Stephanie McCullough (00:06):

Welcome to Take Back Retirement, the show for women 50 and better, facing a financial future on their own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, and along with my fellow financial planner, Kevin Gaines, we’re going to tackle the myths and mysteries of “Retirement,” so you can make wise decisions toward a sustainable financial future. Through conversations and interviews, you’ll get the information and motivation you need, to move forward with confidence. And we’ll be sure to have some fun along the way. We’re so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Stephanie McCullough (00:40):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (00:52):

Hello Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (00:52):

Today we have a very special guest. I’m so excited to welcome Dr. Barbara Provost. She has a doctorate in adult and higher education. She’s a business coach. She’s a professor. She’s an entrepreneur, and she had a long career in financial services in the training aspect. And she’s going to get into how that connects to her current venture, which is called Purse Strings. Purse Strings is all about free financial education and resources for women. So not surprisingly, she and I get along famously and we’re excited to introduce you to her today. So, let’s dive in.

Stephanie McCullough (01:33):

Dr. Barb, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Dr. Barbara Provost (01:36):

Wow. Thanks for having me, Stephanie. It’s great to be here.

Stephanie McCullough (01:39):

Yeah. I’m excited to talk to you. So, the reason you and I connected so deeply when we first got connected is because I feel we share a very similar mission and passion in the world. Can you tell us the origin story behind Purse Strings?

Dr. Barbara Provost (01:56):

I would love to, yes. So, Purse Strings is an opportunity for women to have access to free online tools and resources so that they can learn how to make smart financial choices and decisions for themselves and for their families. And then moreover, Stephanie, we provide a top tier list, Rolodex if you will, of financial professionals who really want to serve a female market. And the interesting thing about that is I am not a financial services person, I’m actually an adult educator. So, my doctorate is in adult and higher learning. And I leveraged that as a consultant in the financial industry to educate financial advisors, life insurance professionals, C-suite leaders, staff on how to sell their products. So, I’ve been in the industry from an educational standpoint. And while I navigated that path, I could see from the processes, from the procedures, from the people in the classroom and from the marketing materials, nothing was speaking to women.

Dr. Barbara Provost (03:10):

That was about 20 plus years ago, so I was kind of stepping out on a really skinny limb at that time and addressing that issue and saying to leadership, “There’s really nothing here that addresses a female market. In fact, I’m not even sure if these products are for me. Who are these products for?” And had a lot of questions and could see a lot of gaps, if you will. So that’s where the whole foundation started, in being a consultant in the industry as an educator and seeing huge, massive gaps that I would bring to leadership and say, “I think we’re really missing a market here.” And for the most part, they told me, “Go away and do your job.”

Stephanie McCullough (03:50):

Oh, really? So, it wasn’t a receptive audience in the beginning?

Dr. Barbara Provost (03:53):

No, not at all. And in fact, I took it upon myself to build education, to teach professionals how to serve a female market and how powerful that market was. And the industry said, “You can present that at night as an elective if people want to come.” So, they didn’t even put it as part of their curriculum.

Kevin Gaines (04:15):

So, do you think it was people didn’t see the need that there really was a problem or they didn’t care that there was a problem?

Dr. Barbara Provost (04:25):

I think it’s both. And I will tell you that was 20 plus years ago, and yet not much has changed, unfortunately.

Kevin Gaines (04:36):

Other than this podcast.

Dr. Barbara Provost (04:37):

Other than this podcast and people like you getting this information out. So, I take that experience, and I left my tenure in corporate to start my own consulting businesses. So, I was leveraging those same skill sets in other financial institutions. So, from institution to institution, I saw the same thing over and over again. It was the same footprint of how they were selling, very linear sales process, very transactional, sell, move on, sell, move on, sell, move on. And typically, they’re selling the products that will give them the best commissions. And it was starting to piss me off a little bit. So, I pair that with, when I went through my own divorce about eight years ago and I dragged my daughter Maggie through errands, Costco, Target, things like that. And I’d see these women of retirement age bagging my groceries, handing out little snicks snacks at Costco.

