111: How Financial Advisors Get Found in AI Search with Online Reviews | Brian Thorp | Wealthtender

How can financial advisors get found in AI search, build trust faster, and use online reviews in a compliant way?

In Episode 111 of The Influential Advisor Podcast, Paul G. McManus interviews Brian Thorp, Founder and CEO of Wealthtender, about one of the biggest opportunities in advisor marketing today: compliant online reviews as a trust signal for Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other AI-powered search tools.

Financial advisors have always relied on referrals, reputation, and trust. But today, before a prospect reaches out, they are often searching online, reading reviews, asking AI tools who to consider, and comparing advisors before the first conversation ever happens.

That means your digital reputation matters.

In this episode, Paul and Brian discuss how financial advisors can use compliant online reviews, third-party credibility, Google visibility, and AI search optimization to help prospects make a more informed decision about whether you may be the right advisor for them.

You’ll learn:

1. How financial advisors can get found in AI search
2. Why online reviews are becoming a major trust signal
3. How compliant reviews differ from traditional Google reviews
4. What the SEC Marketing Rule changed for testimonials and reviews
5. Why ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI tools may use reviews to summarize reputation
6. How reviews can support SEO, AEO, and GEO for financial advisors
7. Why “stars” matter, but client stories matter even more
8. How advisors can ask for reviews without cherry-picking
9. How reviews can help independent advisors compete against larger firms
10. Why advisor-level reviews may matter as much as firm-level reviews
11. How niche advisors can use reviews to strengthen local and specialized visibility
12. Why a book, a website, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, and reviews all work together as authority signals

This conversation is especially relevant for independent financial advisors, RIAs, wealth management firms, advisor marketing teams, and practice leaders who want to understand how trust is built in the age of AI search.

If you are a financial advisor wondering how to show up when someone asks ChatGPT, “Who is the best financial advisor for me?” this episode will help you think through the credibility signals that matter.

Learn more about Influential Advisor Media:
https://influentialadvisor.com/

Learn more about Wealthtender:

https://wealthtender.com/

COMMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Can financial advisors use online reviews?
How can advisors ask clients for reviews compliantly?
Do financial advisor reviews help with SEO?
Can online reviews help advisors show up in ChatGPT?
What is the difference between Google reviews and Wealthtender reviews?
How do testimonials work under the SEC Marketing Rule?
How many reviews does a financial advisor need?
Why do online reviews matter for financial advisor referrals?
How can advisors build trust before the first meeting?
How can financial advisors improve AI search visibility?

#FinancialAdvisorMarketing #FinancialAdvisorReviews #AIsearch #Wealthtender #AuthorityMarketing #FinancialAdvisors #RIAmarketing #AdvisorSEO #AEO #GEO #TheInfluentialAdvisor

Transcript

Search Everywhere Optimization Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm excited for today's interview because I am very interested in the topic of what I call search everywhere optimization, which is just a fancy way of how do you show up on not just Google, but in Chat BT and all the different AI tools that people are using. And attached to that is ultimately you want to show up in a way that makes you look good, which is how do you show up and people can make an informed decision about who you are and whether they should reach out to you as an option to work with. But I'm really excited to have you today.

Why Wealth Tender Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And you are the CEO and founder of a company called Wealth Tender, correct?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

That is correct.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

As we get started, tell us just a little about your background. Who are you? What and then ultimately, what is Wealth Tender?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, and thanks again for the opportunity. So I launched Wealth Tender back in 2019. Prior to that, I had a corporate career at Investgo, so global asset management company, had worked my way up. Most recently was the head of the US Key Account team. So great career, but had that entrepreneurial bug, was excited to do something a little bit different, but I was looking for that idea that could really become a catalyst to not only be unique in the marketplace, but something where I could leverage the domain expertise that I had in the space. And back in 2019, there was speculation that the SEC was going to finally come off its prohibition of advisors being able to use testimonials and online reviews in their marketing. And so that's what I really latched on to was the opportunity to introduce a platform designed for regulatory compliance. And of course, it took a couple of years for the SEC to ultimately put forth what became the marketing rule, but I'm glad they did because that's a big part of what Wealth Cinder is all about.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I heard you mention testimonials. What's the big deal behind testimonials and the change that you saw happening in 2019?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Sure. So a couple of things. First, and I know you feel the same as me when it comes to authority and ways to establish credibility, and online reviews are a really impactful way to do that. And part of the inspiration for Wealth Tender was just a recognition that if you look across any other industry or profession, online reviews have really proliferated. And specifically in trust-based professions like doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, what you see within those professions are sites similar to what Wealth Tender is today. And in fact, similar to what we really emulated the platform upon, sites like ZocDoc that help consumers find physicians by location, specialization, and read their reviews, and brought that into Wealth Tender because we could identify the best practices that they've implemented within those industry verticals, bring that into the wealth management space, and of course apply all of the parameters required by the SEC in order to make it a compliant online review platform for advisors and wealth management firms.

