Now on to the presentation. Please welcome today’s speakers. We have a very fun group with you for for you today, Mark Cassidy, executive chairman of FMG. We also have Dave Christensen, CEO of FMG, and Susan Theater, chief marketing and experience officer. And last but not least, Samantha Russell, chief evangelist at FMG. And with that, let’s get started. Samantha, take it away.
Thank you so much, and thanks everyone for joining us. We are so excited to be here and talk with you all today. And in the green room before we went live, we were just talking about how we’re using AI. Everyone’s using AI to be more efficient, to be more productive, but what are just some sort of fun and maybe even silly things you’ve used AI for? So I’d love to hear from everybody on the call in the chat just to get the chat going so we all feel great talking to each other. But maybe Dave and Susan and Mark, is there anything that you have, you know, specifically used Claude or Chatty PT for that was just fun, nothing work related?
Well, is that possible? Is it allowed to do something?
No. I I have I have blessed with seven soon to be seven grandchildren. And my, oldest grandson who’s ten decided that he loved this whole idea of Eminem the rapper. Now he doesn’t listen to it because of the words that are there, but basically he understands there is this sort of hip hop and rap genre. So he decided that because Eminem sounded like he would become a rapper called Skittles. So I thought he needed concert posters to go with his Skittles persona. So I created concert posters for him as a part of his tidbit.
Oh, fun. I love that.
That just reminded me of something I did do that was fun.
There you go.
Tell us.
So I I was actually struggling to come up with something because I’m like, god, I spent a lot of time working on it. So I asked I asked Chad to search through all of our chats and tell me serve up what I’ve done that’s fun. But, actually, I think I did this on Gemini. But my daughter was graduating from college, and I wanted to create you know, people do those banners, and they do those little face signs and everything.
And I didn’t have a recent picture of her, and I didn’t have any pictures of her with the college in the background. So I used AI, and I combined, like, five pictures and put, like, you know, hats on her and put funny stuff on her and made a funny banner, and it was brilliant. It was a hit. It was a hit.
She’s like, how did she do it?
She weren’t here.
I’m like, see oh, great.
This isn’t unlike you, I use it for work, like, every second of my day.
My wife calls AI my mistress, and so I I have no but Alright. Like and and then and then and then it’s probably my fault because sometimes I use it to to end arguments. I probably shouldn’t. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s a bad bad choice.
Bad choice.
I recommend not to do that to everybody out there.
But my most recent fun one, I’ll use it sometimes as an investigator to, like, solve mysteries. Right? And not, like like, real mysteries in my life that I cannot figure out. And and the most recent one, in my backyard, I started to see these little circles melted into my turf, and I could not figure it out.
And and and I thought my gardener is putting, like, the leaf blower on the turf, and it’s melting the turf. But no. That wasn’t possible after I checked with him. And I thought my kids are doing something, and I couldn’t I could not figure this out.
So I took pictures of it. I gave it to chat. It asked for more pictures. I went on a little sleuthing event.
It had me take pictures of the backyard at different times during the day, so it could try to spot. And then when it was all said and done, it was like, I’ve got it. It is the white buckets, the five gallon pails that your wife has her softballs in for pitching practice.
In the middle of the day, they’re superheating, and they are melting the turf. And sure enough, the next day, I went out and I lifted up that bucket, and that is exactly what did it Oh, wow. No. Unfortunately unfortunately, what it can’t do is actually fix the turf. Okay?
Yeah.
Stop her from continuing to do it.
The real stuff amazing.
But I figured out what was causing the melted turf.
How about you, Seth? That’s awesome. I was just saying that we went to Disney World recently, and I used it to help me map out what were in what order to do the rides. Even with the Genie Plus, you know, you get to pick so many per hour that you prebook so that we wouldn’t be running back and forth all over the park.
And it was great. It got a couple wrong, but overall, it did really good. People in the chat are saying use AI to make an image for a birthday party invite. This is a great one.
Stephanie said she redesigned some rooms in her house, her the gym, bedroom, and living room That’s right.
Which is such a good idea.
And Terrell said when his daughter wanted to make slime and they were out of the activator, you already win best parent of year that you allowed the slime machine to happen.
That’s what I was thinking. Yeah.
He said, what’s a typical substitute for activator? So many good good ones. Oh, yeah. Ebony just said putting in the ingredients you have on hand and asking for recipes. Love all of these. Well Great.
We could talk about this all day, but Yeah.
This is fun. Yes. Exactly. But we love to hear from you in the chat, and we really wanna make this interactive.
So please please, keep interacting with us. But really quickly, we we said what our titles were, but I thought maybe if each one of us could just give, like, one sentence of the perspective we bring here. So people who aren’t familiar with FNG or each of us, would kinda understand our background and and what we’re talking about in the lens that we have. So, Mark, maybe you could start.
Yeah. Happy to start. So over forty five years in wealth management.
So I have some wear and tear, but You’re brand new.
Yeah, exactly. So doing a range of things from asset management to, you know, running LPL Financials, chairman and CEO for fourteen years where we really built a scaled distribution partner and partner to the advisors, and then, retired quote unquote and went to, set up, BestiGO Ventures, which is an early stage FinTech investor based in Cambridge, Mass, which is where I am today. And there we have forty companies that we’ve chosen out of over six thousand that are in wealth tech, insure tech, red check, and so forth. All generally AI oriented, first predictive, now generative.
And my partner in that business is Dave Blunden who teaches AI at MIT. So I feel like I’m in good shape when it comes to the AI issues of the day. And then more recently joined FMG as executive chair, which has been great fun to work with all of you on bringing a number of new ideas into the advisor space. Great time to be in WealthTech.
Awesome. Thank you. Dave.
Yeah. For sure. Hey everybody.