Dr. Barbara Provost (05:34):

And I’d say to Maggie, “Why are these women of retirement age doing this work?” And she’d be like, “I don’t know mom, why are you asking me?” But it kept fostering with me. “Why are these women doing this work?” So, I was like a dog with the bone. I commissioned a researcher and said, “Look, tell me everything around the financial industry and how they’re serving women. And also tell me how women are prepared for their financial future.” And what do you think came back?

Stephanie McCullough (06:05):

Pretty bleak.

Dr. Barbara Provost (06:06):

Very bleak. There’s actually a study that was in the Harvard Business Review that said, “The insurance and financial industry wins the award as been the least sympathetic to women. And women are woefully under prepared for their financial future.” And I thought, I knew it, I could see it. But having just come off earning my doctorate and doing a ton of research, I thought I even have to dig deeper. So, I held focus groups with women of different ages, different cultures. And I would just ask them, “What’s going on with this? How do you feel about this? What does it feel like for you when you’re having these conversations?” And you know the first thing 90% of women would say to me? “They don’t even look at me.”

Stephanie McCullough (06:51):

Oh, the people talking about money?

Dr. Barbara Provost (06:53):

Yeah. The financial professionals, “They don’t even look at me.” And I would just sit there stunned. Could you imagine buying groceries and somebody not even looking at you, nonetheless handing over your nest egg to somebody and they’re not even going to address you? And it was just sad and shocking and appalling. And because of that, I said to women, “Well, what is it that you need?” And they said, “We want a place to go where we’re not going to be pushed a product, where we feel we can ask our questions and not be told. ‘Don’t worry about that.'” Which is very dismissive.

Stephanie McCullough (07:33):

Yes.

Dr. Barbara Provost (07:34):

I’m sure people think they’re doing the right thing by saying, “Let me take that on. You don’t have to worry about that.” But women ask questions because they want to gather information. That’s one thing you need to know about working with women is they collect a lot of information before they make their decisions, so they’re asking that for a purpose. So, when they’re told, don’t worry about that, it’s very dismissive. I’ve had women tell me, male financial providers would hold their hands and say, “You don’t worry about that, sweetie.” Or, “We’ll take care of that.”

Stephanie McCullough (08:04):

Exactly. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

Dr. Barbara Provost (08:06):

Very dismissive, very oppressive. And so, what’s the knee-jerk reaction? “I’m not asking a question. I’m not going to that meeting. I don’t even want to talk about it.” And pair that with the fact that when women are raised in their cultures, I’ve heard this a lot, we don’t talk about money. It’s rude to talk about money. You don’t ask people what money they make or what they buy for things. Some households, conversations about money equate with anger, so we don’t want to go down that road, right? So, there’s so many barriers for women about money. And let’s top it off with the fact that in school women were taught, you’re not good with math.

Stephanie McCullough (08:51):

Often explicit.

Dr. Barbara Provost (08:52):

So, it just compounds, compounds, compounds. So now we’re at a place, and we experience it in Purse Strings, where women, they don’t… I’ve had women just hold their hands up to me like, “Stop. I don’t even want to talk about it. My husband takes care of that.” Or they’re intimidated by even the topics, so they don’t want to talk about it. And so that’s all the things that led me to create Purse Strings. Which is a safe space, a community if you will, where women can come and ask any question they want about any type of financial issue. If we don’t have the answer, we have a cadre of experts that will provide them the answers as you well know, Stephanie, because you are one of our Purse Strings Approved Professionals. So that’s the foundation of Purse Strings.

Kevin Gaines (09:45):

Well, Dr. Barb, I got to say, I actually understand what you’re saying because I still remember one of the first lessons, I guess you would say, when I first worked in this industry many, many years ago. And I remember being told, “You want to talk to the man, you don’t want to talk to the woman because the woman’s going to ask too many questions. And you want to get in, you want to get a yes and you want to get out.” Because it gets back to the whole product. When all you’re doing is selling product, you got to go as fast as you can to get as much product sold as possible. But women, they’re going to ask questions and that’s going to slow you down. The guys, well then, you just sit there, and if they say I got to talk to my wife, well, then you challenge their masculinity and you…

Stephanie McCullough (10:37):

Oh, man.