Google Reviews Vs Compliance Reality

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Help me understand the difference between what you do and what is probably more commonly out there, which is say Google business, right? And the thing about Google Business, just in my own background, I see advisors have it, and some do a great job and they have multiple reviews. I've also known some advisors who never even intended to set it up, or maybe they did and forgot, and they might have a couple bad reviews. And at least historically, what the first page of Google says about you is actually really important. It can make or break the level of trust that someone has in you before they get to know you. Help us understand the difference between Google business profile and the reviews that are attached to it and wealth tender and what's important for an advisor to know.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, and that's a it's a great topic and an important topic from a compliance perspective. But even before we talk about the compliance element, when you think about any business, there's always been the ability for somebody who is unsatisfied with particular business to write a negative review on platforms like Google or Yelp or to put a complaint in through the Better Business Bureau. And for financial advisors, that's been the case as well. But it wasn't until the SEC marketing rule came around that advisors had a chance to turn the table and also invite perfectly satisfied clients, which of course represents the majority, to share their feedback online. So kudos to the SEC for modernizing their rules for all the right reasons. Now, when it comes to Google Business Profiles specifically relative to a platform like Wealth Tender, a couple of things that are important to know. One, Google Business Profiles that incorporate Google reviews aren't designed for the compliance requirements that the SEC stipulates are important if you're utilizing that page as an advertisement of your firm. With that said, we do see a number of wealth management firms whose compliance consultants have provided them with guidance permitting them to solicit reviews from their clients directly onto the Google Business Profile platform, as long as that's the extent of their activity, meaning if they invite their clients to write a review on Google, they're instructed to not reply to that review or acknowledge even that the page exists, because doing so or directing people to go read my Google reviews, as an example, could be construed as adoption or entanglement, which are just nerdy compliance terms that put you at risk of adopting that content, meaning now you're responsible for everything that's published within it. And if reviews inadvertently even contain prohibited content that the SEC says cannot be utilized within an advertisement or from individuals that shouldn't have been writing a review about you in the first place, you now have some questions to answer and a lack of control in your ability to really do things because you know, Google, it's kind of tough to sometimes manipulate or get somebody there to respond and understand.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

You can't just call up and say, I want to talk to Tim.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, you can try, but uh good luck getting a Tim on the phone. Um so with Wealth Tender, what we did was again really replicate best practices, you know. So even for doctors and attorneys where there are no issues with their utilization of Google reviews as a platform, you've still seen the proliferation of industry-specific or profession-specific review platforms for a couple of reasons. One, we know that when consumers are conducting their research and they're going out to Google, and increasingly today, ChatGPT, Gemini Perplexity, those platforms are looking for information about professionals within those industries. So if it's doctors, the platform might be going out to identify reviews that have been published on platforms like ZocDoc or attorneys on sites like lawyers.com. And in the case of financial advisors, what we now see are for the 850 plus financial advisors and wealth management firms with reviews on wealth tender, if a prospect is going out to ChatGPT, Gemini, or even Google and asking for feedback on what clients have to say about their experience or financial advisor reviews for Paul McManus, what they're then going to see if you have a presence on wealth tender are all of those reviews now getting thematically summarized in the case of AI tools or those gold stars that are appearing in the case of Google search results. And so essentially it's a really impactful way for the advisors that do have a presence on Wealth Tender to strengthen their SEO search engine optimization, or what's increasingly being referred to on the AI side as answer engine optimization AEO. So having that credibility on with reviews on Wealth Tender is a real significant trust signal and credibility booster to help advisors show up more frequently and prominently across all different types of search tools, like you said, search everywhere or search anywhere.

