My name is Sara Grillo and I’ve been helping financial advisors get new clients for ten years. My compliance-friendly marketing services have helped many financial advisors to grow their businesses. Before we get into the actual reviews of my financial advisor marketing services, I wanted to encourage you to review a blog I wrote about being a financial advisor marketing consultant.
My financial advisor marketing services take a variety of forms, namely:
- I help financial advisors to optimize their websites to attract leads from Google, AI, and other internet sources
- I am a social media consultant for financial advisors, specializing in financial advisor LinkedIn marketing
- I am an RIA lead generation expert who advises financial advisors about how to create a sales funnel and overcome objections from prospects
- I write content for wealth management firms (brochures, website copy, email newsletters, webinar or pitch decks, etc.)
- Giving informational webinars and team coaching sessions to teams of financial advisors on wealth management topics
And now, without any further ado, here are the most up-to-date reviews I have of my financial advisor marketing platform.
Financial Advisor Marketing Testimonials
Here are a some testimonials about my marketing services from a few of the financial advisors I have worked with over the last ten years:
“As a fee-only financial advisor marketing consultant, Sara brings clarity and structure to what can feel like a noisy space. Working with her helped me get new clients for my RIA firm in a way that felt authentic and sustainable. Highly recommended!”
-Paul Barry, Owner/Advisor, Middle Street Capital
Norman Chait, Nardis Advisors
“Sara Grillo has worked with me and my firm as our financial advisor marketing consultant since we first started our wealth management firm. Sara has helped us in all areas of our marketing, including selecting the name for our firm and developing our marketing strategy and plans. I view Sara as an important part of our marketing team to establish and grow our firm.”
-Scott Manley, Chief Investment Officer, Financial Journey Partners
“Dear Sara, I want to thank you for all your help as a marketing consultant to me as a financial adviser. Your advice is concise, relevant and anchored in the real world.”
Rochelle Odesser, Vice President, Madison Planning Group
“Sara has an abundance of practical knowledge that has given me a significant boost in structuring my marketing program. I benefit a lot from the monthly webinars, the daily brief emails, the library of training content and the personal monthly coaching meetings. Rather than being stuck figuring out how best to market my practice, I get a tremendous number of ideas that are immediately actionable. I consider Sara the best.”
–Timothy P. McKee, CPA/PFS
“Sara’s straight-talking, no nonsense advice helped us focus our efforts. We appreciate Sara’s voice and her help in designing a blog effort that felt natural and aligned with our values.”
-Jeff Yamada, MCS Family Wealth Advisors
“Sara took the time to really understand my business before offering any guidance. Her suggestions have been genuinely useful and have helped me think through my marketing in a way I couldn’t have done on my own, whether that was strategy or the messaging. I view Sara as a core part of my team.”
-Keith Hensley, Founder, Florida Financial Planning
“Sara helps me get motivated to actually put ideas into action. It’s easy for me to look around this industry and think of ways that I can market, but it’s harder for me to actually put them into place. Especially when dealing with imposter syndrome as a career changer and a single advisor RIA. Sara helps keep me motivated through weekly updates, gives me a sounding board to bounce ideas off of and can tell me areas that I am missing. Constant motivation helps me keep the wheels moving.”
-Phil Durbin, Generational Wealth Development
“Launching Open Book Financial Planning less than a year ago was both exciting and overwhelming. I knew how to deliver advice, but building a steady flow of the right prospects was a different challenge.
Working with Sara completely changed that. With her guidance, I quickly built a consistent pipeline of well-qualified prospects who are aligned with my advice-only, flat-fee model. Her coaching is clear, strategic, and practical — not theory, but actionable steps that actually move the needle.
I can’t recommend Sara enough. If you’re a financial advisor who wants to grow your firm intentionally and attract better clients, she’s the real deal.”
— Michael Hart
Founder, Open Book Financial Planning
“I found your comments and suggestions insightful and actionable. They were helpful in my general approach to marketing as well as my use of LinkedIn.”
–Rich Rozman, Broker Insurance Agency
“Sara has done an outstanding job for us over the years. She turns the work around exceptionally fast, is confident, decisive, opinionated in a good way and not afraid to tell you like it is. She also did an excellent job keeping our advisors on task in terms of making sure they knew when it was their turn to write the next blog. Anybody who is unhappy with their social media presence should consider using her services.”
-Jim Freeman, President, Financial Alternatives
“When we launched our RIA in 2019, Sara Grillo helped us bring our vision to life through our brand and website content. She took the time to understand our story and translated it into messaging that felt authentic, engaging, and different from the typical financial firm. Sara’s outside-the-box thinking and collaborative approach made the process easy and enjoyable, and her pricing was extremely reasonable for the value delivered. I would absolutely recommend her to anyone looking to tell their story in a meaningful way.”
-Dustin Padgett, Division President, Big Sioux Wealth Management
A while ago, I helped Todd Calamita, Calamita Wealth Management with his website and LinkedIn marketing.
“The great thing about working with Sara is she has a finance background so she can write content that is technical and specific. She is organized, always does what she says she is going to do and kept us accountable to get our tasks done. Over time working with her we went from rarely having a new prospect from our website to getting regular, qualified prospects through the website. And she helped us publish a weekly newsletter and made sure it always went out on time.”
– Nicole Roberts, CFP, Financial Advisor, Rock House Team with Wealth Enhancement Group
“I have worked with Sara Grillo over the last few years and she did an amazing job with our Linked-In platform. In the short period of time she took my followers from roughly 5000 to nearly 15000 and helped me grow my newsletter to over 30,000 subscribers. If you are needing help growing you social media and your business, Sara is a great resource. (five stars, highly recommend.)”