Kevin Gaines (10:37):

… absolutely. There’s a movie called Boiler Room, made back in the 1990s. And they talk about a lot of these little sales lines that they were taught, not just in boiler room operations, but in more quote unquote respectable financial institutions. But yeah, it was not conducive to conversations, shall we say.

Stephanie McCullough (11:04):

Yeah.

Dr. Barbara Provost (11:06):

And I’ve heard that in the classroom, when I was in classrooms where the men would say, “Women, they ask too many questions. I want to get in, get out and move on, and I don’t have patience for them.” My jaw, I had to pick it up off the floor. And at some point, I can tell you why they ask so many questions, but go on Stephanie, you had some questions for me.

Stephanie McCullough (11:25):

Yeah. I just love that your background is in how adults learn and trying to fill this gap around women’s financial confidence. So, is there a difference between how women and men learn about this stuff or learn about anything?

Dr. Barbara Provost (11:41):

Well, women really do their research. And like I said, that’s one of the reasons they ask a lot of questions. They gather a lot of information and they want to understand the purchase that is being made. Now, oftentimes in a financial situation, they’re dismissed so often, so they don’t press enough to really just say, “I really want to understand the product.” And many women have told me, “I bought products and I don’t even know how they work or what they’re for. I just felt pressured and I gave into it because I didn’t want to feel stupid, and I thought I needed it.” So, but women want to gather information and really make a good, solid decision because they don’t want to make mistake, A, they don’t want to have to do this again because they don’t have time for a do-over, they’ve got a thousand other things on their plates to do.

Dr. Barbara Provost (12:34):

And they want to make sure they’re making a good sound financial decision at the onset because they’re not thinking of ROI and interest rates, while that’s all well and good. [When women make a financial decision] they’re thinking about my children, my parents, myself, my siblings, my future. They’re thinking about the rippling effect of all the impacted people around them, that this decision may impact. And that’s what’s first and foremost and probably most top of mind when they’re making financial decisions, which is very, very different than men, and men usually go to the return on investment. “What am I going to make on this?”

Stephanie McCullough (13:13):

Yeah. That definitely aligns with the research I’ve read about how women think about money too. It’s not about whoever dies with the most dollars wins, it’s what can this money do for me and my family? And when they’re working on helping poor communities and poor countries, the research has shown, if they help the men be more financially stable or make more money, they might spend the extra at the bar down the street or buying a motor bike. Whereas if they focus on helping the women be financially stable, once they are in a decent position, then they’re going to pay their kids’ school fees and then they’re going to help their community, and they’re going to build up the local infrastructure. It’s really, like you said, those ripple effects.

Dr. Barbara Provost (13:57):

Yes. They ripple out and they ripple into community. And women want to know, even when we talk about some of the social investing, like what is this money being invested in? Not what’s the return on the investment, but what is my hard-earned money being invested in and is it child labor or is it to help global warming? Or whatever it is near and dear to them. And they’re asking more questions to get more information about, what are the impacts of this investment?

Stephanie McCullough (14:24):

I definitely see that with my clients. Definitely a lot of women are interested in making sure their investments are aligned with their values, not just how they’re spending their dollars or how they’re maybe gifting their dollars, but how they’re putting them to work, to grow for them in the future. And a lot of the male financial establishment doesn’t have time for that. They think that there’s a tradeoff. You’re going to sacrifice your return, if you’re looking to be a bleeding heart and you want to improve the world, “Oh, that’s so cute. Just make a heck of a lot of money instead, and then give it away later.” And I see a lot of women pushing back on that, which I’m very happy about.

Dr. Barbara Provost (14:59):

Yeah. True.

Kevin Gaines (15:00):

I think that feeds into the increase of women, both in the decision-making and within our industry because coincidentally or not, the whole conversation around ESG, environmental, social and governance, has really taken off in these last few years. And like I said, coincidentally or not, you’re seeing more women in the decision-making situations, whether it’s as end user client or like I said, working in our industry.