I actually co founded FMG back in twenty ten. And, man, when we when we started all of this, the you know, we thought there was this inevitable situation where if you wanted to continue to serve more clients, that experience would become less personal over time because of scale. And FMG came on the scene to say, how do we take what would otherwise be impersonal and try to make it as personal as possible? Like, what does that look like at scale?
And think what’s really exciting to me right now is I think the whole premise of that, like, reject it. That idea that as you scale your clients, it will have to become inevitably more impersonal. That isn’t true anymore. And I think what we’re really excited about at F and G is what does it look like to solve that problem?
How do we just eliminate all of the impersonal and interactions that you have on a regular basis and make this whole industry as human as possible. And the big irony is AI is gonna actually let the industry be more human, and I’m super excited about that.
Awesome. Susan.
Well, I’ve been I don’t quite challenge Mark, but I’ve been in the industry over thirty thirty years. And I probably I think the you know, you know, one to two sentences, I’ve sat in the seat that most of our attendees have sat in. I actually started my career as a financial adviser at a wirehouse. I then was a financial adviser at a bank, in Boston.
And, and then I moved into marketing at the largest custodian, so at Fidelity. And I was both on the retail side, so I was dealing with the branch network, but also with, the high net worth offering that we launched. And then I moved into the RIA custody side, and I actually, the first thing I did was build and launch the adviser referral program that is still live today at Fidelity. It’s called WASS.
And then I went over to Pershing and started, Pershing Advisor Solutions. So a lot of experience from the side working with RIAs and broker dealers, and then I was in the seat of a as a buyer and, of fintech and wealth tech and somebody that was very, you know, very interested and passionate about helping support firms organic growth in the wealth space and was the CMO at Seterra and Advisor Group, now Mosaic, where I was FMG’s largest customer, and I liked it so much I joined the company.
I love that story.
Me too. Me too. And I’m Samantha Russell. I’m the chief evangelist here at FMG. Formerly, my husband and I started company Twenty Over Ten, and that company also helped financial advisers with their marketing.
And we were acquired by FMG and have been here ever since. So I love hearing from all of you personally, hearing your stories about the challenges you’re facing with marketing, and then, bringing different ideas or those challenges back to our team and helping our team create products and services that solve for those challenges. So we are so excited to dig in with you today. I just we’re gonna put the slides away and make this a true conversation and we want it to be interactive.
But if you’re not familiar with FMG, certainly check us out. We are truly an award winning marketing suite that you could see all the awards here. We’re not gonna go into all of our awards and tutor on horn, but I know some people may not have heard of us before.
And we really serve as the all in one platform that will run behind the scenes to make your marketing and client communications happen. So we’d love to chat with you after this. But let’s go ahead and I’m gonna stop the slides and we’re gonna dive in. And we’re gonna dive right into the thing that is sort of the buzz right now. Everybody is talking about organic growth all of the time, and so I think we’ll start there because that’s the thing everybody wants to hear tips on and what challenges other people are facing. So, Mark, why don’t we start with you? When you look at the firms that should be growing but aren’t, what would you say are you know, what’s the most consistent reason that you see?
It’s almost always about the fact that there’s not the follow through and the follow on and the ongoing relationship building that needs to be done. We all experience it in our own lives. We know what good looks like in terms of doing it, but there’s just not methodologies for making that happen.
And firms get confused because they don’t realize that’s kind of the basics. Need to keep that constant communication and relationship building going to make it work and find the growth that you want and be super consistent about it. And the second part I’d just add is the one reason by itself is that they’re not sure who they are. They don’t know what their value proposition is and as crisply as they can tell it. And they don’t necessarily know the best way to think about their brand and what it is they have on offer.
So there’s a sea of sameness that that comes along with them as they start to tell that message a bit more. So know who you are and make sure and say a lot.
I have been talking so much at conferences and at speaking about this, how having a specific message for specific ideal client personas, ICPs, has always been important. It’s always been really important in marketing. But now with AI search and AEO, it’s more important than ever because if ChatGPT or Gemini is asked the question, you know, which financial adviser should I use for whatever the situation is, they’re looking to give just two or three recommendations, and they wanna choose people that they know are a slam dunk. So if the person asking the question mentions they live in Minneapolis, they’re looking for someone to help with estate planning and investments, and you don’t mention those particular things on your website or in your different marketing materials, you will not be the one chosen. And so if you don’t speak to someone specific, AI will send no one your way, and that is a big shift for a lot of people. Dave, I see you nodding your your head.
With my head, I’m nodding. I was I was actually I was actually it’s funny. I was just thinking about a story that just happened to me because I I think a lot of times we talk about that and and folks think, oh, that’s because I’m going to prompt, you know, let’s say ChatGPT with all of that information, and therefore, it’s going to retrieve that. But in their experience, they don’t always include all that information. So they wonder, is that real? I mean, I’ve been using ChatGPT so much in my life, right, that it knows everything about me. It probably knows me better than me, and that’s scary.
But but but recently, I I I had to do this really quick. I I I won’t I’m into Jeeps. And and normally, I do my own work, but I I am busy, and I’m I’m traveling a bunch, and I needed something repaired. And so I just went into Chatuchu Petit, and I was looking for a local shop to work with in the area.
And it knew what my vehicles and passion are already. I didn’t ask. Right? And so when it went to search, it actually returned with, you should actually use this place because the top mechanic from the Jeep dealership just started working there.
And then it literally had that information because they put it on their website introducing this new person. So ChatGP did already taken what it knew about me, and it had served up the best recommendation based on that insight. And that’s just gonna happen more and more and more over time. Right?
It’s gonna know what’s important to you, what you value, and it’s going to try behind the scenes to match those things up.
