Purse Strings with Dr. Barbara Provost, Episode #39

Today’s guest on the Money Mindset™ is Dr. Barbara Provost, the founder of Purse Strings, LLC. Barbara is no stranger to hard work or challenges. She has used her strong experience, active research, and continuous data gathering to help empower women everywhere. Barbara found that women are consistently overlooked by financial organizations causing this powerful demographic to be underserved and under planned for in regards to their financial future and she wanted to change that. She works to help women become financially fearless by learning what they need to know to make the right financial decisions for themselves and their families. Using her proprietary Purse Strings model, Purse Strings provides a cadre of financial professionals who have been vetted to provide the unique service women want and empowers women everywhere to work towards their financial future. I am proud to say I am Purse Strings approved, and can’t wait to share our conversation.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…

  • Barbara’s path to starting Purse Strings LLC [2:27]
  • How Purse Strings is solving issues Barbara found in the marketplace [5:42]
  • The Purse Strings model [9:45]
  • Differences in working with female vs. other clients [12:39]
  • Working with a husband and wife at the same time but catering to both [14:10]
  • Can a male be a Purse Strings approved professional? [19:05]
  • Top 3 areas where men are failing when working with female clients [20:41]
  • What does it mean to be financially fearless and what mindset is needed? [24:52]
  • What Barbara did today that put her in the right mindset for success? [28:48]

Where did the idea for Purse Strings begin?

Barbara worked in the financial industry for over 20 years but her background is focused more on adult education. Her passion is creating great education to help people be both confident and competent in the work that they do. While developing education in the financial industry she could see the female market was being overlooked.

Being the curious person that she is, Barbara hired a researcher to look into this issue to learn how the insurance and financial industry were serving women and how women are set for their financial future. The data that came back was that the insurance and financial industry wins the award for being the least sympathetic to women and that women are very underserved and not prepared for their financial future. With that information, Barbara thought there’s an issue here and as an educator, it was something she thought she could zero in on. That’s when Purse Strings was born.

Pinpointing the problems women face in the financial world

Why aren’t women more involved in their own financial planning? Barbara did some focus groups and found that for many women money is a difficult subject to communicate about. They were raised in homes where money was an off-limits topic or a source of strife in the home. As adults, they’ve been dismissed by advisors and have been met with statements like “don’t worry about that” when they ask questions. They feel when they go with their husbands the professionals just talk with him and she’s not being spoken to and her questions aren’t answered. Women also say they weren’t taught about money in school. The other thing Barbara heard was that when women have these conversations in the financial industry, they hear words that they don’t understand and they’re afraid to speak up and say they don’t understand. So it’s just not a good, comfortable experience.

Arming women with knowledge, info, and skills while teaching professionals how to serve the female market

Barbara thought, as an educator, she knows how to educate adults and make it a warm and welcoming experience meeting people where they are at. She created online tools and resources that are free for women at PurseStrings.co and they start with the fundamentals. How do you budget? What do I need to know about buying my first home? I’m buying a car and I need auto insurance; how do I know what to select? So what Purse Strings does is we arm them with information, knowledge, and skills that they can use to go have these conversations and feel more confident in these conversations with their financial providers.

Barbara went a step further and built education that teaches financial professionals how to reach out and engage with the female market. How to reach them, engage with them, and work to earn their hard-earned dollar. She drives home the power of the female market— which is a 23 trillion dollar underserved market— and how women make financial decisions— which is different from the way men make their decisions. She teaches where to find these women and how to gain their trust? Because trust is a very big factor when it comes to serving women. Hopefully educating both sides of these partnerships will help women

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Dr. Barbara Provost

Dr. Barbara Provost Founder – Purse Strings, LLC

No stranger to hard work and challenges, the Founder of Purse Strings LLC, Dr. Barbara Provost, has leveraged her strong experience, active research, and continuous data gathering activities, to solve a problem. Barbara found that women are consistently overlooked by financial organizations, to the tune of leaving a possible 22-trillion dollars of untapped sales on the table.

Not only is this buying power being ignored for lack of tailoring to women, but this powerful demographic is also underserved and under-planned for their financial future. With that sole purpose in mind, Barbara leveraged her years of business consulting and expertise in adult learning which resulted in what financial institutions need to reach and engage women, creating the first empowerment, education, and training tool to earn the vast spending power of the female dollar.

Purse Strings help women become financially fearless by learning what they need to know to make the right financial decisions for themselves and their families. Moreover, Purse Strings provides a cadre of financial professionals who have been trained and vetted to provide the right products and the unique service women want.

Guests on the Mitlin Money Mindset Show are not affiliated with CWM, LLC, and opinions expressed herein may not be representative of CWM, LLC. CWM, LLC is not responsible for the guest’s content linked on this site.

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