Grow Organically

Financial advisory firms are investing in more digital marketing channels, but knowing which ones bring in qualified prospects isn’t always straightforward. As prospective clients increasingly use ChatGPT to research financial advisors, marketing teams face new questions about how to build visibility, measure lead quality, and determine where their budgets will have the greatest impact.

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin speaks with Joanna Irwin, Chief Marketing Officer at HB Wealth, about building a recognizable brand while generating qualified leads. Joanna shares how HB Wealth approached its rebrand while expanding digital marketing efforts, why ChatGPT referrals may shorten the sales cycle, and how client reviews support online discovery. They also explore marketing attribution, customer acquisition costs, and using performance data to decide where to invest.

Joanna discusses:

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About our Guest: 

Joanna joined HB Wealth as Chief Marketing Officer in 2024. In this role, she is responsible for developing and leading the firm’s marketing strategy, focused on fueling strategic growth through brand building and digital marketing.

Before joining HB Wealth, Joanna served as the Global Chief Marketing Officer for Randstad, the world’s largest talent company, from 2017 to 2023. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at Invesco, one of the world’s leading global investment management firms, where she was Chief Marketing Officer, North America. Before Invesco, she was Vice President with Merrill Lynch, where she served in marketing, e-commerce, and product leadership roles.

Joanna serves on the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce CMO Advisory Board, the Georgia State University Marketing Roundtable, the American Marketing Association Atlanta Chapter Advisory Board, and the Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) Georgia Board. She previously served on the Board for the Professional Association for Investment Communication Resources. Joanna is an Advocate with OnBoard and an active mentor to future women leaders.

She is a cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned a BA degree in psychology and radio, television, and motion pictures.

Joanna enjoys walking in her neighborhood, attending live music events, and spending time with her husband and two children.

Marketing activity can look healthy on the surface while prospects quietly disappear somewhere deeper in the funnel. 

Knowing what to measure can reveal where attention, appointments, and opportunities are being lost.

In this episode, Grow Organically host Dan Gilmartin speaks with David Franzke, Chief Marketing Officer at Advisors Excel, about building advisor marketing around clear business outcomes. They cover event marketing, seminar follow-up, funnel metrics, team goals, brand measurement, video, and the value of defining what a win should look like before launching a new initiative. David also shares how better data helped one advisor uncover a two-week follow-up delay that was hurting appointment attendance.

Key points:

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About our Guest: 

David Franzke is the Chief Marketing Officer at Advisors Excel, where he helps financial advisors grow their businesses through marketing, advertising, events, and business development support. He has been with Advisors Excel for 15 years, beginning as an intern at age 19 and growing alongside the organization as it expanded from roughly 80 employees to more than 1,200. In his role, David and his team work closely with advisors to strengthen marketing processes, improve event performance, use data to identify gaps in the client journey, and connect everyday marketing activity to larger business goals.

Organic growth is becoming more challenging for many advisory firms, especially as competition for attention continues to increase.

How do you create a marketing strategy that consistently attracts qualified prospects while giving advisors more time to focus on client relationships?

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin sits down with Samantha Allen, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Merit Financial Advisors, to explore how marketing, sales, and technology can work together to create a repeatable growth engine. Samantha shares how Merit blends proven marketing channels with ongoing experiments, why video streaming has become one of the firm’s strongest sources of high-net-worth clients, how AI helps route leads to the right advisors, and why close collaboration between marketing and sales has become one of the company’s biggest competitive advantages.

Key takeaways:

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About our Guest: 

Samantha Allen is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Merit Financial Advisors, where she leads the firm’s integrated marketing strategy across organic growth, digital marketing, content, brand, events, and advisor support. With more than a decade of experience in financial services marketing, she has held leadership roles at organizations including TD Ameritrade, helping firms connect marketing, technology, and business development to drive sustainable growth. Samantha is passionate about building scalable marketing systems, leveraging AI and digital channels, and creating stronger alignment between marketing and sales to improve both the advisor and client experience. She also serves on the board of the FinServ Foundation, supporting initiatives that strengthen the future of the financial services industry.

What if your daily actions were directly shaping the life you’ll look back on years from now?

And what if growth, both personal and professional, could be engineered with clarity and discipline?

