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Put Consumers in Charge of Finding Advisors with Brian Thorp | Financial Planner Search · Financial Planner Search

• Gregory Wilnau: Brian Thorpe, how are you doing today, sir? Brian Thorp: I'm doing terrific, Greg. Thank you so much. Gregory Wilnau: Really excited to talk to you. this isn't a typical well, let's say this isn't typical. you do something that's a little bit unique than what we're typic that we're used to on the podcast. so why don't you just take a moment, introduce yourself and maybe tell us about your your company and kind of what you specialize in. Brian Thorp: Yeah, my pleasure and thanks again for having me today. So I spent twenty-two plus years in the corporate world and working in the the wealth management space for a large asset management company. And throughout my career, saw that there were opportunities for changes in the marketplace. And one of the things that was exciting for me as I was looking to do something more entrepreneurial a number of years ago was an opportunity to introduced the very first online review platform to help consumers find and hire financial advisors and be able to read online reviews like they do when hiring doctors, physicians, attorneys, other trust-based professions. And so for me, as I was looking for that right entrepreneurial moment to leave the corporate world, this was it. And of course within this space, we know there's always a lot of regulatory requirements. So with my experience was able to really bring that into the fold and over the last seven years we've had a lot of fun helping thousands of Americans find financial advisors based on what's most important to them and having that ability to finally be able to read online reviews that was prohibited by the regulators for financial advisors for so many years. Gregory Wilnau: Okay, so you're not the typical person that we interview on this podcast. So typic and I wanna just briefly kind of e explain. but the reason why I wanted to feature you was because you actually do more at scale what the purpose of this podcast is, which is helping people find the advisor that's right for them. So you feature awesome advisors and make it easy for people to find the person. Or the type of advisor that they're looking for. And you saw an opportunity with the changing to the SEC rules where testimonials and experiences working with an advisor are now allowed to be shown. So you started wealth tender as a way to feature awesome advisors and help pair them to the right people. Is that right? Brian Thorp: A hundred percent correct. Gregory Wilnau: Okay, so you're kinda like a consumer advocate in a sense. Brian Thorp: Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, on that front, one of the things that has always been frustrating to me was looking at what the perception has been among consumers of financial advisors. Back in 2022, as an example, the CFA Institute, a well-known industry organization within our space, conducted a survey of consumers to ask what do people who work with a financial advisor think About their advisors, their overall satisfaction, versus what do people not working with a financial advisor think about financial advisors from a profession perspective? And what that survey showed is that people who work with a financial advisor are overwhelmingly thrilled with the experience. They love their financial advisors. But the people not working with an advisor rated their perception of financial advisors as a profession. Lower than their perception of auto mechanics. And so that in itself, right? Gregory Wilnau: no, that's that's that's not good. Brian Thorp: Exactly. And so there's this huge disconnect. And one of the reasons that I believe that disconnect exists is the very reason that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, that regulates financial advisors for the last 60 years prohibited financial advisors from being able to invite their clients who are overwhelmingly happy and satisfied. From being able to share their experiences online. And what that Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Brian Thorp: meant for the typical consumer, the typical American, is what they're hearing about financial advisors is more often the bad actors, the Bernie Madoff on the nightly news. And that's such an anomaly. That's not the reality of what is happening. Flash forward to today, and we continue to see now with all the online reviews that are coming through, not only that great reflection of how satisfied people are with their advisors, but now that opportunity for consumers. who have never worked with an advisor to be able to read those reviews and now see the reality, which is that overwhelmingly people love their advisors and the real impact that they've made in their lives through the stories that people are sharing. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I think one of the reasons I mean I mean this is totally just a theory on my part, but one of the reasons why I think the SEC maybe had those rulings or where testimonials weren't allowed was because you know, you don't want it's it's unethical to feature a testimony that says, Hey, I'm gonna make you so much money, right? And really what these testimonials are for, I don't think they're they're not about that. They're about the experience of what it's like to work with an advisor, the experience. and that is Brian Thorp: That is Gregory Wilnau: unique to each individual. And I think that's something that is turning around right now, and that you also are featuring on your platform because those are amazing stories, right? Brian Thorp: That is 1000% correct. And in fact, last year we conducted our voice of the client study evaluating thousands of reviews that have come in from clients of advisors through WealthTender. And what that survey showed is that when looking contextually at what people are writing about in the reviews about their experience, it's just that. It's about the experience. It's about how the advisor makes them feel. It's about how their advisor makes them feel more confident. And their ability to retire or to help confidently pay for the education funding for their children or whatever it is in their financial life, there's typically a catalyst that that financial advisor is able to help their clients overcome. And so it's rare that we see reviews that are speaking about investment performance or promissory Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Brian Thorp: language. The reality is that people aren't focused on investment performance and asset allocation. They're really talking about the difference that that financial advisor has made in their financial lives. