Work With Me

Marketing Consultant

$ 500 Per Hour
  • One-on-one sessions as needed

Virtual CMO

$ 3500 Per Month
  • Maximum of # hours per month

Keynote Speaker

$ 5000 Per Appearance
  • Starting at $2000 for a webinar/virtual seminar

Membership

$ 35 Per Month
  • I teach financial advisors how to get leads

Rates above may vary as a function of geographic location due to exchange rate differences, fees, surcharges, and other factors. These offers are limited to the services advertised in the promotions contained on this page. Additional services may be provided at an additional cost at rates that are subject to negotiation.

Financial Advisor Marketing Consultant

My financial advisor marketing consultations are ideal for people who need periodic or one-time guidance as opposed to daily or ongoing marketing support.

The emphasis of this session is solving the problem not racking up time. I will ask you questions and review your ADV prior to the session to ensure I have a vision of:

  • What your practice is like
  • What the challenges are
  • What your goals for the session are 

Although I’ve called this “hourly consulting” I actually charge by the minute. Whatever time you consume is what you pay for. There is no minimum time commitment required.

The cost of my consulting services is stated above. In the course of executing the work that I recommend, clients may be subject to additional costs paid to other entities that I am not financially affiliated with, such as:

  • Website server hosting and maintenance fees
  • SEO service fees, if elected
  • Website improvement fees, if elected
  • LinkedIn service fees, if elected
  • Compliance fees
  • Graphic design fees
  • Video or podcast recording, production, and editing fees
  • Other miscellaneous fees that arise in the course of doing business

I accept payment via Zelle for my services, at no additional cost to the client. Should client elect to pay via other methods, additional fees will be passed on. 

There is no typical client profile for my hourly consulting services. Clients range across the spectrum, from insurance agents to broker dealer reps, fee only advisors, etc. 

 

Outsourced Chief Marketing Officer

This is a monthly, ongoing arrangement in which I design and execute a high value financial advisor marketing strategy with you and your team.

Before I get into what this service is, let me state outright that I have zero interest in working with financial advisors who are:

  • Lazy or have poor organization skills
  • Have zero value proposition (and are in denial about it)
  • Are scared to appear on the internet
  • Have no drive to communicate anything of value to people
  • Are just in it to get richer with no consciousness of morality
  • Prefer denial over reality
  • Need to be explained the difference between right and wrong ethics

My services are designed for advisors who:

  • Have a value proposition that justifies their fee, or are 100% willing to work towards it
  • Want to communicate in a high quality way
  • Are guided by an ethical compass
  • Have a reasonable degree of organizational skill and work ethic
  • Can handle honest feedback framed in a constructive and positive way
  • Do not need to be explained the difference between right and wrong ethics

Now that we have absolute clarity, let’s talk about how I can potentially help. Arrangements are customized to each client but may likely include the following: 

  • Creation of high quality insightful content pieces such as blogs, podcasts, or videos 
  • Newsletter copywriting for clients and/or prospect communications
  • One weekly half hour checkin session  to keep tasks on track
  • LinkedIn messaging and postings that drive your value proposition as a financial advisor
  • Strategically creating value-driven referral relationships with COI’s 
  • Other items that we mutually agree upon 

The cost of my CMO services is stated above. In the course of executing our work, clients may be subject to additional costs paid to other entities that I am not financially affiliated with, such as:

  • Website server hosting and maintenance fees
  • SEO service fees, if elected
  • Website improvement fees, if elected
  • LinkedIn service fees, if elected
  • Compliance fees
  • Graphic design fees
  • Video or podcast recording, production, and editing fees
  • Other miscellaneous fees that arise in the course of doing business

I accept payment via Zelle for my services, at no additional cost to the client. Should client elect to pay via other methods, additional fees will be passed on. 

As of June 2022

Most clients of my CMO services have between 2 and 10 employees and over $100MM in AUM. They are independent RIA firms. Many are fee-only but some are also registered with FINRA due to legacy relationships. Most of the business that most of my clients do is compensated by fees rather than commissions.

Financial Services Keynote Speaker

I am a motivational financial services keynote speaker for hire. 

My talks are radically different because they are designed as a dialogue that will radically improve society, not a (boring) monologue or recitation.

The goal of my keynote speeches is to improve the ethical foundation of communications and practice management within the financial industry as a whole: financial advice, asset management, trading, banking, and all of the areas in between.

Please visit my financial services keynote speaker page for more info. Talks are free for colleges and MBA programs.

Membership

The objective of this financial advisor social media training program (aka “the membership”) is to teach financial advisors how to get leads online using social media. The focus is LinkedIn but financial advisors can apply these skills to Facebook and most other social media platforms.

This program is laser-focused on one thing: digital lead generation for financial advisors.

Categories include:

  • Financial advisor LinkedIn messages and sequences
  • Financial advisor branding online
  • Financial advisor LinkedIn profile pages
  • Financial advisor social media posts
  • Crisis communication
  • Financial advisor marketing strategy
  • And more!

Some people join this membership and stay for years, while others try it for a month and quit. The members span all types of financial advisors, from broker dealer reps at wirehouses to independent IARs. There are even some non financial advisors on the membership. Some members are very tech proficient while others are not. 

Exclusive Content

$ 35 Per Month plus one time $100 Sign Up Fee
  • Access to Training Videos (each 3-5 mins long)
  • Exclusive membership workshops. Highly interactive.
  • Weekly members’ newsletter with exclusive content.
  • Ability to message me, Sara, over LinkedIn messenger once a day and ask questions
  • My e-books for free
  • Extras such as ROI /Profitability analyzer, Prospect tracker, Results sheet

What you get:

  • Access to financial advisor social media training videos. The videos are usually about 3-5 minutes long.
  • One exclusive membership workshop a month. These are highly interactive and reinforce the skills.
  • Weekly members’ newsletter with exclusive content.
  • Ability to message me, Sara Grillo, over LinkedIn messenger once a day and ask questions
  • Access to my exclusive members-only LinkedIn group
  • My e-books for free
  • Extras such as ROI /Profitability analyzer, Prospect tracker, Results sheet

I hear you. People are often curious why there is a $100 fee for sign up due when you join the membership (monthly ongoing fee is $35/month).

This is because there is a significant amount of background work that goes into onboarding each member to the back end of the portal, LinkedIn group, webinar list, etc at inception so that everything runs smoothly. In addition, sometimes the members will require some help navigating the startup and accessing the content. I’ve created a FAQs document that they can use which addresses most issues, but sometimes there is more onboarding work that needs to be done.

Very simple: you will need only a web browser because nobody has time for the mumbo jumbo. You visit my website, log on to the portal, and view the videos there.