Dr. Barbara Provost (15:33):

Yeah. There’s so much going on with women right now. We look at women and they’re in places that we haven’t seen them before. They’re now football coaches in the NFL, they’re vice presidents of the United States, which is very first. So, we’re starting to see them in places that typically we haven’t seen them in the past. And they’re finding their voice and they’re stepping forward, and they’re just saying, “I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m willing to step back, step out, step whatever, to just say, ‘I’m not putting myself in that atmosphere, that arena.'” We see this with COVID right now, women are taking themselves out of the workforce because they have too many other things going on. And yet financially, women influence 95% of the purchasing decisions in the household.

Dr. Barbara Provost (16:20):

So, Kevin, if you went to buy a car with your spouse and they didn’t treat her correctly or ignored her, or didn’t ask her what her thoughts are, what she was looking for, and you leave. You might say, “I love that car.” And she might say, “Great car. We’re not buying it there.” You know what I mean? They’re going to influence.

Kevin Gaines (16:43):

It’s definitely happened. And the funny thing is she doesn’t care-

Dr. Barbara Provost (16:47):

About the car.

Kevin Gaines (16:48):

She doesn’t care about the car, but she wants to be able to tell the salesman, “I don’t care, talk to him. Show him the engine, I don’t care. I just want to know whatever.” But she wants that to be her decision, to be able to say-

Dr. Barbara Provost (17:03):

Yes. Acknowledged.

Kevin Gaines (17:03):

Yes.

Dr. Barbara Provost (17:04):

Yeah. That’s the prime example, the car buying example, but I’m sure there are more. In any type of situation where they just glom onto the man in the conversation, and so you might leave that conversation and the woman says, “That guy was a jerk, we’re not buying from him. I don’t care if you buy that car.” So, they are influencing the decisions in the household. And you probably already know this, a couple more statistics, 70% of women will leave their financial professional if their spouse dies, because they’ve never been paid attention to or asked what they wanted. And you know those decisions that are made at that table are going to impact her more than him. And the third one is women are coming into the largest transference of wealth in history. So, they’re the most powerful market on the planet right now, and people are just not even taking a look.

Stephanie McCullough (17:52):

It is crazy when you think about it. So, my purchasing story was at a stereo store. Years ago, my husband and I were thinking about buying a new fancy stereo, and that’s one of the things that people did because we actually had CDs and all that. But we went to the store that was very highly recommended and highly thought of, and there was a sales guy, and me and my husband. And he says to me, the sales guy, “It’s so easy, you can even use it while he’s at work.” And I was flabbergasted. There was just so many things wrong with that statement. I dragged my husband out of there, I’m like, “I don’t even know what to say to that.” But-

Kevin Gaines (18:27):

Was there anything right with that statement?

Stephanie McCullough (18:30):

Exactly. Oh my gosh. Just bald faced. Yeah. So, it still happens and it definitely happens in our industry too.

Dr. Barbara Provost (18:40):

Yeah. All the time. So, another reason why we created Purse Strings was to give women that one place to come to ask their questions. But let’s say they’re venturing through divorce, or they want to buy a house, or they’re coming into a big windfall of money, they’ve gotten inheritance. They don’t really know what to do sometimes. “Who do I go to? Who do I trust?” They would send me, “Barb, who do I go to now that I know? Who do I trust? Who can I trust? Who do you know? Who would you recommend?” And that’s why we look for top tier financial professionals who are already serving a female market. They understand the plight of women and they really want to answer all of her questions, no matter how many there are and take the time needed to explain to them, because in return… here’s another stat. Women will give 27 times more referrals than men.

Stephanie McCullough (19:30):

Oh, wow.

Dr. Barbara Provost (19:32):

We refer all day long, all day long. You want a house cleaner; you want to know where to get your hair cut. You’re looking for new tires. You’re looking for an insurance agent, where do you go? Facebook.

Stephanie McCullough (19:45):

Ask your friends, yeah.

Dr. Barbara Provost (19:47):

Ask your friends. And so, women give… when you have a loyal female consumer, they will recommend you all day long and they will stay with you, because women value relationship and service and respect and dignity, over price all day long.

Stephanie McCullough (20:06):

And I think at least in our slice of the financial profession, in the financial advisor world, I’ve come across so many women who’ve had an experience with what we’re positing as the stereotypical male advisor who only spoke to her husband, or talked down to her or patted her head and said, “Don’t you worry about that.” And so, I think a lot of women are skeptical that there aren’t any advisors who do it differently.

