Financial Advisor Success Podcast Archives

Welcome back to the 378th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Michael Collins. Michael is the CEO & Founder of WinCap Financial, an RIA based in Boston, Massachusetts, that oversees $80M in assets under management for 70 client households.

What's unique about Michael, though, is that since 2021 he has been able to grow WinCap Financial at a rate of more than $10M of AUM per year through consistently reaching out to leads purchased through SmartAsset, spending $5K/month that turns into $10K in recurring revenue in less than 100 days, an average of more than 4X the return on financial investment than if those clients had been obtained through an acquisition buying at a traditional 2X revenue multiple.

In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Michael maintains his ongoing $5K/month marketing spend with a process that has an ultimate failure rate of 95% because the financial ROI on the prospects that do close continues to make sense (and he is ultimately not afraid of sorting through the No's to find the right Yes's for WinCap), how Michael supports his SmartAsset conversion rate with a weekly blog that is written by taking the upcoming economic calendar, automating it into a narrative article in his writing style using ChatGPT, and then simply editing it to add his own commentary (which cuts the time it takes for him to write from 2 hours down to 30 minutes), and how Michael has systematized everything from his follow-up emails to text messages to his weekly blog and an ongoing tracking sheet to ensure no prospect slips through the cracks, which allows him to generate his results with a high volume of SmartAsset leads while only spending 8–10 hours/month on the entire process.

We also talk about Michael's advisor journey that began with selling Gateway Computer "Cow Boxes" in college (and getting used to the No's that came along with computer sales) and how Michael channeled that comfort-with-hearing-No into his career shift into wealth management with a process that has a "20 leads to 3 prospects to 1 new client" marketing formula, the reason Michael's decided during the pandemic to take a chance on leaving his then-current advisory firm starting his own RIA (after realizing that he was already doing the important aspects of both client service and business development himself, which made it difficult to justify why his current firm was owed an 80% share of the revenue he was bringing in), and how, when the stress of launching his firm was at an all-time high and a concern for the sustainability of WinCap at the end of 2022 was a major challenge, Michael found that acts of service in education – by becoming a part-time adjunct professor teaching college students – became a key rewarding element of life that kept him going.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Michael shares how moving from a large, firm-supported environment to an independent practice wasn't as hard as he expected because he could easily integrate tools and platforms he was already familiar with (and had the financial ability to get a $50K bank loan to buy a big chunk of SmartAsset leads, which further helped to jump-start his new practice), how surprised Michael was with the amount of support he did get when he launched WinCap, with more than 80% of his previous client base also following him into his new firm within a year, and how Michael had long struggled to take the leap because of the perceived safety and credibility in being part of a larger advisory firm but ultimately found that he could get similar credibility by affiliating his new firm with reputable RIA custodians… which helped Michael's clients, and also Michael himself, find the necessary confidence to move forward.

So, whether you're interested in learning about how to effectively use lead generation tools like SmartAsset to grow and connect with potential clients, how to justify a shift from a large company-supported firm to an independent solo practice or how to use ChatGPT to 'Frankenstein' blog posts that communicate complicated financial information in an easier-to-understand way for your audience, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Michael Collins.

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Welcome back to the 377th episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today's podcast is Meredith Moore. Meredith is the Founder & CEO of Artisan Financial Strategies, a hybrid advisory firm based in Alpharetta, Georgia, that oversees $77M in assets under management for 120 client households.

What's unique about Meredith, though, is how she was able to keep her firm open, navigating through and ultimately growing to more than $1M of annual revenue, despite a diagnosis in 2005 of a 7cm Glioblastoma tumor in her brain, resulting in several years of major surgeries, radiation treatments, and chemotherapies, all the while continuing to see and serve her clients. In this episode, we talk in-depth about how Meredith has met the multitude of challenges she has faced in the last 17 years head-on and found ways to navigate Artisan to ongoing growth despite those trying times, how Meredith decided to amplify her ability to grow the firm by hiring early (before she even had $200,000 in revenue) in the interest of staying ahead of the company's capacity (which, ultimately, jump-started a faster pace of revenue growth for her), and how, after a period of bad hires, Meredith pivoted Artisan's hiring process by leaning into LinkedIn Ads and more clearly articulating both what each role needed to succeed, and what a prospective candidate would really need to be able to do in order to move up and grow with the company in the future.

We also talk about how Meredith's realization that women who outearn their male partners are more apt to involve those partners in financial decisions than men would be, lead her to focus her advisory niche on women senior executives and entrepreneurs who are the household breadwinners, Meredith's whirlwind experience in being accepted as a speaker for TEDx Women in November, 2022, to talk about couples' dynamics with money (and the shock of having her talk cut down from 2,000 to 300 words to deliver for the event itself, and having to redo the entire talk on the day of the event), and how Meredith, inspired by Dorie Clark's "Becoming a Recognized Expert" course, has leveraged her TEDx talk as "social proof" of her expertise, and further leaned into expanding her network of potential clients through a luncheon series, each meeting connecting 6 women in high-level leadership roles who would meet and talk through a series of 3 simple questions that Meredith provided in order to connect with one another.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Meredith shares how she struggled in knowing how to really run an advisory practice like a business due to a lack of mentors around her (and is now much more mindful of the types of fellow advisor business owners she surrounds herself with), why Meredith still feels like her practice is in a "chasm of potential death" because of the unique challenges that arise in hiring and scaling up an advisory firm as it crosses $1M of revenue (and the staff infrastructure that has to be built to keep growing through that phase), and how, despite Meredith's surprise at how hard running and growing a business still is after 17 years, she's been able to keep growing by trying to constantly evolve, keep improving her process to find and put the right team members into the right roles that the business needs.

So, whether you're interested in learning about how hiring early and having the right recruitment and hiring process in place can mean the difference between the firm surviving despite a surprise brain cancer diagnosis and running out of cash due to years of bad hires, what it's REALLY like to apply, prepare for and give a TED Talk (twice), or how to grow your network and client base through intimate gatherings of influential and inspirational people within your firm's niche, then we hope you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, with Meredith Moore.

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