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Their unique perspective, what it's like to work with them, how they relay information, how they teach, what their values are. that's a very different way to look at it. that it's is much more important. That's cool. So do you see reviews come in? How how like in the weaves are you when it comes to an advisor getting a a reviewer? Or one of their clients sharing a great story or a great experience. do you have any ones that stand out? Any any favorites? Brian Thorp: Yeah, that's tough to say. That's a hard question. I will say, you know, with the 900 plus advisors who are featured on Wealth Tender, I'm sure by the time we're done recording this episode, there's going to be several more reviews. And one of the other stats that I'll share with you and your audience is that over 99% of the reviews that come in are five star reviews. Now, for some consumers, that might raise the flag like, everybody's getting a five star. Well, it's important when you think about the nature of these reviews. These are reviews that are coming from clients. The financial advisor has that opportunity to invite their clients to write a review. And not a surprise that if they are clients, that they're generally satisfied. So we really encourage consumers when you're reading reviews, look beyond the stars and and really focus on the stories. And then to your question in terms of favorites, it's tough to say. And one of the things that I I love hearing though is when I'm having conversations with advisors. There's an advisor in Dallas that comes to mind. And I know he was, as many advisors are, a little bit intimidated inviting their clients to write reviews, as any of us would be when you're asking Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. Brian Thorp: a favor, hey, could you take a minute to share your feedback about your experience? But this advisor in Dallas was brought to tears when he saw the reviews that started to come in from his clients because it really provided that opportunity for people to very honestly and openly. share what mattered most to them and their experience. And truly for him to come to tears and as an advisor to now be able to go back and revisit that body of reviews that he's collected, you know, maybe on a a rough day, he says that's a real pick me up and it reminds him of why he's in the profession that he is to help serve the clients that he does. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, so super inspirational. I love that. I'd like to dig in a little bit to maybe how you've approached this process maybe a little bit differently from some of the things we might have seen in the past. So we've probably all had the experience of maybe submitting our contact information to a database to be paired with somebody and then we receive, you know, a thousand emails and our phone gets blown up with a thousand automated text messages and we're like, my gosh, I wish I never did that. what happens when somebody visits your platform and they find a couple of advisors that really are sitting right with them and they they reach out? What what happens? Brian Thorp: Our goal is to ensure that the individual coming to our platform is always in charge and able to decide when and if they want to reach out to a financial advisor. So very different from a number of other find and advisor sites where consumers are invited to complete a form, provide a lot of information about them personally, and then that platform will take that information and quite often sell that information to. Multiple advisors who then have the opportunity to reach out to that consumer and try to win their business. So with those types of platforms, anytime a consumer, if you're cre completing a form or a questionnaire on a Find an Advisor site, that's typically what you can expect is that your phone is going to start ringing, your email is going to start filling up with inquiries from advisors trying to win your business. Hopefully they've paid attention to that questionnaire, and hopefully that platform is truly matching advisors who meet the criteria based on what's important to you. But it's a bit of a black box. And so Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Brian Thorp: your ability to really kind of flip the script and visit Wealth Tender and put yourself in control to be able to go to Wealth Tender, and if it's important to you, to find an advisor who's nearby, you can start with a local search. Or what I would really recommend is instead of focusing on finding a financial advisor near me, start by thinking about finding a financial advisor for you. And what I mean by that, you Gregory Wilnau: Interesting. Brian Thorp: may have a catalyst in your life that perhaps you're transitioning into retirement from a particular large employer. There are advisors who specialize in working with employees and executives at large employers, and they may Have great insights into your compensation plan benefits retirement package to help you more strategically move into that next phase of your life. Or maybe you're a family with special needs and are looking for an advisor that is truly aware and capable of helping you