Dr. Barbara Provost (20:31):

Yeah, no, there are. They are few and far between I will say, because we scour, we just don’t take all comers. We look for referrals from Purse Strings approved professionals who already know what we’re about and what we’re looking for. And we go out and look for those people who are doing it already, and we pluck them out of the crowd and say, “We’d really like to talk to you.” So, we’re really looking for those top tier financial professionals.

Stephanie McCullough (20:54):

So, years ago, when I was starting Sofia Financial to work with women, I went to a woman who’s very well known in the Philadelphia area for supporting women’s causes. And I was really excited to tell her what I was doing. And her response was, “Oh, all these big local banks are doing that, so you’re going to have a lot of competition.” But when I saw the big local banks, they had an ad in the fancy magazine with pink in it. That’s not working with the women’s market.

Dr. Barbara Provost (21:25):

That’s called pink it and shrink it. It’s called pink it and shrink it, meaning, “We’ll make that screwdriver a little bit smaller for your little female hand. We’ll make it pink, and now you can use the screwdriver.” It’s crazy. It’s insulting. And I’m right with you. When I was first pounding the pavement on this and they’d say, “Oh, we have a woman’s this or that.” I try to find it; it’ll be about 18 clicks down on a website somewhere. And it was exact same content, but it wasn’t a different font or it had a picture of a white woman on there.

Stephanie McCullough (22:00):

Oh, yeah. That’s another issue.

Dr. Barbara Provost (22:02):

Yeah. So, I’m like, “No, they’re not really doing anything differently.” They’re really not. They think they are. They think that’s, what’s selling to women is, and it’s not. In fact, you may not know this, but I was a consultant with the World Bank and helped them develop content that they used in Nigeria, Cameroon, the Philippines, all these different locations, where they taught their financial professionals, how to reach, engage, and earn a female dollar. We created that education and I’ve leveraged and built my own course that we have as part of your membership of being Purse Strings approved, that really teach people, what does it really mean to sell to a woman? What does it mean to engage a female market? And it’s not pink it and shrink it.

Stephanie McCullough (22:44):

So, what are a couple of the keys that you teach in that material?

Dr. Barbara Provost (22:48):

So first of all, it is about dedicating the time. I say it’s like losing weight. You know what you should do, but it’s really, really hard to do. So, it’s about, when you have an appointment with a woman for a financial discussion, it’s about really dedicating that time to her. First and foremost, be on time if not early. Expect her and have any information that she may have asked about or talked to you about, or discussed with you, at the forefront in your fingertips. Be waiting at the door knowing that she’s coming. And I say this because she’s running in, she’s going to dive roll in between this appointment and that appointment, and she’s already called you and done her research and whatever.

Dr. Barbara Provost (23:32):

Yet, I meet so many financial professionals that will sit back and go, “Okay, let me tell you all about me. I have this certificate, that certificate, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I’ve been in the community.” Women don’t care. They chose you already for a reason, you were referred or they’ve looked at your website or they’ve done their own due diligence. They want to talk about what they need. If they want to know more about you, they’ll ask. So, be prepared to say this, “How can I help you? What are your concerns?” And then zip it. And don’t say another word. Have a pad of paper, do not have your phone on, have it the furthest thing away from you. Do not have your computer there, have a pad of paper and say, “I’m going to take some notes and write down.” And write down everything she says.

Stephanie McCullough (24:17):

To me, I used to use the hashtag different money conversation, because it’s not about, “Oh, I have the best mutual fund for you, where we have the best performance.” It’s, “How are these dollars going to support your son, your daughter, yourself, your old age, your whatever it is your trying to create in the world?” And that’s what we got to talk about. We got to get really clear on that stuff. And then we line up the dollars, that’s secondary. Who cares what mutual fund they’re invested in, if they’re not working towards the purpose you need?