Who Can Solicit Reviews Today

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Is there any advisor or category of advisors that still can't solicit reviews? And part of the reason for my question is is that a mastermind group? And I'm always preaching the gospel of reviews and just how impactful it is. Who can't do it? Is it is that more of a broker dealer rule, or who prevents an advisor from doing this? Or what questions should they be asking when it comes to this?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Sure. So two elements I would focus on. One, regulatory prohibitions, and then two, home office prohibitions. On the regulatory front, when the SEC put forth its rule, it really encompassed all of the SEC registered investment advisors, but didn't capture all of the smaller business owners, financial advisors operating as state registered advisors. Now, with that said, we've probably seen close to 40 states that have modernized their rules as well or are in the process of doing so, effectively permitting their advisors to collect and promote testimonials and online reviews by following the SEC marketing rule guidelines. But there are still some states like California and a handful of others that continue to prohibit the activities. Fortunately, we've seen Nassau, the North American Securities Administration Association, uh indicating, and really it is, applying pressure on the holdout states. And again, with 40 or so states now having modernized the rules, I do finally think we're going to see those remainder states follow suit, probably even this year, because Nassau has done a great job of putting out some additional guidance and tools to encourage their membership to do so. Now, that's the regulatory impediment for certain advisors, fortunately, just a handful. The bigger impediment that remains, to your point, would be advisors that may be affiliated, especially with the warehouse firm, not exclusively, but many of the warehouse firms still prohibit their advisors from being able to take advantage of what is permittable, permissible under both SEC and FINRO rules, specifically around testimonials and online reviews. So certainly frustrating. I do think at some point we'll see one firm, probably one warehouse firm that recognizes what a powerful opportunity this is. And especially if they can be the first Wirehouse to stand out and distinguish and permit their advisors to be able to do that thing that so many independent advisors are now doing successfully, and independent advisors winning business over Wirehouse advisors because of the reviews and the credibility and the authority signals that that represents, somebody's going to move first. And I do think once we see that first wirehouse firm do it, we know that the others are likely going to be quick to follow.

Proof Reviews Win New Business

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Do you have any examples or stories, of course, keep anything private that's private, but in terms of winning business? Because I just know I studied this myself, and I know from studying it that oftentimes people, the consumer, when they're trying to make a decision, it's hard, right? It's like, how do I choose person A versus person B? And one of the biggest factors that we all use, whether it's choosing a financial advisor or choosing any other service to help make the decision. I mean, it's why we love Amazon so much, right? It's just that it makes choosing a product easy. What are some wins or some success stories that you can share with us in terms of how someone who's actually taken these actions, it's impacted their business?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, great, quite case study that comes to mind, and specifically a case study we've published, and happy to share that with your audience as well, would be a firm, United Financial Planning Group out of New York, that at the time we put together the case study was around 200 million in assets under management, maybe three years ago, if that. Today, I believe they've crossed 400 million, so more than doubled their AUM. And they would be the first to tell you that the reviews that they've collected through Wealth Tender have played a significant part in that. Now, of course, what matters most is the fact that the firm is doing an exceptional job, and that shows up in the reviews that they've gathered. But just to specifically provide how that came about for that firm, there was an individual advisor at that firm that said, you know, hey, I want to get started with online reviews. The founder of the company, let that individual advisor do so. And after seeing the success that that individual advisor was having, got religion and himself reached out as a practicing founder and advisor and quickly gathered dozens of reviews. And today, if you look at that firm, probably over 40 reviews. And a couple of examples that they shared with me in terms of new business they won as a result would be one, a prospect that simply was going out and doing a Google search and saw those gold stars that showed up next to the profile for their firm on their Wealth Center page that led them to be the first firm to get the call. And then another example, getting back to the warehouse impediment, um, and you know, nothing against warehouse advisors. I hope the day comes that we have a level playing field for all advisors. But that same firm, United Financial Planning Group, had, I believe it, well, I won't name the name, but uh a national well-branded uh warehouse firm, uh, well, well known, and a prospect that said, you know, hey, I've narrowed my search down to you, the independent firm, and this warehouse firm. And of course, the warehouse firm was saying all of the reasons why that advisor, that that prospect should hire the warehouse firm or a household name, you know, you can trust us, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And that prospect went back to the independent firm and said, Well, why would I work with you? They're putting all these seeds of doubt in my head. And the independent firm said, Well, do they have reviews that look like this? And it wasn't about the stars, it was more about the stories because very quickly that prospect was able to see how the clients, the impact that the firm had on the lives of their clients. And so the next day, I think it was a million and a half dollars that that prospect moved over to the independent firm, not only because they saw all those great stories, but also it put that seed of doubt in the prospect's minds. Well, why don't you have any reviews for that particular warehouse firm? And if they were to reach out to that warehouse firm and the advisor said, well, our home office doesn't permit us to ask our clients for reviews, that's probably right there, the flag that's going to get somebody to jump the other way. Because why on earth would you work at a firm or why would a firm not want their advisors to solicit reviews from their clients, right? So we love hearing the success stories like that. And it's just a again, a powerful opportunity for independent firms without really requiring much of a budget whatsoever to suddenly level the playing field with warehouse firms that have multi-million dollar advertising and marketing budgets.