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin interviews Michael Graham, CFP®, President and Co-Founder of Midwestern Securities, about building a firm rooted in intentionality and disciplined growth. Mike shares how starting with the end in mind, including writing your own obituary, can shape decisions across business and life. He explains how structured KPIs, guided client conversations, and repeatable systems drive consistent advisor performance. 

The conversation also explores coaching, accountability, and how investing in people can unlock untapped potential across a team.

Key takeaways:

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About our Guest: 

As the Chief Executive Officer of Midwestern Securities, Michael Graham, CFP®, provides visionary leadership and guides the company in pursuing bold ideas for the next chapter of its continued growth. He also provides consultation to the company’s financial institution partners on their long-term strategic growth and mutual success. In addition, Mike shares his many years of investment knowledge and time-tested philosophy as he serves on the Midwestern Securities Investment Committee, which oversees the Midwestern Securities Lighthouse Portfolios.

Mike has been in the financial services industry since 1996. An alumnus of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, Mike obtained his securities licensing soon after graduation. He then joined his father, John, to start John Graham & Associates, Inc., which he has since built into a thriving retail wealth management firm from which he continues to manage and serve the financial planning needs of multigenerational clients.  

He completed the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER education program and passed the accompanying board exam in the spring of 2000. He currently holds seven other professional licenses. Mike was a driving force in the formation of Midwestern Securities Trading Company, LLC in 1999. He had a goal to bring accountability, expertise, and personal service to registered reps through a premier, emerging firm centrally located in the U.S.

Mike is the host of the Banking on Growth podcast, interviewing industry professionals on topics that impact community banks and credit unions, as well as the financial advisors who operate within them. 

Mike resides with his wife and sons in the local area. Together, they keep focused on the 4Fs: Faith, Family, Fitness, and Fun.

Mike is very involved in his community. He has served as a Peoria Riverfront Museum Foundation board member; is a past president of the East Peoria Chamber of Commerce; served on the Roanoke-Benson CUSD 60 School Board; served as president of the Pediatric Resource Center Board; is a past president of the East Peoria Police Pension Board; served on the Finance Committee of Peoria Christian School; and the Board of Trustees for Eureka College. He was recognized in 40 Leaders Under 40 Class of 2007 and was the 2016 Pediatric Resource Center recipient of the Champions for Children award.

Growth gets harder when every firm has access to the same tools.

What separates strong marketing is not the software itself, but the judgment, structure, and empathy behind how it is used.

In this episode, Dan Gilmartin speaks with Michele Welsh, Chief Marketing Officer at Verdence Capital Advisors, about building a practical AI and marketing system inside a wealth firm. She explains how her team evaluates tools through acceleration, accuracy, and innovation, how they train AI to reflect brand voice and empathy, and why clean CRM data drives better automation. Michele also shares how education-first content, strong prompt strategy, and patient distribution across formats help advisors build trust with high net worth prospects.

Key takeaways:

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About our Guest: 

Michele Welsh is the Chief Marketing Officer of Verdence Capital Advisors. Michele leads firm-wide marketing, branding, and content strategies. These include setting and executing technology-based marketing solutions focused on excellent client experience and unbiased, transparent financial advice. Her multifaceted career has included roles as an Art Director, Creative Director, and the Founder & CEO of two startups. Michele has been featured on national network media including GMA, Fox News, and The Today Show. Additionally, she brought her entrepreneurial teachings to the Johns Hopkins MBA program where she co-opted case studies with the Carey Business School. In her community, Michele is a co-founder and board member of Sisters Circle, a mentoring program for girls and young women from underserved communities in Baltimore.

What actually separates firms that grow organically from those that rely on referrals and market lift?

Daniel Gilmartin discusses the launch of Catchlight’s RIA Growth Marketing Proficiency Report with Mary Kate Gulick, Founder of MK Wealth Marketing. Together, they break down what organic growth truly means, how top independent RIAs are structuring their marketing teams, and the patterns that show up consistently in faster-growing firms.

Dan discusses:

Resources:

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About our Guest: 

Mary Kate Gulick is the Founder of MK Wealth Marketing and a seasoned marketing leader in the financial services industry. She has held leadership roles at firms including FiComm, Carson, TD Ameritrade, and IBM. Mary Kate specializes in helping wealth management firms align brand, strategy, and growth initiatives to drive measurable results. 

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Sustainable growth does not come from chasing every tactic available. It comes from clarity, consistency, and systems that respect how people actually make decisions.