Dr. Barbara Provost (24:49):

Exactly. You want to know what her story is just by listening and taking copious notes and then leveraging those notes the next time that you see her. Or maybe you bump into her at the grocery store and go, “Oh, you were on your way to your son’s baseball team, and how’d that work out?” That will go a million miles because she knows you’re listening. And like I said earlier, timely, consistent… A lot of times people will make an appointment with someone and see their staff, that’s not who she made the appointment with. Or they’re five minutes late or they’re, “I’m so busy. ‘Well, if you’re too busy to meet me on time, I’ll find somebody else, because I’m busy and I’m really hiring you.'” So, it’s about these respect and dignity and going above and beyond.

Dr. Barbara Provost (25:35):

And in the course, I have so many great examples of other institutions that have been successful by doing unique and different things that make them stand apart. Because let’s face it, there’s a lot of competition out there.

Stephanie McCullough (25:50):

Oh, yeah.

Dr. Barbara Provost (25:51):

I say, go down the bread aisle. There’s a lot of bread out there. What’s going to make your bread stand apart from all the other bread out there.

Stephanie McCullough (25:58):

So, what are some of the questions you’ve heard that have surprised you from women? What are some of the information they’re looking for that maybe you didn’t anticipate when you first started Purse Strings?

Dr. Barbara Provost (26:08):

Just, “Who do I go to?” So, for instance, first time home buyers, a lot of people buying homes. And so, when I’m buying a home, they want to know, “Who should I go to for an attorney?” Because in Illinois we need an attorney. Do you where you live?

Stephanie McCullough (26:22):

We do not.

Kevin Gaines (26:22):

No.

Dr. Barbara Provost (26:33):

Okay. So, “Who’s the best person to get? What do they do for me? And what am I paying them for?” They don’t understand that. And the inspector. Somebody said, the inspector could be working with a realtor and you might not want those people to close. You might want to select your own inspector because they might be glossing over a few things that could be harmful to you down the road. So just some of those unique and different things like, “Why do I need all these professionals? And what do they do for me?” And financial speak is very dense and not easy to understand. So, it’s unpacking some of that like, “Now, what does that mean? And why do I need it?” Kind of things. This month we’re doing women who are leaving corporate, so we’re talking all about 401ks. Because people forget that, either forget or don’t know what to do with it. So, they have this money in an institution, or they’ve never gone back to it, or they don’t know about pensions. They just don’t know what their benefits are because they signed up for all these things when they started working and never really attended to them on a regular basis.

Dr. Barbara Provost (27:27):

And so, part of what we’re doing at Purse Strings is to say, “You can’t just set it and forget it. You need to look and assess and have those things top of mind.” And it’s my mission that every woman has life insurance, a will and their power of attorneys at any point in time in their lives. Because those things are so important and women don’t think they’re that important that they need them. So, it’s really heeding the call. Sometimes women don’t know what they don’t know or they think, “I’m so busy, I’ll get to that later.” And later is now.

Stephanie McCullough (27:58):

Well. And some of it brings up unpleasant things. If you have to update your will and I’m totally guilty of being behind on doing my own, but you got to think about someone pleasant things. Like, who’s going to take care of my money if my husband passes away and I’m incapacitated? That’s not a fun thing to think about. Or if you have minor kids, who’s going to be in charge of your kids? So, it’s much easier to postpone than to address it head on. And-

Dr. Barbara Provost (28:20):

It sure is. But-

Stephanie McCullough (28:20):

… in a crisis, you need to have it done.

Dr. Barbara Provost (28:22):

Knowing that that’s done, you sleep much better at night, you travel much better the world and you know that your stuff is in order. And it’s really a gift to the rest of your family. It’s a gift.

Kevin Gaines (28:34):

Right.

Stephanie McCullough (28:35):

I agree. It’s a gift to your family, it’s a gift to your future self. If you’ve got all the little pieces tied up and in line and you’ve been paying attention to them, then you’re in a much better situation to control your future. So many women come to me after a divorce or after being widowed and they haven’t been paying attention, and then we have to tackle it from a certain perspective. But much better to have been at least once a year, understanding what you’ve got, where things are and making sure they’re in line.

Dr. Barbara Provost (29:08):

Yeah. And at Purse Strings, we’re really sinking our teeth into some of these discussions and saying, “Hey, nobody wants a root canal either, but you just got to go get it done sometimes.” So just make a point, make an appointment with yourself, your professional, get it done, lock it up, tell people where it is, done. We have so many stories, and we had it last month of widows, the good, the bad and the ugly. And it gets ugly and it’s expensive. And you’re going to leave a mess behind if you don’t take care of yourself as an adult and do some of these adulting things.