How To Ask For Reviews Right

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah. So that leads to the next question, which is so if someone's ready to either whether or not they've started collecting reviews, but now they see the opportunity and want to move down this path more intentionally, what are some best practices or best ways to proactively solicit reviews from clients in a way that's compliant?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Sure. So importantly, at the outset, when advisors and wealth management firms are getting started with online reviews, the SEC doesn't want advisors cherry picking which clients you're reaching out to. So we do encourage advisors to these 10, yes, those 10, no. Exactly, exactly. Because that might happen if they didn't have that uh you know, non-cherry picking approach in place. So we we do encourage firms to send out that email to all of their current clients. In the case of Wealth Center, we provide a template that hundreds of firms have now used to successfully collect more than 6,000 reviews. And we just have a very simple, short and sweet, tactful way that we recommend inviting your clients to write reviews, which is to simply say, you know, thank you for being a valued client of our firm. Your feedback could help other people like you decide if we may be a good fit to work together as well. If you're so inclined, here's a link where you could share details about your experience. You know, of course, it's completely optional and just some language like that. And what we typically see is when an advisor sends out an invitation like that to their clients, somewhere between 10 and 20% will respond within the first 48 hours. So now that advisor or firm has a really solid number of reviews that have come in. And then from there, the advisor can sprinkle in that periodic invitation to clients throughout the year, maybe one week after each annual client review meeting. You're following up with your clients a week after that meeting. Hey, just checking in, making sure you feel good about everything that we talked about. Oh, by the way, if you're so inclined, here's a link where you could share a little bit about your experience to help other people like you decide if we may be a good fit to work together.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Is there a sweet spot in terms of number of reviews? And just as I think about this question, I think about just my own shopping behavior. Again, using Amazon as an example. There's so many choices. How do I make decisions? I look for what I want, I start looking at reviews, and typically, and I think this is probably pretty universal. I look at number of reviews by the average star rating, right? So 30 or 40 reviews, depending on the category, with four and a half to five stars. Okay, I'm gonna give them a chance. Whereas if it's an under average of four stars, I'm gonna look at the competitors. But of course, the more stars and the more volume that's there, that helps me to decide who to choose or what to choose. Oftentimes without much additional thought. I know for an advisor that choosing an advisor is a little bit different than say choosing a product from Amazon, but I think the psychology is similar.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, you know, for starters, just having one review is sufficient. One good review. One review literally, one review would position an advisor on top of 90% of advisors. 90% of advisors have zero reviews. So if you just get one, now of course, we never see an advisor just get one because once you put that out to all of your current clients, advisors quickly realize just how much their clients love them and a good subset are going to write a review right away. In terms of the actual number of reviews, again, partly because our profession is so unique and because so few advisors have them, there's not a lot of pressure to have like a certain number or a significant number. I mean, I do think having more than a handful, you know, five, six, ideally perhaps over 10, just from an optics perspective, helps with consumers. And what we're also now seeing is with the tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, the advisors that have reviews on Wealth Tender, those tools aren't just saying, oh, this advisor has 10 five-star reviews. They're thematically summarizing what it is that clients are saying about their experience. So as you have more reviews, that's helping the AI tools generate summaries. And importantly as well, it's not just the stars, again, it's the stories. And that not only resonates with prospects, but when it comes to the AI tools, they're reading those reviews to contextually understand what it is that clients are saying about their experience. So, as an example, if you're a financial advisor and you're really positioning yourself as an expert helping Chevron employees in the Dallas area transition into retirement, and now you've got a landing page on your website that speaks to that expertise, and you also have reviews on wealth tender where individuals writing a review say, Oh, you know, John Smith helped me retire, uh, transition into retirement from my career at Exxon. Now you've got those keywords and contextually those reviews that are saying, you know, beyond your landing page where you're telling people, you know, I talk the talk, here's what I do. Those reviews are now essentially your clients saying, yeah, they they walk the walk as well. And so it's a really powerful combination on that front.

