Tag: Dan Gilmartin
EP 11 – Maximizing Your Organic Growth Funnel with Michelle Winkles

EP 11 – Maximizing Your Organic Growth Funnel with Michelle Winkles

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Creating a digital strategy to drive growth strategy can feel daunting. How do you know you are on the right track?

Daniel Gilmartin sits down with Michelle Winkles, Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Mission Wealth, to delve into the art of organic growth. With a background in tech marketing and a passion for purpose-driven leadership, Michelle dives into the cutting-edge strategies she employs to fuel growth at Mission Wealth. From leveraging a robust digital lead-gen program to fine-tuning the mergers and acquisition process, Michelle shares insights that financial advisors can use to enhance their practice, emphasizing the importance of niche specialization as a critical strategy for differentiation in a crowded market.

Michelle discusses: 

  • (04:00) How Mission Wealth fosters integration over acquisition in mergers
  • (06:45) Tips for setting up a successful digital lead generation program
  • (10:45) Optimizing SEO and online presence for top-of-funnel growth
  • (13:30) The role of niche specialization in differentiating from the competition
  • (18:00) Deciding when a top-funnel lead is ready to transition to mid-funnel outreach
  • (24:00) Top KPIs to keep an eye on for organic growth through digital marketing
  • And more

Connect with Dan Gilmartin: 

Connect with Michelle Winkles:

About our Guest: 

Michelle Winkles is an energetic, innovative, and results-focused marketing professional with over 20 years of distinguished business leadership experience. As a Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Mission Wealth, Michelle spearheads the firm’s strategic marketing initiatives, guiding overall vision, leadership, and the execution of marketing and business development programs.

A key part of her role is driving the firm’s digital growth strategy, where she has successfully developed and implemented a robust digital marketing funnel and growth engine. This includes building a comprehensive marketing technology stack designed to automate processes, enhance lead generation, and convert prospects into clients. Through her efforts, Michelle has streamlined marketing operations, expanded the firm’s digital footprint, and increased business opportunities.

She is responsible for creating end-to-end marketing strategies that integrate messaging, branding, digital presence, demand generation, content creation, research, and thought leadership. Michelle collaborates closely with department leaders across Mission Wealth to ensure marketing efforts align with the firm’s growth objectives in the B2B, B2C, and M&I sectors.

Recognized for her contributions to the business community, Michelle was named one of the “Top 40 Under 40” business professionals by the Pacific Coast Business Times in 2018, highlighting her role in reshaping leadership and the economy in the Tri-Counties.

Michelle earned her bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2005. Driven by a passion for continuous learning, she obtained a Marketing Professional Certification from UCSB Extension in 2012 and completed her MBA with a Certificate of Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Strategic Management, and Nonprofit Social Business from Antioch University, Santa Barbara, in 2017.

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EP 8 – Tech, Talent, and Experimenting with Mark Bruno

EP 8 – Tech, Talent, and Experimenting with Mark Bruno

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Are you ready to learn about some of the highest-performing financial advisory firms? Discover innovative organic growth strategies from industry leader Mark Bruno, exploring crucial topics from growth-oriented compensation to data-driven decision-making.

In this episode of Grow Organically, Dan Gilmartin hosts Mark Bruno, Managing Director and Head of Strategic Advisory for Emigrant Partners, to dive deep into the intertwined nature of organic growth and strategic compensation within financial advisory firms. Learn how closely integrated tech and talent can boost growth, the importance of an experimental mindset, and why advisor-level marketing strategies may trump traditional firm branding. You will gain insights into how aligning compensation plans with growth strategies can create a robust foundation for long-term success by tuning in. 

Dan discusses: 

  • How strategic compensation plans impact organic growth
  • How high-performing firms excel by experimenting with digital strategies, data utilization, and content precision
  • Understanding and leveraging your data can transform your growth strategy and improve client engagement
  • Advisor-level marketing can humanize and build trust more effectively than firm-level branding
  • And more

Resources:

Connect with Dan Gilmartin: 

Connect with Mark Bruno: 

About our Guest: 

Mark Bruno is Managing Director, Head of Strategic Advisory, for Emigrant Partners, where he is primarily responsible for helping its partner firms identify and execute on opportunities to accelerate their growth. Prior to joining Emigrant in October 2023, Mark spent more than 20 years working across the wealth and asset management industries with a particular focus on developing and delivering research, events and consulting platforms to growth-oriented RIAs. Mark most recently served as the Managing Director of the Wealth Management Group at Informa, where he oversaw the group’s media, research and events businesses and launched the unit’s RIA Edge podcast, research studies, and nationwide events.

Before Informa, Mark was a Managing Director at Echelon Partners, a leading investment bank and consulting firm to the wealth management community. Mark also spent more than ten years at InvestmentNews, where he oversaw the company’s digital businesses, RIA events and RIA benchmarking studies. He has been a fixture on the wealth management event circuit for the past decade, and is also the author of Save Now or Die Trying, one of the top-selling retirement planning books shortly after it was published in 2007.

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EP 5 – Secrets to Scaling Your Wealth Management Practice with Jen Abboud Smith

EP 5 – Secrets to Scaling Your Wealth Management Practice with Jen Abboud Smith

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Which prospects should you call next to maximize your conversion rates? The answer lies in harnessing the power of AI and data.

Dan Gilmartin sits down with Jen Abboud Smith, SVP of Investor Marketing at Carson Wealth, to delve into the strategies and insights that drive sustained growth in wealth management firms. Jen shares her extensive background from Amazon to Vanguard, and now Carson Wealth, exploring organizational challenges, the importance of clear communication between marketing and sales, and leveraging technology for efficient client acquisition.

Jen discusses: 

  • Navigating organizational challenges and enhancing leadership focus on organic growth
  • The dynamic relationship between marketing and sales for seamless collaboration
  • Implementing effective technology and tools for better upstream and downstream results
  • Strategies for long-term planning and adaptive execution in marketing
  • And more

Connect with Jen Abboud Smith:

Connect with Dan Gilmartin: 

About our Guest: 

Jen Abboud Smith is an inspirational ecommerce and marketing leader who is results-oriented and customer-focused. She has a proven ability to manage effectively during periods of dynamic change, with over 15 years of managerial experience in building, leading, and developing high-performing teams.

Jen believes the main role of a leader is to provide strategic vision, clarity of accountability, and the necessary resources to enable team members to perform at their best. She tends toward a coach/mentor style of leadership and values data-driven decisions, even if this means questioning her own assumptions.

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