And it’s not because you said it consciously. It’s because it just knows from history and memory.
Yep.
It’s so interesting. I mean, and I think that brings up a good point, though, where we have a lot of people listening in that, you know, have both the firm and then the individual advisers they’re trying to solve this for. So there’s sometimes this push pull between how do we enable, you know, marketing to happen at the enterprise level as well as the firm, you know, specific or adviser level.
How do we, you know, break that up? What how can technology allow us to do both? And I don’t know, Mark or Dave, if one of you wants to start with this.
Dave, you wanna start?
Yeah.
Do you have an opinion, Dave?
Do I have an opinion about how technology could actually help us do both?
Yeah. I mean, I I think it’s just a really, really profound opportunity for us to try to take technology and use it to magnify the humanity of the relationships that we have on an ongoing basis.
I know as AI really started to build momentum, you know, I I think let me let me say, like, I think here with with oftentimes, we get on these webinars and we share all these things that we believe.
And it can sound like we have it all figured out. And I think the reality is what we probably are all experiencing is all of this is moving so fast that we’re adapting in real time, and we’re all learning as we go. And And we’re in an interesting place as a marketing company that is also marketing and is trying to apply what we learned to our customers in real time and keep up with it, that it gets it’s really fascinating. It’s fascinating how fast everything’s changing. So so internally as CEO, one thing that’s been really important for me is I’ve had to figure out how do you do change management across an organization? How do you how do you help everybody in the org understand how to respond to all these changes as they’re happening?
And I think what we’re seeing is that focusing on the humanity of it all makes all the difference.
Everyone gets really excited when they think that all of the things that they have had to do manually over and over and over again in their life and in their job, they can maybe automate some of that so that they can actually suddenly start to think there’s actually capacity for something that maybe they decided was never even possible years and years ago, but now they’re pulling it off the shelf and saying it can actually happen.
And then I’ll just give an example from FMG. Like, we’re you know, one thing that we’ve always cared a lot about is giving delivering great client experience and customer service to our to our clients. And we wanted to make sure there was always a number to call, and there was always a helpful voice on the other side. We’ve never been perfect, but we’ve really cared about it. And the reality is though that as you scale and more and more people call in, it can be really easy for it to creep into a person just becomes a ticket and a ticket just becomes something you have to do. And as soon as you’re done, you move on to the next ticket and nobody feels great in that world, not the person solving the problem and not the person asking the question.
But in a world where a lot of the small things can just be handled automatically, then you actually live in a world where when you call in, the person can spend that extra time asking you bigger questions about what it is you’re trying to accomplish and how you’re trying to succeed in your business and give real recommendations that matter. And that’s all really what we all want to be doing. I think both FMG for our clients and advisors for theirs.
Yeah. Think I’d add to that that you want that consistency of firm and having run LPL where we had at the time I was there, about five thousand businesses or advisor practices that were doing their thing. And they needed to understand what their brand stood for and what they were trying to do. And then the individual advisors need to do the same.
And then together you need to think through what are the tools that we all need to use, what we’re consistent at this. And then what are the rules? What are the behavioral rules as Dave was saying that, you know, really initiate an action, really allow us to reinforce the behavior we want, because we all know that change management’s hard. I would argue that my career has been all about change management and I hate change as much as anybody.
Like I just really despise it. But the reality is is I you know, as the old joke goes, I I I don’t like change, but I hate obsolescence worse. Right? It’s Yeah.
Because I better I better How can you hate change when your motto is if you don’t hit what is it that if you aren’t hitting wall once in a while, you’re not going fast enough.
You’re not going fast enough.
I think you like change.
Yeah. I like the outcome of change. I don’t like change itself. But what’s important about it is that we have to understand that these new tools bring with them new behavioral changes.
And Dave, that’s a big part of what you’re saying is I have to go from a world where I’ve been busy as an advisor. I’m doing forms and I’m moving things around. I’m having a conversation and all that stuff and saying, no, really a whole nother world can handle that stuff for me. And what I really need to be about is this connection to a client, a connection to a prospect and a way of really being there for them in a super high EQ way and less about, did I trade today?
What did my, for the portfolio return for this family? That kind of stuff. It’s an exciting time because that is ultimately why I know I went into the wealth management business is I wanted to be able to really help people. Now, luckily they were rich people, but nonetheless, I will say extended that to not so rich people, mind you, over the years.
But I Yeah.
I mean, Mark, I think that’s just so crazy that, like, where you’re hitting on with that because, that that change management piece, it can feel really comfortable to just do tasks all day long. Like, you can get used to it, and you can feel really productive, and you can end your day feeling like, got a lot done today. And then something takes those jobs from you because you give it to them, and now you have extra time.
And in that extra time during that transition, it can feel really uncomfortable. Like, wait a second. How do I know that I’m doing the right things? How do I know I’m focused on the right things?
Where do I put all this new energy until it starts to happen? And then you’re like, how did I ever not do these things? Like, why was I doing those other things ever? Right?
Susan, sorry. I cut you off.
Oh, not at all. Back to the, you know, the centralized versus, you know, decentralized, you know, sitting in the seat of, you know, the CMOs that might be on this call or, CMOs, CEOs.
I think one of the struggles and and I’m hearing a challenge from brands wanting to build, you know, the RA the large RAs, the large broker dealers, wanting to build that brand. And that being really important, like Mark said, you know, what is it that you are trying what’s your north star? What’s your exit strategy? What is your value creation?
A lot of that is in that brand. However, in the wealth management space, the bulk of your brand exists because of your financial advisers and their relationships and their ability to grow. And I think there’s been an over, I’d say correction, but an overtilt towards we wanna manage everything in our centralized marketing and our own brand. And what that that that is one part of a good strategy.