Fear Of Negative Reviews

SPEAKER_00 19:18

I think one concern that a person might have, especially if they haven't done this before, is always the fear of a negative review, because the upside is great, but if it things go sideways and you get a couple of negative reviews for whatever reason, then it could have a negative impact. What's the best mindset to have, or how do you talk to someone who has those concerns?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, so for starters, you know, our profession is unique and that it's not transactional. If you think about doctors or lawyers, so trust-based professions like advisors, we're very unique in that even a doctor, you know, you have a particular appointment that you're going into or a surgery, and you may not like the outcome, and the review is the venting mechanism, even if that doctor did his or her absolute best. Um, same thing with attorneys, and perhaps especially so, because you maybe hired them for a case or something where there's a binary outcome and they may have done the best possible job, but it didn't go your way. And so now you write a negative review. When it comes to financial advisors, in some cases, these are relationships that have lasted for a year, multiple years, if not a decade or longer. And if that individual is a client of yours, the odds that they're going to be writing a negative review are slim, if not negligible. And in fact, that's what our data now shows because we've collected hundreds of over 6,000 reviews for hundreds of advisors and firms through wealth tender, and literally over 99% of all reviews are five stars. So when you're soliciting reviews from current clients, it's not a surprise. They're clients for a reason. They love the work that you're doing. And you know, the stars matter, but importantly, it really is the stories. That's where we see what people share and what's so important. And even though Google and search results will still convey the number of stars, the AI tools might convey it, but they're really more focused on contextually what it is that people are saying about their experience and the quality of the reviews as opposed to the quantity.

Using Google Reviews Safely

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Do you recommend an advisor do both a Google business account and a well wealth tender account, one or the other, or both?

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, we've seen some firms that stick exclusively with wealth tender, and that's typically because, from a compliance perspective, we've designed everything to be the Boy Scout in the industry from a compliance perspective, where Google, there's still open questions as to, even as I mentioned, the approach that some compliance and still some very reputable compliance consultants have provided guidance that they're giving to their advisory firm clients to be able to solicit reviews on Google, as long as that's the extent of what they're doing. A number of other compliance consultants feel like that's even a step too far, and that that's a gray area, as well as potential risk that the SEC hasn't explicitly chimed in on yet. So we've continued to see different risk alerts and the SEC indicating that there's going to be more enforcement actions in this area related to the marketing rule testimonials and as an extension of that online reviews. And that's what I think the entire industry and profession is still waiting to see. You know, what exactly, as it pertains to Google business profiles and Google Reviews, will the SEC have to say about some firms that are utilizing them? And is there a path that the SEC acknowledges a firm can use compliantly with Google Reviews? Or has the guidance that even, again, some of the reputable compliance consultants provided actually been a bit of an overstep? And it swings the pendulum back to say, nope, you need to use a compliant platform like Wealth Tender. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

If someone does have Google Reviews, is there an ability to import existing reviews into Wealth Tender, or do they have to go and start over with those same people?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah, great question. And again, because we're not the compliance police, uh, we acknowledge and recognize that there are a lot of firms that are comfortable with Google reviews. And if that's the case, and again, recognizing that the limitations on Google reviews, they can't tell people to go look at them, we created a tool so they can import the reviews from Google to Wealth Tender where they're going to go through the same compliance workflow on our platform. So the appropriate disclosures are added and appended to the review so that when they're published publicly, the advisor can compliantly then promote those reviews and feel comfortable and confident that from the wealth tender perspective, they're not going to have any compliance headaches when that you know next exam or sweep comes through.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah. I like that. You've developed it to be the Boy Scout in terms of compliance friendliness and at the same time, not the compliance police. I love it. I'm always the same in what I do because we help advisors write and publish books. And so we try to give guidance that's compliance friendly, but by the same token, we're not the compliance police. Indeed. When it comes to these things.

