Can advisors use a second language as a planning niche?

Advisors often carve out niches by focusing on unique client groups, from tech start-up millennials to retirement community pickleball players. But as demographic shifts reshape the client landscape, one rare skill — speaking a second language — might be the next big differentiator for financial advisors.

In the diversity-challenged world of wealth management, multilingual advisors compose a relatively small fraction of the profession. Data on the languages spoken by advisors in the industry is far from complete. But information from the CFP Board does provide at least a partial picture.

Across CFPs who listed their languages, nearly 93% speak only English. Across the 7% of CFPs who speak languages other than English, Spanish was the most popular language, followed by French, Mandarin and German. 

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The data around spoken languages is far from perfect, but it does provide a rough picture of the languages spoken among financial advisors. Advisors like Maggie Liu, the director of Asian Wealth Advisory at Bordeaux Wealth Advisors, say that speaking languages other than English isn't often necessary — many of her clients are multilingual — but it can help create deeper connections between an advisor and a client.

"Most of our clients and prospects who come to us, they're educated in the United States as well, right? High-level PhDs, master's degrees, you name it," Liu said. "But they still feel more comfortable speaking to somebody in their home language because all they know are the rules and the requirements from their home country."

Fluency in more than words

Sharing language can be a powerful tool for advisors, helping them to attract and retain clients. But language alone is not enough, Liu said. Often, language works as a proxy for much broader cultural backgrounds. Understanding that context can help advisors understand the unique perspectives that underpin their clients' financial decisions and goals.

In Liu's work, she said many of her Asian clients tend to communicate in a culturally distinct style, even if they're speaking in English.

"It's a lot more about understanding what they're telling you and what they're not telling you, because in Asian culture … a lot of things are not said out loud," Liu said. "Things like directly telling you what they want are considered rude, for example. Right? A lot of times, they're telling you things about what they don't want or what they want. But really it's a hidden message somewhere you have to decode."

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Advisors can be sensitive to those cultural characteristics even if they're not fluent in another language, according to Marguerita Cheng, CEO of Blue Ocean Global Wealth in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

"It's not so much the language that I find helpful, it's more like the cultural nuances," Cheng, who is currently relearning Japanese, said. "I feel like when we're talking to a lot of blended families, I feel like that's where I can add a lot of value. So I still conduct all my meetings in English. I don't feel like I necessarily am qualified to conduct those meetings in any of the other languages I mentioned. But people will Google me and be like, 'Oh, she's multiracial. She's multicultural. I think she gets us. I think she understands."

Understanding takes time — and effort

That understanding can come from lots of different places. Cheng said she learned about the financial impacts many first-generation immigrants face through her husband, whose family was all located in Indonesia. In helping nieces and nephews come to the United States, Cheng said she and her husband incurred expenses, like inflated auto insurance policies and phone plans, that may seem odd to an advisor who doesn't understand what that process involves.

Without that cultural lens, Cheng said understanding something like an $800 phone bill or an expensive insurance policy can be less natural for advisors.

"By taking the time to understand this, I understand, 'Oh, their car insurance is high because there are five vehicles on there, because they have a lot of extended family, and it made sense for them to be on our policy because we get discounts," she said. "So it's more like just the cultural nuances and just being mindful."

Advisors like Cheng and Liu learned those nuances first-hand, but advisors who are interested in expanding their cultural and language skills still have options available to them.

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"I do think it can be learned," Liu said. "It doesn't have to be like you are from that culture originally. Obviously, the language would be easier if you're from that culture. But a lot of people can speak the language, like I said, but not understand the culture 100% either. So I do think it can be learned, but it has to be a dedicated approach. It wouldn't be something you just do once … it would have to be a repeatable approach."

Jon Ekoniak, a managing partner at Bordeaux Wealth Advisors, said that advisors coming from outside of a culture may face some obstacles when trying to serve clients from a different background. But spending time with a client and showing a commitment to understanding them and their situation can help overcome those barriers, he said.

"I had an Indian client who told me about her kid's special needs assessment way before she told her parents. And I think she was embarrassed to tell her parents about it, and that was part of the culture, but she was willing to tell me," he said. "That took a couple of years to develop that level of trust with her, that she would share something like that with me. So I think time and the ability to actually connect one on one with somebody is absolutely critical."