Ep 489: Winning More Clients By Talking Less And Reducing Friction For Prospects with Sara Grillo
Release Date: 05/12/2026
Ep 489: Winning More Clients By Talking Less And Reducing Friction For Prospects with Sara Grillo
Financial Advisor Success
For financial advisors, it might seem intuitive to spend time with prospects explaining the value they can offer. However, doing most of the talking can leave prospects unsure whether the advisor truly understands their needs, potentially discouraging them from becoming a client. In this episode, we welcome Sara Grillo, a marketing specialist for financial advisors, to discuss how focusing less on an advisor's expertise and more on what their prospects are truly worried about can lead to winning more clients. Sara also shares how to reduce friction in advisior marketing so...
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Ep 488: Bringing Hiring In-House To Support Rapid Growth After Doubling AUM To $600M In One Year with Joe Schmitz Jr.
Financial Advisor Success
How do you scale a financial advisory firm to 40+ staff and $630M AUM in just a few years without breaking your hiring, culture, or client experience? In this episode, you'll hear about the hiring and marketing strategies fueling this kind of growth and how being open about a firm's values can lead to greater retention of both clients and team members. Joe Schmitz Jr. is the founder of Peak Retirement Planning, a hybrid advisory firm based in Columbus, Ohio, that oversees $630 million in assets under management for approximately 1,000 client households. He joins the show today to...
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Ep 487: Building The Team And Tech To Serve Thousands Of (Advice-Only) Clients Efficiently with Lori Atwood
Financial Advisor Success
Growing a client base from the hundreds into the thousands requires both tech and talent. Today’s guest discusses how she's done both in order to serve more than 3,000 advice-only clients over the past three years. Lori Atwood is the founder of Fearless Finance. In this episode, she shares why she built her own internal planning software platform to meet the needs of her ideal target clients, how her "hub-and-spoke" advisor structure helps maintain culture and consistency across her firm, and how she spends 18% of her revenue on client acquisition yet ends up with a per-client acquisition...
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Ep 486: Lessons Learned from How Mega-RIAs Are Scaling Their People to Support Growth with Lisa Crafford
Financial Advisor Success
What does it take to scale an advisory firm from a small practice into a true enterprise? Today's episode offers a deep look at what really happens as firms grow into multi-billion-dollar businesses, including hiring strategies, leadership team growth, and equity strucutres for employees. Lisa Crafford is the Head of Advisory at Constellation Wealth Capital, and she joins the show today to discuss the importance of the human resources function for growing firms, how advisory firm leaders can start to shed the many 'hats' they wear, and why adding to the executive team can be a force...
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Ep 485: Exercises to Help Clients Better Navigate the Transition to Retirement After Having Done It Yourself with Michael Kay
Financial Advisor Success
While financial advisors and their clients often focus on creating a succesful retirement income plan, a successful, meaningful retirement goes well beyond dollars and cents. In this episode, we dive into the deeper side of the retirement transition and why many high-performing professionals (including financial advisors) underestimate the psychological shift that comes with leaving a decades-long career. Michael Kay is a retired financial advisor and a current life coach and author, and joins the show today to share the personal challenges he faced transitioning from advisory firm owner to...
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Ep 484: Scaling To $1B AUM By Recognizing Your (Rainmaker) Strengths And Delegating The Rest with Jake Falcon
Financial Advisor Success
At some point, firm founders often find that their time is divided between attracting new clients and serving current ones (and running their business). This episode explores how it's possible to delegate technical work to a centralized planning team, segment clients by revenue, and leverage asynchronous communication tools to create client touchpoints while devoting significant time to closing new clients. Jake Falcon, founder of Falcon Wealth Advisors, has built a $1 billion advisory firm for nearly 900 client households in part by focusing on his strengths as a 'rainmaker' bringing...
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Ep 483: Closing (More Affluent) Clients in The First Meeting with an “Approach Talk” Method to Create Urgency with Erin Botsford
Financial Advisor Success
What does it take to close a high-net-worth client in the very first meeting? For Erin Botsford, the answer is for an advisor to position themselves as a risk expert and to create a sense of urgency to act in the prospects' minds. Erin is the founder of The Advisor Authority, and has developed a step-by-step formula for advisors to close more upmarket clients faster. She joins the show today to share how advisors can create positive first impressions by creating a "founders video", help prospects recognize their potential risk exposures in estate planning and insurance, and create...
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Ep 482: Growing To $500M AUM In 7 Years by Connecting with Your Ideal Clients on LinkedIn with Justin Brownlee
Financial Advisor Success
What if just the 10 'right' people seeing your content could grow your firm faster than 10,000 random viewers? Growing an advisory firm doesn’t always require reaching the largest audience. In many cases, the right audience—clearly defined and intentionally engaged—can be far more powerful than broad visibility. Justin Brownlee has built a $500 million RIA serving just 75 households by targeting a specific niche and using LinkedIn with intention. In this episode, we break down how he created focused blog and podcast content for his ideal target client, strategically built a...
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Ep 481: Leveraging Technology To Rapidly Scale Growth Delivering Financial Planning To Next Generation Clients with Adam Dell
Financial Advisor Success
Reaching next-generation clients at scale often requires rethinking how financial planning is built, priced, and delivered. This episode explores how a tech-forward, flat-fee model can expand access to planning, create a consistent client experience, and unlock new growth channels both through direct-to-consumer marketing and partnerships with other advisory firms. Adam Dell is the founder of Domain Money, an RIA that operates virtually nationwide, serving 1,400 clients and expecting to generate approximately $10 million in revenue this year. Listen in as Adam shares how his firm built a...
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Ep 480: Growing To $660M Of AUM By Leveraging SEO (And Now AEO) To Build A Durable Pipeline Of Good-Fit Prospects with Helen Stephens
Financial Advisor Success
Search has changed—and so has the way advisory firms can earn visibility online. This episode explores how early investments in SEO can compound over time, how today’s “findability” now includes AI tools like ChatGPT, and what it takes to build a marketing engine that not only attracts the right prospects, but also supports sustainable firm growth for the long haul. Helen Stephens is the founder of Aspen Wealth Management, an RIA based in Fort Worth, Texas, that oversees $670 million in assets under management for 342 client households. Listen in as Helen shares how her SEO strategy...
info_outlineFor financial advisors, it might seem intuitive to spend time with prospects explaining the value they can offer. However, doing most of the talking can leave prospects unsure whether the advisor truly understands their needs, potentially discouraging them from becoming a client.
In this episode, we welcome Sara Grillo, a marketing specialist for financial advisors, to discuss how focusing less on an advisor's expertise and more on what their prospects are truly worried about can lead to winning more clients. Sara also shares how to reduce friction in advisior marketing so prospects are more likely to take action and her practical approach to content creation, including how to turn real client questions into high-value content and how targeted content can drive both visibility and referrals.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/489