Turning Reviews Into Marketing Assets

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So imagine uh an advisor, they have a wealth tender account, they've collected 10, 20 reviews, whatever the number is. What are some best practices now in terms of leveraging that to start to win more business? Where's the real payoff once once they put these things into place?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Sure. So once the advisors have the reviews on wealth tender, you know, that in itself is really impactful because those reviews will start showing up in Google and ChatGPT and Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, et cetera. With that said, we really encourage advisors to think about the reviews they've collected as the starting point and how they can then incorporate those reviews and testimonials throughout their marketing and providing the guidance on how they can do that compliantly. So one of the first things we recommend is that advisors take advantage of a widget that can easily be embedded on their website provided by WealthTender to display the reviews with all of the disclosures that are required. So a very easy plug-and-play way for the advisors to compliantly display the reviews on their website. So now they're not only working for them on Wealth Tender, but if people do discover them, get to their website, they can see all the great work that they're doing with their clients there as well. And then we also launched a tool to help advisors compliantly promote their testimonials on social media and in other marketing activities. It certainly can be done independently. And I would highlight we do have resources to help advisors with education on getting started with reviews and promoting them compliantly, whether they choose to utilize Wealth Tender or perhaps take the opportunity to do so on their own. But in the case of Wealthender, we created a tool and provide the education to help advisors with a couple of clicks be able to select a review and create image designs or animated graphics that can be appended to a LinkedIn post, a Facebook post, or even printed and included in a flyer that perhaps is utilized in a seminar to help those testimonials really come to life and become part of the marketing activities throughout the different types of activities that advisors are completing. Lead nurturing campaigns would be another great opportunity. So if you have a lead, you have that initial conversation. Even when they schedule that introductory call, provides an opportunity to have an autoresponder, you know, thank you for scheduling time with us. And there are compliant ways to include a testimonial there. Or after the meeting, thanks for the time today, and including all the messaging, and then just kind of sprinkling in a testimonial of some things that people had to say about their experience. Or if you again have a landing page about how you work with employees and executives at Chevron transitioning into retirement, and you've got a review that somebody's written talking about their own experience, sprinkling that in to where now you have contextually relevant reviews that are significant to somebody who works at Chevron to again see not only what you say you can do to help them transition to retirement, but what your own clients are saying about their experience becomes really powerful as well.

Why Advisors Still Wait

SPEAKER_00 27:02

From my point of view, every advisor should be doing this. And I heard you say that since you started the company, you have in the ballpark of 800 plus advisors active on the platform. Why aren't more people doing this?

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Great question. At the outset, it was definitely a little bit more of the compliance impediment. So understandably, when the SEC marketing rule first came out, there were elements beyond the testimonial component that required a lot of attention from compliance officers. And that meant that they, in many instances, said, hey, to their advisors, we're not ready to pull the trigger and let you get started with online reviews just yet. Now, flash forward to 2026, and it's really not the regulatory impediment nor the compliance impediment today. It's just inertia. I think there are a lot of advisors that like so many things. I'm going to get around to that. And it's on their list, and they just haven't pulled the trigger. Now, what we are seeing that's really created a catalyst and accelerated the adoption of reviews and more advisors and wealth management firms getting started is that now the first movers, the early adopters that do have the reviews, they are showing up online. And advisors and firms are seeing their competitors and peers with reviews. And whether it was maybe imposter syndrome, that they're, to your point, worried about getting a negative review, and then they see a competitor or a peer getting all these great reviews. And of course, all of us say, Well, I'm just as good as that person. So of course I'm going to get great reviews as well, which is probably accurate, but you've got to take that action to get started. And so we are seeing a real uptick and acceleration, but ultimately today it's still a little bit of that inertia and the imposter syndrome that some advisors just have that fear. What if I get a negative review? But again, that's unfounded fear and one that we've tried to help advisors understand. And you know, once they do get that first review, which is always intimidating when you click send on that email that goes out to all of your current clients, but you see that first review come in and it's that sigh of relief. And then that second review comes in, and all of a sudden, you know, after the third or fourth review, like, wow, I actually deliver incredible value to my clients. It's like, well, of course you do. And you know that as an advisor, but once you start seeing that coming in, it puts all of those fears at to ease. And suddenly it becomes really fulfilling, not only for you as the advisor, but if you have a staff and a team, it can be really impactful for uh the culture within the firm and the number of other benefits that that come from having the reviews as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