But what I think it misses is what Dave said about the human part, that in an AI world, nobody is going on ChatGPT and saying, tell me the best RA near me. It’s you’re they’re saying, tell me the best financial adviser near me. And as as the value proposition of advisers is going more towards the emotional intelligence that they bring to that relationship and that what did you call it, Mark?
The value proposition is shifting more towards The meaning of money.
I’ve I’ve I’ve, for years, agreed. It’s not the management of money.
It’s the meaning of money that that So the master brand is really the management of the money and the market insight and the market intelligence, and here’s what we’re doing with our model portfolios.
But that relationship is at the adviser level. And I think not managing both channels and empowering advisers to use communications, their digital brand, and other traditional marketing channels to build and lean into that human relationship, I think that’s sort of a blind spot right now where where firms have overcorrected the other way.
Yeah. And I I think that’s really, really oh, sorry, Mark. I was just saying, think that’s really, really interesting because we at FMG, we’ve tried to use this, you know, analogy constantly as we’re building, you know, software and services. What what does it feel like to actually have a marketing department?
And and in the largest firms, there is a decent sized marketing department. And then in smaller practices, there there isn’t. And all along that pendulum, technology can help solve that in a real way. I’ve got Susan.
I’ve got Sam. I’ve got a huge marketing department. Right?
What does it feel like for me? What does it feel like they’re they’re amazing. They’re amazing. They’re amazing. You guys are amazing. Right? I got a great marketing department.
I’m here now. Right? Did I have to do anything to prepare for this? Mark, did we have to prepare for this? No. We we just showed up. Like, they told us what we needed to talk about and where like, work happens behind the scenes.
What it’s like for me to have a marketing department is that on things that are best just handled at the corporate level, I just get to weigh in with some thoughts and show up like I’m told. But then in things that matter for me personally and in my brand, then I’m free to go execute on those in the space. Right? How I present myself to the world is different than how Sam does and how Susan does.
And Sam’s out there all the time. I wouldn’t say Sam’s brand is FMG’s brand, but Sam’s brand complements FMG’s brand in a real way. We don’t hire people who wouldn’t. Right?
Like, so that’s sort of how I see this play out. Right? The individual expressions of advisers’ personal brands in the market should only help the corporate brand as they are expressed with their customers and and in their local areas.
I’m gonna I’m gonna audible because I know what is on the mind of many people that are sitting here, which is we can’t have, you know, a thousand advisers going rogue with their personal brand because we’ve got a brand that we are managing. And so that is a that is a scary imagine a world in which everybody goes rogue and builds their personal brand. So talk about how to accomplish both and also thinking about the fact that I also hear from many of the CMOs and CEOs that advisers have no interest or time to do it.
And Can I just say one thing too?
Is that they are offering they are doing it for them.
One thing that I will say, though, is in terms of, like, why it’s important is that the proof is in the pudding. If you look at engagement on social media, people don’t engage with No. You know, a logo like FMG or LPL. They engage with the adviser and their picture. If you look at email open rates, if an email comes from Samantha Russell, it’s gonna get opened a thousand times more than if the email just comes from FMG in almost all cases. Right?
So Not to mention if it reads like you wrote it versus it just is, like, newsletter sent out from you.
So it’s while the the point of controlling for it is important, there’s a real, purpose behind make finding ways to make it happen because it really does matter.
Yeah. So how do you do talk about both Mark and Dave. How do you handle both the challenge that the adviser sees the value proposition in a firm in some ways is you’re gonna do my marketing for me because I don’t have time or interest. And the flip side, they really have the interest and the personal brand matters, but you wanna control that.
Yeah.
I I think the balancing act is is that you’ve got to let the personality come through or else you you lose the, you know, the real edge that you have as an individual and then the edge That’s how they built their practice.
And how they built the and the edge that the practice itself has by doing it. So what you’ve got to find are what are the non negotiables, right? What are the cultural values, the brand values that we have as a firm? Let’s be clear about that.
You know, for example, you know, does everyone get a financial plan to use as a practical measure? Does everyone have, you know, a certain amount of visits they get per year? Whatever it might be, that’s the tactical part of wealth management. That’s gotta be clear and you can’t let people wander from those values.
But within that, can say, I want your personality to come out. The fact that, you know, I work effectively in retirement, right? And the fact that that’s important to me and learning’s important to me, I want my advisor to know, and I want my audience to know if I’m doing social media or I’m doing a webinar, I want that part of me to come out. This quest for learning is a really important part of who I am.
Lives within the FMG brand. That lives within the Best to Go Ventures brand. It lived within the LPL brand, you know, back in its day. And yet it let me be a real personality as it relates to what I’m doing.
So finding that balance is critical from a management standpoint. And then the beauty of these new tools is we can replicate, you know, almost anything as it relates to the way that we’re getting the tone and the intent and the background from somebody. As Dave mentioned before, ChatGPD knows him really well or Claude. I’m not sure which of it.
But and I know that that both of those And both.
Unfortunately, they both know me too well. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah.
I’m in the same boat as you know, because I I do play with all the models just as a professional courtesy. But but they they do and they each have their own little cute view of me, which is kind of fun. And but but in any case, the the point being that that it can replicate my voice. So I’ve written a blog for probably over a hundred issues of LPL’s monthly newsletter or excuse me, LPL, Investigo Ventures monthly newsletter.
And it it has a certain tone. I have some grammatical problems that are true in my writing, but I find them kind of quirky and fun. And so when I want to get the beginnings of a blog going where I’m really stuck on an idea, I can interact with chat. It has a file that has all those hundred and it basically can replicate my voice pretty darn well.