Stephanie McCullough (29:40):

Yes. And that’s, I think can be a big motivator for women too. You don’t want to leave a mess behind for your loved ones, should something happen and all of a sudden, you’re not around anymore.

Kevin Gaines (29:48):

Right.

Dr. Barbara Provost (29:49):

And those of us who are taking care of our own parents, we need to make sure our parents have those things lined up, because we’re going to be the ones that are going to have to navigate that, as well. And it can be a really long, arduous, expensive navigation, unless you have things that are locked up.

Stephanie McCullough (30:05):

Yep. We had Cathy Sikorski on the podcast early on. And as you know-

Dr. Barbara Provost (30:10):

Yeah, she’s awesome.

Stephanie McCullough (30:11):

… she’s an expert in that area and has all kinds of harrowing tales to tell.

Dr. Barbara Provost (30:13):

Yeah.

Kevin Gaines (30:14):

And Stephanie, you’ve seen this as well as I have and Dr. Barb, I’m sure you have as well. People saying how much they appreciate having done all the hard work or the stressful work, I’ll call it, when they could, not when they had to, because then it allowed for them to either focus on the issues at hand or not have all this extra stress and burden of all a sudden thinking about stuff they really don’t want to be thinking about at that particular moment in time.

Dr. Barbara Provost (30:45):

Right.

Kevin Gaines (30:46):

Let me follow up with this question. How many times when you’re working with women who are looking for advisors or needing help with a lot of these questions, how often do you find yourself encouraging them to speak up, not to be intimidated? As opposed to, a lot of women are already comfortable doing that, they’ve just been ignored in the past?

Dr. Barbara Provost (31:10):

Well, I’ve heard it so often as I was building Purse Strings. And that’s why we reach out and we find professionals like Stephanie, who we know if we recommend or promote these professionals, they’re going to be like, “How can I help you?” They’re going to be those people who are in their corner to say, “I’m here to help you and listen to you and help you navigate, answer all your questions. That’s what I’m here to do.” To many women, it’s tough Kevin, to get women to come to the table because we’re fighting years and years and years of this suppression and being overlooked, or dismissed around this topic that we are finally saying, “Look, if we’re not talking about money, we’re not learning about money.” And if you’re not coming to the table and asking your questions, you’re going to be left behind. And if you’re left behind, it looks like this, at age 65 plus you’re going to be getting a second job because you can’t pay your bills.

Dr. Barbara Provost (32:04):

And you can’t pay your bills because you were never at the table having the discussions and making those hard decisions around your investments, in your monies. And if you’re going to stay at home with your kids, how are you going to save for your own retirement and HSA, and all these other topics. So, we’re really challenging women to say, “Come to the table, work with these amazing financial professionals, who are going to help you navigate this so that it’s not painful, you have things in place. They’re going to assess with you your monies.” And of course, everyone thinks, “I don’t have enough money to talk to a financial professional.” Maybe you do, maybe it’s coming.

Dr. Barbara Provost (32:37):

My daughter is my partner and she just finished her MBA. She doesn’t have a lot of money; she got a lot of bills. But what she also has a lot of high potential earning coming her way. And so, if you start with them, as they’re coming out of college and you’re being a good advocate for them and helping them navigate where they are today, they’re going to be with you tomorrow and then on and on and on, as they grow their families and buy their homes and cars, and make investments and all that.

Stephanie McCullough (33:05):

I’ve talked to so many women who feel guilt when they inherit. There wasn’t that conversation before mom or dad passed on and now, they have this money that they don’t feel like they deserve, they’d much rather have their parent there. And it makes it even more complicated, figuring out how to then put those dollars to work, to support them, when there’s so much emotion around it.

Dr. Barbara Provost (33:27):

Yeah, because they’ve gotten all the sudden the years and years and years of hard work they’ve seen their parents put in, in their lap. And I’ll be honored to say that I did get an inheritance when my dad passed away, and that’s how I started Purse Strings.