In my mind, there's two scenarios. There's the someone is aware of my firm, and they're also maybe shopping around trying to make a good decision, rightfully so. And so reviews are one way to differentiate. And you mentioned an example before. Another example is when increasingly people are just having conversations with Chat's PT or their tool of choice, and before they even reach out to an advisor, and they're just starting to ask questions that we all have every day that that chat's te makes comfortable. It's you know, am I going to have enough retirement? How will I know that? Whatever the questions are. And then they come at some point in those conversations, they come to the point of, well, who do you recommend and why? And I use this question all the time because I'm already having these conversations with Chat Chippt. I get to the point where I realize I need to buy a product or hire or hire a professional, and it already knows all the context of the conversation. And so I'm more likely to trust its recommendation or at least to use it as a starting point to reach out to someone. And so to me, that's a separate category, which is you definitely want the people that are already aware of you to have that to help inform them about who you are. But for the people that are now just having conversations with ChatGPT and are and are asking the question, who do you recommend and why, how impactful is our reviews and wealth tender specifically, and starting to win that game? In other words, in starting to win the game of being the one that ChatGPT uh recommends out of all the out of all the choice they have, whether it's a local, whether they're looking locally, or maybe they have a niche, for example, of a client who works specializes in working with engineers. Jerek, share some thoughts if you would about how do you win the game of being recommended by ChatGPT either locally or in your niche, if someone's never even heard of Beal.

Getting Recommended By ChatGPT

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yeah, so a couple of things on that front. And this is where it starts to become a little bit multifaceted, and that your ability as a any business owner, but specifically as an advisor to establish credibility and build trust with AI search engines, is to ensure that you look reputable and there are trust signals that tell the search engines and the search tools that you're a credible business owner or professional that they can be confident recommending. And so a couple of things, uh, even before we talk about reviews, you know, having a website, ideally having a very modern website that speaks in a voice that demonstrates that you have the experience and the expertise, um, whether it's serving people locally andor in a particular niche. So ensuring that you have an experience that the bots can access, which is important as well. And then having consistency across the different platforms where you're featured. And ideally, that does mean that if you have a website, that's great, but that's just one point. And these platforms want to triangulate and identify, okay, well, that's great. Anyone can whip up a website, but what else can I look to to determine if this is a reputable business? And so the low-hanging fruit would be you know, make sure you have a LinkedIn profile at a minimum, if not other social profiles, as well as a Google Business profile, even with the reviews turned off, you know, having all of that establishes that there's credibility and then having consistency across any of those profiles with your name, the name of the business, the address where you're located, et cetera, all of those are sending credibility signals to help, yes, this looks like a valid business. And as an advisor, if you have professional designations, ensuring that the profiles that for whether it's you know CFP or Financial Planning Association or the Only Network, as well as you know, wealth tender, you know, having those current and established as well are going to be really important. So that's all helping with the credibility that yes, this is a credible business. But then when it comes to the authority, the reputation, the trust, that's where the reviews become the trust layer and important to have that ideally published on your own website. But we do also know that the search tools are treating online reviews on independent third-party platforms as more legitimate, more credible than testimonials published on a business's own website. And so that's where leveraging a platform like Wealth Tender, where you're collecting the reviews, they've got transparency in the disclosures, can be really important as well. And then, you know, to your point, if you do focus on engineers, it's important that your website makes that very clear. And if you can also ensure on LinkedIn and Wealth Tender, and we haven't talked about this, but on Wealth Tender, we also have ways to help advisors that do specialize in a niche gain greater visibility in those areas. Um those are all going to be important is to figure out all the different ways that you can position yourself as an expert in the areas that uh and the types of clients that you're looking to attract.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Very cool.