And then I could say, okay, here’s the topic. Here’s the things I’m thinking about. Here’s what’s important. Let me do more and more to customize. And that’s the world we’re headed to is being able to really impact our ability to be productive in communication in a way we’ve never seen before. That should be great fun.
I know Dave spends lots of time thinking about Yeah.
That’s a great segment into segue into how technology is actually a really great solution to the problem. I actually think, right, if if you’re if you’re marketing for a corporate brand, my hope is that one of the things you’d be passionate about is that you have brand ambassadors and all your employees or, in this case, advisors who want to be out there and are excited to be part of that parent umbrella brand. Like, that that’s that’s meaningful, and everybody wants that.
I think we also all recognize that there’s a ton of power in the individual adviser’s brand or, for instance, like Mark just said, in his brand within all of these companies. Like, it it makes all the companies better too. Like, the combination of those two things makes both better.
They’re personal.
The problem is the concern personal brand. The concern is the compliance. It’s just just like with everything else. The concern is, well, shoot, you know, corporate marketing teams are only so big.
Like, how do we make sure that in every instance somebody is aligned with the brand and we don’t have situations? I was I was at a major enterprise customer and they’re like, we cannot have a situation where the advisor is putting an image on a blog that they made with AI, where they’re sitting on a horse and holding a fish with a shotgun and a cowboy hat. It’s just not our brand. I’m like, that is a I feel like that happened because that’s that’s a very specific image.
But but but I think what’s what’s really great is is, you know, FMG built a tool called Overwatch, helps with with actual, you know, regulatory compliance and ad review. But now we’re working on something called, you know, BrandWatch, which which is exactly this. It’s about how to take a parent brand and reflect it in all of the work that happens within, you know, sort of an adviser’s activity to make sure that if there’s something that they’re about to do that that made sense to them, but it does conflict against something really important to the parent brand, it’s caught right there and and it’s redirected.
Redirected. Right? That and then so if you combine that with being able to write in the voice or communicate in the voice of the parent brand and communicate in the voice of the adviser, like Mark said, because you have all of that material, and then you layer those two things together because you have one tool that’s capable of understanding the whole ecosystem, you actually can start to solve this problem at scale. And and that’s what we get really excited about.
I think the other part of this problem to solve isn’t so much the brand part. I think it’s also what what functions should the home office do because no adviser really wants to, and what one should the adviser do? Cool. And then once you decide which ones the adviser should do, how do you get them to actually do it?
Do it.
Just because because right? Because, you know, all of us are busy. Advisers are busy. Like, come on. Like, there’s stuff that yeah. We all we all agree it would be more personal if we did this thing.
But come on. I I am just tired at the end of the day. How do I actually do it?
I mean That’s why we built the do it for me marketing program, and we call it that. You know? It’s funny. If you think of what would somebody type into Chachi Vee, Gemini Perplexity, I just want someone to do my marketing for me, and then they’re a financial adviser. Hopefully, SMG has a program called do it for me marketing.
What market I want?
And I but I see, like, I for, you know, advisors that are at ten ninety nine fully within broker dealers, our do it for me program, I think, is amazing. And if you don’t if you haven’t looked into it, you should. For some of the enterprises where they’ve got w two or they’ve got captive, what what I think is is maybe just not known is that the FMG platform, and this is why I white labeled it at Satera and then at Mosaic, it may think of it just as technology. It enables you as the CMO or CEO in the seat to do it for your advisers in a scaled way.
So when we think about what you don’t want, you don’t want advisers going rogue and just doing whatever they wanna do. And frankly, no matter how many advisers you have, many will say, I don’t wanna do anything with marketing, but you probably have at least one or two that really love marketing. And they’ve got ideas every other week, and they’ve got technologies that they wanna try, and they are bugging you all the time because at least that’s what I found. It’s not that they really I when people say they don’t wanna do it, what I that’s what you hear, but what they’re saying is I don’t have time to do it effectively, and I don’t know what to do.
If you could empower them with technology and content that enables them to do it really easily and effectively, they would love you, and you will see your organic growth engine dramatically increase and your value creation increase, and that comes out in your multiples. So, anyway, my two cents.
Yeah. And this is and this is where where we believe the future is and where we’re heading as a company. Right? Because a lot of what you just talked about was proactive.
And and software in general has been a fairly reactive world all these years. Right? Our do it for me program was built so that we could have an opportunity to be proactive, to to guide, to do on someone’s behalf. But a lot of technology is, alright, you gotta go into the thing.
You gotta choose the thing you wanna do. You gotta edit the thing. You gotta do it. And let’s be honest, that is not actually my experience working with a marketing team.
Right? Like, there’s no world with me working as a marketing team where I’m like, I wonder what kind of marketing materials are available somewhere for FMG and which ones I should pick to go send out to everyone. I don’t think that way. FMG does the big picture marketing pieces, but they also need me.
And so the way that ends up working, I guess maybe the you guys all know this is happening. I’m not killing the magic. But but what happens, right, is, like, you know, Mark comes on as their executive chair. Susan and and Sam nailed the press release.
I get to see it a few seconds before it goes out. I inevitably just say, great work. Right? They send it out.
It all happens. But then I get a I get a Slack from the team saying, hey. It’s going live tomorrow. We want you on LinkedIn, and we want you posting about it, and we want you sharing it.
Oh, and by the way, here’s, like, the three bullet points we want you to cover.
And if I don’t do that, then they’re like, and here’s a draft we wrote for you. Please send it if you want to. But we want you to go out there and we want you to share it. So now it’s really easy.
It’s just like a click for me to do it. And then they’re like and then after you, please take that link and share it in our all team and encourage everyone else to share it. Like, that’s my role in this whole marketing system that’s been created. Technology facilitates it, internally, but, right, you know, in that example, there’s humans telling everyone what to do.