Stephanie McCullough (33:40):

Oh nice. That’s awesome.

Dr. Barbara Provost (33:41):

Yeah.

Stephanie McCullough (33:42):

So, Dr. Barb, thank you so much for being with us. How can people find you? What have you got going on? Where can they find some of these great free resources that Purse Strings offers?

Dr. Barbara Provost (33:51):

Yeah. Well, we’re at pursestrings.co, not.com, it’s .co. And so, you can go right to our website. And we have this great new revamping of our website coming this month, which we’re super excited about, which will really help women navigate even more through different life circumstances. So, if you’re not quite sure what you need, our website will help you navigate towards how we can help you. There’s a lot of free resources out there. And our Facebook group, which is Purse Strings for Financially Fearless Women. Join us, it’s free, everything’s free. And we even have a course there, which is Financial Foundations for Women. It’s free, it’s online, self-directed. And it’s worksheets and it helps you get all your foundations in order. So, if you just don’t know where to start, that’s a good place to start.

Dr. Barbara Provost (34:35):

And then also at our website, you can find our financial professionals, which are not only financial professionals like you, Stephanie, as a financial advisor, but we also have realtors. We have divorce coaches, we have attorneys, we have lenders. We have all sorts of financial professionals where at any point in time, when a woman needs to make a financial decision or investment, what have you, a question, we have the financial professionals out there.

Stephanie McCullough (34:58):

That’s awesome. I love what you’ve built and what you’re continuing to build. And thank you so much for doing what you do.

Dr. Barbara Provost (35:03):

Oh, thank you for having me.

Kevin Gaines (35:05):

Thank you.

Dr. Barbara Provost (35:07):

I just love talking about Purse Strings and working to get the word out. So spread the word.

Stephanie McCullough (35:11):

We shall do it.

Kevin Gaines (35:11):

Great.

Dr. Barbara Provost (35:12):

Okay.

Stephanie McCullough (35:17):

All right, Kevin, what did you think of our conversation with Dr. Barb?

Kevin Gaines (35:20):

In a word, enlightening. I’m happy to hear that a lot of the stuff that we’re doing and how we’re having conversations, are the stuff that she’s talking about.

Stephanie McCullough (35:29):

Right. What I love about her whole approach though, and what she and her daughter Maggie are doing is that, it’s very research based. All the research studies that she commissioned and read and the focus groups that she held. So, it’s very much based in the actual need of women and her information and knowledge, as having a doctorate in adult education. I love that the focus is on being a safe space to ask these questions.

Stephanie McCullough (36:00):

And as she said on the website, if you don’t even know where to start and what questions to ask, it’s really a wonderful community. Both the resources on the website and I’ve been a member of the Facebook community for a while now. It is really a safe, nonjudgmental place to go and ask those questions. Her focus on respect and dignity is so crucial I think to anyone, if you’re just trying to make an impact in the world, wow, what a novel idea to respect the dignity and worth of your potential clients. And it is crazy that in this day and age where women-identifying people are over half of the population. So, we’re not a niche market. We are, as she said, going to inherit a heck of a lot of money over the next few decades, so hopefully people will start paying attention.

Kevin Gaines (36:50):

Yeah. Really hope it happens.

Stephanie McCullough (36:52):

We encourage everybody to ask as many questions as possible. My whole mantra is, “You don’t have to have the answers. You have to know the questions to ask and have the guts to ask them.” And I feel Purse Strings and Dr. Barb, are helping women understand the questions to ask and connecting them with other women and professionals that they can ask.

Kevin Gaines (37:14):

Yeah. And I hope she continues to do this. And I hope more people continue to access her offerings. The Facebook group, the website, because education really is important.

Stephanie McCullough (37:28):

Our mission is to empower more women to make wise decisions so they can control their future, and Dr. Barb is right in line with that. We will be linking to pursestrings.co in the show notes and to the Facebook group, for sure. We encourage you to go and check it out and let us know what you think. Thanks so much for being with us, we’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (37:48):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (37:55):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only, Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Disclaimer (38:06):

Investment advice offered through private advisor group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private advisor group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material, are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice, or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor, prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.