In this replay episode, Dan Gilmartin sits down with Michelle Winkles, MBA, Partner and CMO at Mission Wealth, to revisit a foundational conversation on organic growth through digital marketing. This replay episode explores how firms can structure their websites, tech stacks, and workflows to attract higher-quality leads. Michelle explains how niche identification, data-driven personalization, and thoughtful follow-up create stronger relationships and more efficient funnels, while sharing how Mission measures performance and prioritizes long-term growth.

Key takeaways:

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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.

Organic growth sounds straightforward, but for many firms it remains one of the hardest challenges to solve.

What happens when client demand slows, marketing feels risky, and internal teams struggle to connect the dots across services?

In this replay episode, Dan Gilmartin revisits a timely conversation with Jimmy Zhao, Partner at McKinsey, to examine what truly drives organic growth in wealth management. They unpack why growth has slowed, how banks and RIAs miss opportunities hidden in their own data, and where new advisor relationships are emerging. The discussion also explores long-term investment thinking, referral strategies that convert, and why patience is critical when building sustainable growth engines.

Key takeaways:

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About our Guest: 

Jimmy Zhao is a Partner at McKinsey & Company. Jimmy leads McKinsey’s North American retirement division and works closely with wealth managers and other financial institutions in the retirement ecosystem to serve more clients and unlock new sources of growth.

Jimmy collaborates with institutions across the US retirement landscape—including wealth managers, defined contribution recordkeepers, retirement plan advisors and consultants, technology platforms, and asset managers. Working in collaboration with the top executives at his client companies, Jimmy designs and executes transformational growth programs. He also leads McKinsey’s support for transactions and private capital investments in the sector. Over the past six years, Jimmy has supported over 50 deals across registered investment advisors (RIAs), independent broker-dealers, and WealthTech.

Jimmy became a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) in 2012 and hosts educational events with the CFA Society in Boston.

Partnerships, referrals, and metrics: three core themes shaping the future of organic growth in wealth management.

In this episode of Grow Organically, host Dan Gilmartin sits down with Yelena Melamed, Chief Product Officer at Catchlight, to close out Season Two with a deep dive into how data, trust, and technology are transforming growth strategies. Yelena shares how wealth firms can strengthen partnerships across business lines, optimize referrals with automation, and leverage custom data models to make better, faster decisions.

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Resources:

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About our Guest: 

Yelena Melamed is the Chief Product Officer at Catchlight, where she leads product strategy and innovation focused on helping financial advisors grow organically. She previously spent over 25 years at Fidelity Investments, where she led the design and delivery of data-driven technology solutions for financial services. At Catchlight, she combines her expertise in financial technology and product leadership to create tools that enhance advisor efficiency and client engagement.

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Growth in wealth management often comes down to trust, process, and knowing where to focus.

How do you build stronger referral partnerships with accountants and custodians? How can predictive analytics and technology enhance client relationships without losing authenticity?

In this episode of Grow Organically, host Dan Gilmartin speaks with Chris Thom, CFP®, ChFC, CLU, CWS, Executive Vice President and Strategy and Partnerships Officer at Sequoia Financial Group, about how his firm drives growth through referrals, wallet share expansion, and technology-led client engagement. 

Chris shares lessons on scaling trust, focusing on strengths, and leveraging innovation to deliver integrated client experiences.

Key takeaways:

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About our Guest: 

Christopher B. Thom (Chris) serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy & Partnerships Officer for Sequoia, based in Akron, Ohio. With 25 years of experience in financial advisory and wealth planning, Chris is dedicated to advancing Sequoia’s commitment to comprehensive, client-centered service. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and Certified Wealth Strategist®, Chris uses his experience to strengthen partnerships with custodians and accounting firms, positioning Sequoia as a trusted partner for families navigating complex financial landscapes.

Chris is passionate about Sequoia’s Growth Culture, which emphasizes trust, specialization, and enduring client relationships. Leading Sequoia’s marketing efforts, he champions the firm’s unique strengths, delivering on a vision where families receive seamless, customized solutions for wealth management, tax, estate, and financial planning. His goal is to make Sequoia a go-to destination for families seeking tailored, long-term financial planning and investment management services.

A Texas Tech University graduate with a BBA in Marketing, Chris is deeply invested in supporting his alma mater’s athletics. Alongside his wife, Kim, and their three children, Chris resides in Sharon Township, Ohio, where he values the balance of family life and a thriving professional career.

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