And and we see a world where, you know, those that’s gonna be agents in the future. It’s really gonna be possible for agents to tell you all of those things. And your job is just going to be to feel like you have a marketing team and respond to the proactive caps that come from those agents over time. And that means that what those suggestions are can also, like Susan said, be controlled and managed from the enterprise level.
So all the guardrails, all of the process, all the strategy can happen there just like it does here at FMG. And then the execution, the part where you should participate, that’s just something you’re reminded of and you do in that moment because it’s the right moment to do it.
Yeah. That’s the magic that I mean, if anybody could design the ideal platform, and I just don’t think people realize that I mean, I wouldn’t say we’re there yet, but this is close in our future is a platform where you imagine what you would love to have all of your advisers doing because you know it would drive organic growth much more quickly, and they don’t actually have to lift a finger. That’s what our technology and that’s what our vision is.
Not that, you know, they’re using canned content, not that they’re just pushing stuff that you’ve done, but that we take the intelligence and the data from your systems, your ICP, your value proposition, your brand guardrails, your compliance regulations, your compliance policies, and we give you a marketing automation platform and a content management platform with AI built in that enables you to just set the nudges, the triggers, but have things executed by the adviser with as much control as you want to give them. So that, I think, is pretty magical.
Very compelling.
One thing that I think we’re kinda circling around that I would love to hear to for us to talk about because I’m sure everybody listening to this has seen the latest version of Michael Kitsey’s tech map. I’ve saw somebody learning in the chat about it. And just the amount of choice and the amount of new solutions, new technology that’s come out, I think a lot of people feel like deer in headlights right now. They don’t know which way to go because there’s so much choice.
It’s like, you know, when you’re in TJ Maxx and you have to leave because you can’t go through all the racks. There’s no way anyone could possibly demo every single one of those pieces of technology. And then if you think about making them all work together, to your point, Dave, you know, you have this this talking to this talking to this. How do we even connect them all?
So, you know, thinking about how do I even choose which tech and do I go for these point to point solutions and build put them together, or do we choose more of an all in one? Maybe, Mark, you could talk a little bit about you’ve been in the industry for so long. You’ve seen that map explode. How you know, if you’re the person making the buying decision, how do you even approach this problem?
Yeah. I I think this point solution, you know, world that we live in is is going to go away because you’re gonna need people who can provide the integrated platform, in this case for growth. Right? That that what I want is somebody who takes those point solutions, puts them together, and creates a system for growth similar to what Susan described a few moments ago.
And that’s interesting, right? It’s what we did at LPL back in the day is the founder actually created the first version of an integrated technology called BranchNet that allowed advisors to easily, you know, have their practice work. We then changed it to ClientWorks and upgraded a number of things that we’re doing. Because again, what we’re trying to do is create a platform in which the advisor can easily, you know, manage the practice.
And that’s the mechanics of practice, right? Trading, sending money out, whatever else it might be. Here, our vision is that I love is this idea that we can be your growth partner and we can make these point solutions work. So if we need a point solution that you’re fascinated by, by all means, let’s connect it in.
If you wanna try our point solution in that same area, let’s do that because it’s already connected in. And let’s think about the utility as a whole of making all that one partnership. And then the other thing that’s just true in AI these days, and I suffer, I sit in an office that has twenty AI startups in it, incredible people from MIT, Harvard, now Princeton, and just astounding brains and thoughtful people. And I look around and think, how do I know this is okay?
Like what are they doing and how are they doing it? And I kind of like a trusted friend and my trusted friend is in London, right? And so I phoned a friend when I’m not sure, are we sure this is a good idea? And so I like that same idea for FMG, a trusted friend who says, no, this one’s good.
Let’s let him into the family. This one’s not so good. Let’s not.
And I think you need of really being connected to to somebody who knows what good looks like in these solutions.
It’s also not feasible for an advisor and their practice, whether it’s large or small to constantly be playing with these single point solutions. In fact, we did a study at LPO now years ago, I’ll admit that said, if you change your technology pretty regularly, you actually grow less than if you partner and create a stable environment for your team to understand how to operate in. That’s a phenomenal learning, right? So the more that we can get you to use these platform solutions and the more that satisfies, you know, not everything, but the vast majority of what you need to do, that actually is gonna help you grow more because then you’re focused on building those emotional connections and relationships with your clients and with prospects rather than is this the fun new tool to play with, you know, of week.
Such a good point.
Yeah. Find right now, because because, you know, we’re making the same decisions everyone else is. Like what technology do we adopt and where do we and which which new solution do we consider to make everything more efficient internally?
And I’m finding more and more that I’m making the decision based on on the brand and not the actual solution.
Because what I see is how fast the technology is changing. So I’m actually betting on a company. I’m saying I’m saying, actually, we’ve had all of our conversations. We I know what you’re all about. I know who you have on the team.
I know what you’ve done historically, and I know, therefore, that as technology changes as fast as it is, you will continue to keep up with it, and I can trust that you will be there. That’s the decision I’m making. Because often, like, something that we may have acquired six months ago may actually be obsolete right now. And so thank goodness the company that we acquired or sorry, acquired.
The com the the company’s product that we bought, thank goodness that it just evolved and it kept up with where we needed to be. And so internally, that’s sort of the message I’m delivering to our team. Figure out what team you wanna bet on, not not necessarily just what specific product. And then also consider this point solution problem, which is in a world where AI startups, as as Mark said, he’s full he’s got them all around him.
Like, where AI startups can start and and create a first version of products so quickly, they tend to focus on a single problem, like a single point solution. And then they bring that to market because they need to. But they haven’t scaled it. Like, so they don’t you don’t know what happens when that goes from one company to ten thousand companies.
