial services for a minimum of three years.
2. Credentials include an IAR (Investment Advisory Representative), a FINRA-registered advisor/broker, affiliated with an RIA (Registered Investment Advisor), a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) , CFP® (Certified Financial Planner), PFS (Personal Financial Specialist), or a licensed attorney practicing in financial services.
3. Must be in compliance with regulatory requirements of the SEC, state securities regulators  in states where they do business, and self-regulatory bodies.
4. Must be in good standing with the standards of the firm with which they are affiliated.
5. Must have a favorable regulatory and complaint history and who sign an affidavit to that effect.

Our Women’s Choice Award Program surveys are flexible to serve your needs and competitively priced at $500. You can choose from a menu of questions , and the tabulated results, including comments by your clients, will enable you to gauge your clients’ satisfaction, pinpoint areas for improvement, and identify what additional services they would like in the future.

We need answers to three basic questions to qualify you for the Women’s Choice Award. If you have surveyed your clients within the past two years and those questions were asked, and if in addition the survey meets our strict criteria for thoroughness and non-bias, those survey results can be used in lieu of a Women’s Choice Award Program survey. A small $100 processing fee will apply.

Please contact us at 954-922-0846 or email dpassi@womencertified.com for more information.

Our Women’s Choice Award Program surveys are flexible to serve your needs. Advisors can choose from three questionnaires with 8-10 predetermined questions each, to garner maximum response from clients. If a firm is sponsoring the survey, we will work with the firm in developing a custom questionnaire that best serves the needs of their advisors.

Once you pass your first survey and qualify for the Award, you will not have to survey your clients again for two years. After your second successful survey, you will need to survey your clients only once every three years to maintain the Award.

The cost for paper surveys sent through the mail will be provided upon request. Please contact us at 954-922-0846 or email dpassi@womencertified.com for more information.

• If your practice is run as a single entity with common clients, then one survey to all of your clients will suffice. Upon passing, your entity will receive a single award and basic listing.
• If you opt for the enhanced package, which includes a display listing and marketing benefits, it is the practice that will receive the enhanced listing and marketing rights.
• If you and your business partner wish to have individual display listings and marketing rights, the second enhanced package would be only $500 per year.
• If there are more advisors in your practice, the cost would be $500 for each additional advisor for whom you want a listing.

Each member of the group would need to survey their respective clients, at the standard survey costs, and the results will be tabulated separately. If the members of your group opt for the enhanced listing and benefits, the first advisor display listing and marketing package is $750, and each additional enhanced listing and benefits for those in your practice group is $500.

You email the surveys to your clients, and the clients return them to Women Certified, which will tabulate the results.

Here’s the timeline: Once you have signed up for the Women’s Choice Award Program, within two business days you will receive your chosen survey to send to your database. After you have sent the survey to your clients, they will have two weeks to respond.

If Women Certified does not receive a statistically valid number of responses in that period of time, we will notify you so you can send reminder notices giving your clients an additional week to respond. Women Certified will provide the results of the survey shortly after the requisite number of responses has been received.

Your clients’ privacy will not be breached. You send out the survey, and you do not have to provide us with the names of your clients or their email addresses.

Your clients are not required to identify themselves in completing the survey and the results are compiled by a professional survey organization.

If more than 8 out of 10 of your female clients responding to the survey say they would recommend you to friends and family, you will qualify for the Women’s Choice Award and the basic website listing.

If fewer than 8 out of 10 of your female clients recommend you, we encourage you to take steps to improve your client relationships, and we have resources available for you at our website that can help. To give you sufficient time to improve your client relationships, we ask that you not re-survey your clients for at least six months.

Subsequent surveys sent within one year of the date you enrolled in the Award program will be $300.

Advisors who qualify for the Women’s Choice Award will receive a basic listing at WomenCertified.com in our Preferred Advisors database searchable by state, as well as an online listing on WIFE.org (Women’s Institute for Financial Education), the oldest non-profit dedicated to financial independence for women.

This listing will remain on the site until it is time for the advisor’s next survey, and consumers can use those listings to begin their search for a financial advisor in their area who will meet their needs.

Because so many advisors wish to use the award to reach out to clients and prospective clients and enhance their listings and highlight their accomplishments, we have established the enhanced program. For an additional annual fee of $750, the financial advisor will receive:

• Full marketing usage rights of the Women’s Choice Award
• Interactive online listings on WomenCertified.com and WIFE.org, including landing page profile with photo and link to the advisor’s website
• A compliance approved press release for distribution
• Online educational tools on marketing and selling to women and couples
• A Women’s Choice Award certificate suitable for framing
• Preferred status for referrals and press contacts

You can include such things as your picture, your logo, website, contact information, summary, experience, and specialties, and other information you wish to include about your practice.

The fee for the enhanced program is $750 per year, but it is discounted to $650 per year if you sign up for two years paid for in advance.

To reward advisors who succeed and stay in the Women’s Choice Award Program, we guarantee that you will always be able to renew at the same price, and will never experience a price increase for the surveys or the enhanced program.

Once you have qualified for the award, you may enroll in the enhanced program for an up-front payment of $450, followed by three easy monthly payments of $100 each.

The first 100 advisors to qualify for the Women’s Choice Award will be announced in a special full-page ad in USA Today. You must have licensing rights under the enhance program to be listed.

In addition, as a special promotion, the first 100 advisors to enroll in the enhanced program (including marketing rights and enhanced listings) will receive the second year in the program free.

Included in the enhanced program are online educational tools on marketing and selling to women and couples. In addition, we have competitively-priced programs available to you and your firms in affiliation with some of the top trainers in the country.

We invite you to join the growing list of advisors preferred and highly recommended by women and receive national recognition as a Women’s Choice Award Financial Advisor. For more information, contact us at 954-922-0846 or email dpassi@womencertified.com.