– Lance Roberts, Chief Investment Strategist, RIA Advisors
Dave Welty, Avier Wealth Advisors
“I have started applying the Prospect connection methods you have outlined – was actually with a “first level connection” who I had actually never met – reached out via message – shared how much I had been enjoying her LinkedIn posts and would like to come by to introduce myself if she had some time in the coming weeks. Met her yesterday –we hit it off great and I anticipate growing this relationship personally over the months to come. Cheers to you.”
-Anonymous subscriber to Sara’s financial advisor LinkedIn training program
“Sara is a professional in the digital marketing space. She is a wonderful financial advisor LinkedIn marketing expert.”
-Susan Alefi, Founder, Serenity Financial Planning
“Sara is a no-nonsense partner for flat-fee financial advisor marketing. She will help you cut through the industry fluff with direct and effective communication techniques. She helped me create a repeatable system for reaching out to both prospects and centers of influence on LinkedIn. And she also helped me optimize my website for SEO and AI. If you want a marketing partner that will provide you with actionable tactics to get new clients at your RIA firm, I recommend working with her.”
-Bryan Huhn, Founder, Reflective Wealth
I just got an email from the family law attorney I met with last evening telling me she shared my name with a divorcing client at lunch today – so “YES Virginia – Sara Grillo’s expertise and approach is Santa Claus.”
-Anonymous subscriber to Sara’s financial advisor LinkedIn training program
Todd Gourno, Three Creeks Capital Management
“I hired Sara Grillo as a financial advisor marketing consultant to help me get new clients for my wealth management firm. She provided wonderful compliance-friendly content for my financial advisory practice, and also advised me as to many aspects of high net worth prospect marketing. I would highly recommend her to any financial advisor looking to grow.”
-David Smith, Managing Member, Bridge Generations Wealth Management
“I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Sara through my wife’s businesses, and more recently, through my business. Her knowledge and achievements go way beyond her degree from Harvard, MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, and her CFA designation, which are impressive to say the least. Her expertise and guidance, through mentorship, has proved invaluable in building my brand, business and providing value to my clients. Thanks Sara!”
Ryan Beliveau, Financial Advisor, Hudson Wealth Management
What’s the best support for you?
So what do you think? Am I the best marketing company for financial advisors?
Actually – here are three reasons why that question doesn’t matter.
- There are so many different ways that financial advisors operate their firms. A marketing agency that works for one financial advisor may be a complete flop for another.
- Your needs are always evolving. Who knows if the marketing platform that is best for your financial advisory practice or RIA firm at one moment in time will be what getse you the best advisor marketing ROI in the next phase.
- Plus, I’m a bit biased considering these testimonials are about me, lol.
- Just because you are working with a top marketing service provider in financial services it doesn’t mean you will necessarily get the most out of it. There could be variables such as your ability to invest the time necessary, the way the marketing services were designed to fit your specific needs, the availability of your team to execute the marketing plan, and even the personality fit between your financial advisors and the marketing firm you choose to work with. There are intangibles that come into play other than the financial advisor marketing agency’s rank. Fit matters alot.
While these reviews of my financial advisor marketing services should in no ways be viewed as a guarantee or a statement that I am the best marketing company out there in wealth management, my hope is that these testimonials have at least given you a sense of how I work with financial advisors who want to get leads.
Questions to ask before you hire a financial advisor marketing consultant
If you are looking for the best financial marketing service for your financial practice or RIA firm, I would much rather see you focus on getting accurate answers to these questions instead of the question of “who’s the top ranked financial advisor marketing firm.”
- What kind of ROI am I looking to get out of the money spent on this financial advisor marketing support?
- What do I really need to get out a financial advisor marketing consultant in order to be successful at getting new clients for my practice? Do I need ongoing sales coaching? Do I need a consultant to gve me recommendations on specific tactics? Do I need someone to outsource the entire marketing program to (requiring minimal involvement from me), likely a financial advisor marketing agency? This is one of the biggest factors that advisors get wrong when they pick marketing support – not having a clear enough idea about the degree to which they need the marketing done for them vs. how much they can do on their own.
- What would make it worth the cost for me? If I am going to spend X dollars, what do i need to see in (a month, a year, etc.) to make me say, “This money I spent on financial advisor marketing services was money well spent.”
- What are the key decision points? What matters most to me in choosing a financial advisor marketing support resource? Is it their responsiveness? Their effectiveness in driving new business? Their ability to communicate with my entire team? It’s not just about the parties involved as much as it is about understanding what you really need to get out of whatever company you chose to work with.
- What do the testimonials tell me about the pros and cons of working with this financial advisor marketing company? Is there a common thread that runs through the reviews of their financial advisor marketing services? The experience others have had is no guarantee of how you will be treated, but the reviews will depict what the good and bad parts of the reality of working together will likely be.
- Why would this financial advisor marketing service potentially fail me? What steps would I need to take to avoid that?
I can’t emphasize this enough – make the decision with your eyes wide open and don’t be distracted by what anyone else says. This is about you., and nobody knows your company better than you. How you choose a marketing platform matters way more than what the testimonials about it say.
Are you looking to grow our practice?
Words are one thing; taking action is another. Are you looking to grow your wealth management practice? Let’s talk about what it would translate into in real life.
I am a financial advisor marketing consultant. For over 10 years I’ve been helping financial advisors get new clients by expressing their value and presenting it to the world in a variety of ways. If you are looking to grow your practice, here are a few ways I might be able to help you.
- I am an outsourced CMO for financial advisors who need regular, full service marketing – blogging, social media posts, newsletters, etc.
- I am a financial advisor marketing consultant for those who just need one-time or recurring guidance
- If you are not looking to engage at the moment, please at least join my newsletter list and receive one actionable financial advisor marketing tip per day.
If you would like to discuss how I can help, please send me a note.
Thanks for reading, and see you in the next one!
-Sara G