And over time, they will need to start to handle the edge cases, right, as things grow. And so it gets really interesting to say, what happens when all that’s already been done and all those things are already integrated? And now it’s just that much easier to start to solve new problems using AI, which is why I’ve got the company I’ve I’ve got FMG really focused on. Alright.
Well, nothing has changed. We always wanted to be advisors, marketing, and communication teams. Now we just have new tools to do that better. So let’s just run as fast as we can after that.
And that’s why we’re really excited. You know, Mark joined us, and we have access to all of these this amazing talent that’s that’s there surrounding him.
That’s what we’re able to do.
Mark, that’s a a good segue for a question I have for you. You know, I’m always learn something new every time we talk, especially because you are surrounded by so many of these companies and this great talent.
But, again, there can be a lot of noise, and people sometimes build features just because they look cool in a demo, not because, maybe they are adding so much value or time. So when we think about all of the noise and people can feel really overwhelmed, like, what where do I even start? And I think people listening, a lot of people are so scared. A year ago, they felt like they had all this time.
Now they feel like they’re already behind when it comes to implementing AI in their business, and they don’t even know where to start. Maybe they don’t even wanna admit it. How do how should someone think about prioritizing? What are the steps they should be taking to go forward?
Yeah. I think I think that depends a bit on size of organization. Right? And and let me start at the very biggest biggest organizations of which many of the folks on this podcast will be there or, and it doesn’t have to be terribly big.
It could be ten billion dollars in client assets quite large, but anytime you have complexity, right? You’ve got to break it down into pieces. And the first piece is you’ve got to have your team exploring one of these tools. I would prefer to use Claude over almost anybody for an organization wide use of a tool.
And I would tell them to make sure they buy the institutional version. Number one is cheaper. And number two, it protects the data. Your data doesn’t flow into the LLMs.
Many advisors that I know, unfortunately don’t realize that when they’re scanning that statement, they’re actually giving that information to the LLM in a violation of the PII, excuse me. And so therefore you’ve just gotta be very careful about what you’re doing in terms of, think most people may know that today didn’t know it so well a year ago. Secondly, you’ve got to say, what’s my biggest problem? Like, is it getting the data together?
Is it solving for problem X or problem Y? And let’s focus on that and put our energies of internal resources against that. And then the third one is let’s partner. Let’s find the right partners who can bring in the case of marketing and communications and growth, you might very well be FMCG.
Therefore let’s partner with them. Let’s go on the journey together as they bring their knowledge and understanding of that category. And therefore I don’t have to worry about the twenty five point solutions that got created last week that are there.
So I think that’s a way to do it. I think the other way to do it is there may be a specific startup that you find interesting for your business and therefore want to experiment with them. I think that’s fine too. But the key is experimentation and learning.
It’s actually the thing, Sam, you love and I love. Somebody asked me last week, why is it you still work? And I said, because I wanna wake up at least once a month and say to myself, what have I done? This is really painful to think through, right?
And that for me is the way to describe like the ultimate in learning.
It’s usually less painful than that, but where I’m like, I’m confused. Like I don’t know how to program a- Challenge. Yeah, challenge is a great way to put it. And I made myself learn how to code a claw bot about a month ago, two months ago, Most popular post I ever had on LinkedIn because I actually did do one of those cute little clawed code deals and ended up with I killed it later because I was afraid of it, you know, taking my data.
But the reality was that I wanted to have that moment where I’m like, this is confusing.
It’s not clear to me. I’m not an engineer by training. I’m a business person.
I love that discomfort. I’m always looking for that. So live in the discomfort, live in the learning, live in the change that you’re really part of as an individual and then as a as a firm.
Great answer. Dave, I think, you know, as a kind of a follow-up to that, that can be, you know, a great way to think about it, but some people will always say, but compliance. So, you know, you’re thinking about all of this and always as we partner with these large organizations, compliance is always top of mind. So when you’re thinking about building these tools but also juggling and balancing compliance, I would just love to hear maybe your thoughts about how you manage those two competing, you know, goals of going fast and trying new things, but also being compliant and safe and and all of the things that go along with it.
Yeah. I mean, I think what’s really interesting for FMG, we’re we’re we’re large. We have a lot of scale and we work with a lot of different parts of the industry. So if if we allowed our pace to be set by the most restrictive part of our customer base, then we would move really, really slow. Like, it’s just that we we would.
And and the reality is we work with a lot of RIAs where the person actually interacting with the system is capable of making their own compliance decisions in that moment. And and since they’re the human in the loop, this this is a different problem for them. So what we’re just trying to do in that case is give them help. You know, like, we’ve already done this scan. You can kinda trust it. We won’t have to take this pass on it. It’s good to go.
And that’s sort of what our our Overwatch tool is. But but I think what’s really important is that as as companies are solving these problems in the space, I get a little nervous that some of the startups are pushing on the edge of what is safe, because that’s oftentimes what startups do. They’re pushing on the edge of what’s safe because the blast radius isn’t very big. Like, if if they mess up, they only have a limited number of customers, and it impacts that limited number.
But if we make a mistake, we can have major, majors, like impact in the entire ecosystem. And we we we communicate with one hundred and twenty three million Americans. Like that’s a big deal that and we take that really seriously. We take that seriously.
So so we have always had a value prop that F and G is about bringing proven marketing and communication strategies to the market. We want to be cutting edge, but we don’t want to be bleeding edge. And we want to make sure that the thing works and it’s safe before we bring it in and everyone can can trust that. And so a lot of what we’re working on right now is how do we how do we start to pilot and and and test some of the new technology working on in the parts of the space where where it is easier because compliance constraints are more limited and the individuals working with us on the technology can make their own judgment calls so that we can eventually roll it out to those who are in more restricted space than we have.