with the challenges and circumstances that you're facing. I would suggest for many people, you're better off finding an advisor if you're a special needs family who truly understands your needs. even if they don't live nearby. Now with that said, just because you start with a for me search doesn't mean you can't then filter down to find advisors who are near you. But starting Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Brian Thorp: with that for me really gives you that ability to say, okay, what's most important to me? What's most important to my spouse and I, what's most important to our family, so that we can find the best financial advisor for our particular needs, start there, and then you can use filters on Wealth Tender to Find the advisors who are near you, if that's important Gregory Wilnau: Okay. Brian Thorp: to you, and be able to read the reviews about advisors. So you can see, in fact, not only is the advisor saying on their wealth tender profile, this is what they do, but now you can see if in fact their clients are saying the same and sharing experiences that really resonate with what you're going through to be able to put yourself in the same shoes as those clients. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. I love it. Let's talk about this a little bit more because I wanna understand how you approached maybe building out the profiles of the advisors and the kind of criteria that you use in order to determine and how you kind of determine what information needs to be featured in order to pair the person with the the right advisor. Any thoughts on that? I'm sure that's something you've probably thought a lot about. At least I would if I were building out a platform that you have. I'd want to get into it, you know, and and think deeply about how to best present that information. So maybe you could talk about that that for a moment. Brian Thorp: Absolutely. A couple of things we were really focused on at the outset was looking at what's worked well in other trust-based professions like doctors, lawyers, and thinking about as a consumer, what do people really care about when they're focused on hiring a professional in those particular spaces? And really then applying that into our space as well to say, okay, well, naturally if you're looking to hire a doctor. You know, maybe you're looking for a general practitioner, maybe you're looking for a specialist. And so we kind of took that same approach with Wealth Tender to think about what are the different needs that individuals have. And naturally finding a local advisor with our national directory or local guides satisfies that particular type of a query. But then getting into those different catalysts that many people have in their life, you know, whether it's getting married and combining incomes or Transitioning from one employer to another due to a layoff or mergers, acquisitions, or having children and thinking about education funding. And so on Wealth Tender, you'll find hundreds of articles on a diverse range of topics really oriented to what matters most to consumers. So we started there, but then as we're bringing advisors on board, we're focused on ensuring that the advisors who are featured in each of those areas of specialization. are the advisors who truly have the experience and the skills to work with clients who have those particular needs. Gregory Wilnau: Okay. So it sounds like you do a pretty put a lot of attention and effort into kind of qualifying the advisor and helping them fill out their profile properly and making sure that it's accurate. what are some of the things that you found wealth tender users care about? So the people who are visiting the site to look for an advisor. what are some of the things that those pe you found that those people care about when they're considering an advisor? like specific criteria. Does anything stand out to you? Like maybe top three. I'm sure there's a lot, but maybe if you could broad stroke like top three biggest things that criteria that they that's important to them and that they look for. Brian Thorp: Certainly. First, definitely that opportunity and ability to finally be able to read reviews and being able to see what other people are saying about their experience. And then in terms of other characteristics about an advisor, in some cases, you know, naturally there's experience, there's credentials, which are increasingly becoming table stakes. you know, and Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Brian Thorp: also is this advisor a fiduciary? And you know, we can get into some of the F words like fee only and fiduciary. as well as different compensation models when consumers perhaps are looking for a one-time financial plan or an advisor who offers hourly services as opposed to those that collect fees based on the percentage of assets that they manage for a particular client. So a number of nuances there, but I would also emphasize that increasingly what we're seeing are people. looking for an advisor based again on what's most important to them. And I'll I'll share one of the reasons why I think we're seeing more of that is as people, we as consumers increasingly are no longer just going to Google and putting in a search phrase like financial advisor near me and then seeing a bunch of links. We're instead starting to go to ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or even within Google where the response is an AI generated answer. And what's now happening is as you as an individual start expressing what you're looking for and mentioning that you're looking for Gregory Wilnau: Mm-hmm. Brian Thorp: a financial advisor, those tools are now coming back and asking you follow-up questions. And they're going to take you down that path of Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Brian Thorp: say saying, you know, hey, Greg, tell me more. That's great that you're looking for a financial advisor, but what's the catalyst in your life and the reason why? Are you focused on retirement planning? Did you just have something occur that has you thinking about your financial needs. And as you're answering questions and having a conversation, now it's that AI tool and the AI generated answers that are going to start to surface financial advisors that those AI tools believe are best suited for you based on the conversation that you just had. So one of the things that we're focused on with Wealth Tender is ensuring whether you as a consumer come to Wealth Tender itself, Or if you're utilizing one of those tools, that the information we have about the financial advisors featured on our platform are going to help inform those AI tools so that the advisors who may be a best fit for you are going to be more likely to show up within those AI generated answers and ChatGPT and Gemini and other AI tools. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, so it's kinda like an Oreo cookie. So you've got the advisors on one on one side, the prospective client on the other. And wealth tender and the AI chat bot can be the kind of the cream filling, right? Yeah, yeah, Brian Thorp: Double stuffed Oreo, correct. Gregory Wilnau: baby. you know, that's interesting because something that we're finding 'cause I mean there's a a lot of you know, AI is a pretty disruptive technology and it's changed a lot of things. And it's definitely changed the way people behave and where they go for information. And we found that w the way that we kind of think of it, it's just a a a new channel, right? It's a new pathway. But the way that people use it is different. They ask it a lot of nuanced questions. They have three thousand word count chats before the AI bot makes a recommendations for the ideal advisor. And It ends up being a lot more a better pairing than just a Google search because the the chatbot can make the best recommendations based on values, circumstance. and it sounds like you've really helped position the wealth the advisor's wealth tender profiles to feature that information in the best way so that when the individual who is an ideal fit for them can is looking the chat and they're having a conversation with the chat bot, the chat bot knows how to make that pairing. Would you say that that's accurate? Brian Thorp: think very well stated. Exactly accurate. Correct. Gregory Wilnau: Something I'm curious about is how do you get the right info from the advisor to feature it on their profiles so that the individual considering them has the best, most accurate info? Like how do you how do you approach that? Do you have like a training series that you take the advisor through when they fill out the profile? Did you do extensive research? Or did you just pull it out of a hat? How did you or do it based off of data and and just reiteration? How did you approach that? Brian Thorp: Yeah, great question. You know, most financial advisors are really good at one thing, which is serving their clients and bringing value to their financial lives. What many financial advisors are not as good at is having their information and the appropriate details shared publicly in a manner that is really best positioning them in the favorable light and reflective of the great work that they do. Now that's not true of all, because many advisors have worked with Very reputable marketing consultants, website platforms, and other professionals who are helping them polish their image and have a more relevant profile that that represents who they are and what they do well. But in a number of instances, we struggle to find that on an advisor's website. And so one of the things that we chose to do early on when a financial advisor joins Wealth Tender is we'll actually create the profile for them. using information that we can find on their website, on LinkedIn. And again, to be fair, a lot of advisors are doing a really nice job with that information, especially if they are working with industry consultants, professionals. But in those instances where they're coming up a little short, you know, we're reaching out to the advisor, asking for a little bit more color and doing a bit of an interview to understand what they're really all about. So we can not only position them in a more favorable light, But also in a more appropriate light to truly reflect who they are, what they do, because we don't want to have profiles on Wealth Tender that feature a headshot of an advisor and a short description. It's not valuable to a consumer who's looking to evaluate what that advisor is all about. Now, I will say for the advisors that are collecting reviews and have those published on their platform, that really goes a long way for both types of advisors. One, the advisors who historically haven't had A strong presence in terms of the language to speak about themselves because now their clients are speaking about the experience for them. And then interestingly, even for many of the advisors who I would consider to be top-tier, top caliber, doing a phenomenal job of conveying who they are and their value proposition, a lot of times what they're finding in the reviews that they receive from their clients are all sorts of valuable insights into areas where. They're providing incremental value in services that they didn't even realize were some of the most impactful areas that they've benefited clients. And so now they're starting to take some of what their clients are sharing in their own words and incorporating that into their wealth center profile, into their website copy. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You gotta do it. It not only is it good, it's just good to share the to help people understand the experience of what it's like to work with you when they see your website, when they see your profile. And you want there to be continuity between that and the experience between what they they perceive when they learn and read about you, but also have continuity between what that experience is actually like when they talk to you. So I love that that's something that you're focused on. I want to ask more about the the process of what it's like when somebody starts to work with wealth tender. I also want to talk more about before we do that, How do people who are looking for an advisor and want to make the best decision? How do they stumble upon wealth tender? Like how do they find how do they find it? Is it through like Google search? What's your what's the the main channel and the main way that people discover well tender? Brian Thorp: Yeah, great question. You know, for many people historically it would have been Google, where a lot of those articles that I mentioned on various topics surface on the first page of Google for relevant keywords. So if somebody is perhaps a small business owner and they go to Google and say, I'm looking for a financial advisor for small business owners, and they see that link takes them to Wealth Tender, and now they can read about the benefits of working with an advisor that specializes in working with business owners and get to know the hundreds of advisors in our community who are focused on exactly that audience. Now flash forward to today and we're absolutely seeing a lot greater shift into the AI tools because even if people are using Google, those AI generated summaries are showing up quite often prominently before the links that historically people would see. So Gregory Wilnau: Right. Yeah. Brian Thorp: even with Google itself, the role of wealth tender has evolved and that as more answers are being generated by AI tools, those answers need to be sourced from somewhere. And often within AI generated answers, you'll see where the information is being sourced from, and wealth tender is very likely to then appear. So as a consumer, maybe you choose to stay within that chatbot, whether it's an AI overview or you're in ChatGBT and The advisors who show up, maybe one or two of them that are being recommended, are essentially being surfaced because they're featured on wealth tender, because they have glowing reviews, and importantly, because the information that the AI search tool has found about the advisors featured on wealth tender matches and aligns with the conversation you're having about what you're looking for. So the next step as a consumer. might very well be clicking through to wealth tender to read the reviews in total, or maybe you don't. Maybe you stay within that AI tool and choose to reach out directly to the advisor or that next generation of AI search. The way that we've coded the profiles of financial advisors, it might be that the AI search tool says, would you like to set up an introductory call with this advisor? And you still may not end up visiting Wealth Cinder, but the link that it provides for you to book that call is Gregory Wilnau: Right. Right. Brian Thorp: effectively being served up by the code that we're providing Gregory Wilnau: Right. Yeah. Brian Thorp: to those AI search tools to make that connection. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it so it really helps with visibility. I love that. so what I wanna do before we before we end here is I wanna understand more about maybe where you're going when it comes to your vision for well tender and what you're building out. Would you be comfortable sharing maybe your your vision for the next couple of years and any goals you're working on? Brian Thorp: Yeah, I would say a couple of things. If we look in the rearview mirror, the way that AI has evolved certainly was, I think, a a surprise for for everybody. And so it's been fun to really lean into that. Interesting for sure. Gregory Wilnau: Yeah, fun. Yeah. It's been really fun. Interesting for sure. Interesting and fun. Yeah. Brian Thorp: to lean into that and ensure that the same information about financial advisors that we've historically served primarily through wealthender.com, people coming to our website. is equally available and prominent if it's being served up within those types of AI search tools as well. So we're going to continue to lean into that. And beyond that, you know, thinking about just more ways that as the search experience evolves, that we can help consumers find advisors that are the best fit. One of the things we've also done is we recognize that a lot of consumers, when they are looking for credible Professionals, whether again, I just refer to doctors and lawyers often because they're also professionals that people are hiring based on trust. We want to do that same thing with financial advisors to help consumers identify the most trusted financial advisors. And one of the ways that we are doing that is we recently launched what we call the wealth tender voice of the client awards, which are for Gregory Wilnau: Nice. Brian Thorp: advisors who have consistently exceptional. Reviews that also meet a number of eligibility criteria to really help consumers find advisors who truly are best in class and also to ensure that that information can help the AI search tools distill exactly that same information to bring more best in class advisors into the AI-generated answers to help people find the ideal advisor for their particular needs. Gregory Wilnau: I love it. Well, thank you so much, Brian, for coming on, sharing your story and what you do. I I love it. I think more people should be focused on this because it really is important. for anybody who's listening who wants to get in touch with you and learn more about you or or wealth tender, where should they go next? What should they do? Brian Thorp: Yeah, so it's wealth tender dot com W E A L T H T E N D E R dot com and if you visit the homepage you'll find our contact information there and always happy to speak with your audience. My direct email Brian B R I A N at wealth tender dot com. Gregory Wilnau: All right, Brian. Thank you so much for coming on. Really enjoyed it. Brian Thorp: My pleasure, Greg. Thank you. Gregory Wilnau: Take care.