Building The Advisor Brand At Firms

SPEAKER_00 34:25

One more angle I want to ask you about is for the clients that I work with, financial advisors, typically I'm working with the owner of the firm. And so the firm and them are oftentimes one and the same. There was something that I heard you say before that to me was interesting, is that at a bigger firm, for example, Google Business is still attached to the firm. And so the firm needs to buy in, I would imagine, to the idea of collecting testimonials if they use Google Business. However, with wealth tender, if I'm an individual at a firm and I have the permission from the firm owner, home office, et cetera, to do so, I can proactively build out a profile based on me personally. So I can start to build my own reputation online. Can you share some of the pros and some of the benefits of that and why someone should consider doing that?

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah, exactly correct. So the case study that I mentioned earlier is a good example where an individual advisor joined, started collecting reviews, really helping with his professional brand reputation, trust, visibility. And then the founder of the firm got religion and you know expanded that across the firm. We see some firms that join Wealth Tender with the goal of putting each of their client-facing advisors on the platform form from day one. And then others where, again, it's a similar scenario to the other where you know maybe the firm's like, well, we're not going to do it, but if our individual advisors choose to do it, then we're totally fine with that. Of course, you know, as long as they follow the appropriate compliance guidelines, et cetera, et cetera. And so it is, I think, to your point, uh, a very impactful opportunity for individual advisors that don't necessarily have that professional brand or visibility to put themselves out there in a way that can be really impactful. Because what we do know is, again, even if you look at like offline referrals, we did a study last fall that 83% of people, after receiving a referral to an advisor, the very first thing they're doing is going online and looking for online reviews because they want to see what other people had to say. And, you know, they're not looking to see what other people had to say about the firm. They want to see what other people had to say about that human that they're going to be working with potentially for the next 10 or longer years. And so it's a real significant opportunity for advisors to have that credibility at the advisor level, even if they are part of a much larger firm. And again, even if that much larger firm, to your point, is gathering Google reviews, you know, we can help that firm allocate those Google reviews out to the individual advisors based on who that review is attributable to, to ensure that, of course, we want to help the firms themselves with their reputation. And we do a lot of things on that front to ensure that firms stand out and their reviews are working for them at that level, but importantly to also ensure that the assets that they have, the most significantly, are the advisors that represent the brand. Each advisor is a brand ambassador, and it's important for the reviews at that individual advisor level to really be a reflection not only of the advisor, but an aggregate, the reviews about those individual advisors represent the brand and the brand's reputation at the firm level as well. I think what's important for advisors is to figure out what it is that you're most focused on. And if it is a particular demographic of clients or geographic area, really lean into that, but then think about all the things that you need to do to establish yourself, just as any other professional would or business owner would in any other industry vertical, to establish that credibility and trust, not only with consumers, but also with the AI search engines that are out there. So I know near and dear to your heart, writing a book is a powerful way to establish your credibility. It's not just thought leadership, it's an opportunity to make it in a very tangible form that consumers and prospects really respect and appreciate. And you know, the same thing with reviews. It's, in my opinion, a no-brainer. Like if you're serving clients and you have any type of a product or service that you make available, if you're not collecting reviews, you're doing a disservice to yourself and the growth of your business. So I think your questions were terrific. I don't know if there is um anything that we haven't covered, but uh always happy to continue the conversation, whether it's with you or if any of your audience is interested in learning more about what we could

Next Steps And How To Reach Brian

SPEAKER_01 38:48

do.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

And that's the final question. So for someone who is interested in exploring learning more, what are the best next steps?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, easiest thing, uh, go to Google, go to ChatGPT, go to Gemini, and just type in Wealth Center. If you wanted to say, you know, hey, I'm a financial advisor, should I join Wealth Cender? And uh we'll let it do the talking because we we've spent a lot of time uh focusing on education and resources to ensure we're doing all the right things to help advisors succeed. And you're gonna see that reflected when you're going out to any of those search tools. And then ultimately, you know, happy to jump on a demo call, get to know you, uh, walk you through a little bit more about our platform just to see if it is a good fit based on the types of clients that you're looking to work with as an advisor. And Brian at wealthcenter.com. If you want to reach me by email or again, just pop it into Google or ChatGPT and you'll see me pop right up.