Right? And and how do we just take care of the archiving and the compliance like we always had? And then I think the last thing is we’re actively lobbying for change. Like, I I think one thing that’s gonna happen is that AI compliance is going to change the way regulatory oversight happens in the future.
And we want to help prove that that’s true. Right? Because I don’t think the change is gonna happen until you can prove that it’s safe. And we want to be part of the solution by proving that actually it works and it’s true.
And then that just that just frees everybody in a way that they’re they aren’t free today. So that’s a big part of it for us too.
I’m so excited for that day because we’ve seen that there’s so much more content being made, but the bandwidth for compliance teams to review at all has not caught up. So I’m so glad that we’re part of the solution building, that to make to make that happen. We have such a limited amount of time left and I knew this was gonna happen. Could I would love I know everybody would love to hear from you all forever and I wanna make sure we have time for a few questions.
So I think what would be really interesting though is somebody’s walking away from this conversation and they’re thinking about, you know, what’s something that Mark or Dave or Susan want me to be thinking about going after the long holiday weekend and some time off as I look to the rest of this year and into twenty twenty seven? What are some high impact moves that I can make going into the year? I think that would be great to leave people with something that they can walk away from learning. So maybe, Susan, if you’re thinking about, you know, where could somebody start?
What’s something they could do? What would you tell them?
I was just looking over all the questions that we have in here.
Do we should we answer those instead?
I think they’re all to Mark.
Yeah. I can Oh.
Go in the q and a.
Here’s some good ones. Although, we were gonna have Diana, but maybe we’ll just we can read fast.
Okay. So I’m gonna do it.
What I would do first, I probably would I would be looking to capitalize on AEO and bring in, you know, and and start to use testimonials.
And I think I think AEO is a huge opportunity for first movers, and we do know a lot about how to leverage it to, or leverage testimonials and other things and what drives the EO.
So that would probably go there.
Good. And we didn’t talk at all about that, but for anybody listening, FMG acquired, Testimonial IQ, and we specifically you know, specifically you know, a huge part of that was we saw how much all the LLMs were weighing client testimonials and social proof in the answers that they were giving. Somebody mentioned in the chat, you know, Reddit and Wikipedia being top sources. And while that was, you know, very true, we’re seeing that shift.
And the LLMs, what they’re really looking for are real people giving real feedback about the real companies they interact with. And so testimonials, that’s why it’s so important. So if you’re looking for a compliant way to do it, you should check out FMG testimonials. I think somebody’s asking too, Mark, for you to say what your second point was about explore the tools, find partners to grow.
Don’t know if you remember what your second point was.
Well, probably not now, but just looking at the questions, maybe another place to go is, well, it’s in general, it’s the change management part of it, right? It’s a big part of it. I think what has been fun to watch with startups is it really isn’t hard for them to sell the technology. As Dave says, they can find the problem and fix it using technology, but it’s actually helping the organization understand something we call zero knowledge, right?
So we can have a book that tells us something. We can have, you know, all sorts of written procedures that we hand out, but there’s something unique that Dave knows about the way the system works that only Dave knows or only five people know. And that’s zero knowledge in the world of startups. Meaning I’ve got to capture that as well in order to be good.
So I think my second point was likely around the need to make sure that you understand the totality of a problem before you go to find a solution to it. Is that that becomes quite important because then either you don’t get what you want or it only partially solves the problem and then you you get into, you know, real despair around the technology. That’s definitely part of what we’ve seen.
I would say have to throw in one thing before we end because it’s so important for, we’ve gotten three all the questions kind of circle around the same topic, which is I love FMG, but can you create customized content?
And the answer is that is a hundred percent where we are going. And, I Sam and I we all couldn’t be more passionate about it, and that is something that AI enables us to do. So hang on. It’s coming.
And, yeah. The world of the content Exactly. Yeah.
Where I was going to because it it looking at the questions quickly, that is clearly the theme. We know that you have a unique voice. That’s what makes you human. We are going to be able to to do things that let you capture that and then do it on a more automated basis.
It can sound a little creepy, but in the end it’s not at all, right? I’d rather have, as I gave you my example before, I’d rather have ChatGPT know how I sound, know that I make grammatical mistakes and have the joy in making those with me as as we go to do some writing. So it’s it’s certainly possible to do that on LLMs, but just not at scale. And what we’re gonna be able to do at FMG is really bring scale to personalization.
That’s gonna be an amazing turn.
Not just voice, like subject, topic Absolutely. Timeliness, everything.
Yeah. Yeah. Tone, the whole the whole part of it. Sorry, Dave. I’m just excited.
Yeah. I won’t I won’t double up. That’s where we’re going, man. That’s everything.
Sorry, Diana. We’re just fast talking.
Back in here. I know I’ve been hiding this whole time, but, this is just a a fascinating conversation. So much engagement.
And I will just, you know, remind everyone that that, you know, if we didn’t get to any of your questions that were submitted during the webinar, we’ll be sure to share them with the speakers and they can get back to you offline.
But that’s all the time that we have today.
I just want to thank our speakers, Mark Cassidy, Dave Christensen, Susan Theater, and Samantha Russell. We appreciate your time and expertise on today’s topic. Again, just so much expertise here. I’d also like to give a big thank you to our sponsor FMG, as well as to everyone in the audience. We appreciate your attention and participation. Within the next twenty four hours, you’ll receive a personalized follow-up email with details and a link to today’s presentation on demand.
Please feel free to invite your colleagues and peers who may not have been available to listen to the event.
This webinar is copyright twenty twenty six by Informa, and the presentation materials are owned by or copyrighted by Informa. The individual speaker is solely responsible for the content and opinions.
Thank you so much for your time, and have a great day.
Thank you.
Bye, everybody. Thanks,
