How to become the financial advisor ChatGPT recommends.

Diana Cabrices (0:00): Why are we here? Why did you show up today? In all of the marketing you saw, we pose this question, is ChatGPT recommending you or your competitor? And we want it to be you. So we're here to help you how to get found online in 2025, which is very much an AI-driven world. My name is Diana Caprices. I'm a Chief Evangelist at WealthTender. And I've invited the amazing Samantha Russell of FMG to join me today for this session for several reasons. First, Samantha is a marketing expert, guru, all the names you can think of for her, genius. She does so much research. And that's one of the things I appreciate the most about her. And then she takes that research and she makes it into really easily digestible content for financial advisors like all of you on the line with us today to learn from and to grow from. And just a quick story. About six years ago, I was feeling really stuck in the industry. And my boss at the time told me, oh, if you want to get your voice out there, start by going to follow Samantha Russell. So I started following Samantha. And I was like, oh, man, I'm so inspired by her content. And I made my first video. And I posted it. And Samantha commented on it. And I was like, oh. And I was super excited, jumping up and down. So to have you here with me, Samantha, to watch you grow from 20 over 10 to FMG to selling your business and all the things that you do today is such an honor. So thank you so much.

Samantha Russell (1:25): That is so sweet. And I did not know that story. So thank you for sharing it.

Diana Cabrices (1:29): Absolutely. OK, so again, this is being recorded. Two quick points. There's going to be a lot of chatter in today's webinar. We know a lot of you already have questions. We've already been getting some questions from you ahead of time. Feel free to drop your questions using the Q&A box. There's a little button on the Zoom panel. If you click Q&A, that's the best place to leave a question to make sure it gets answered. If you want to just leave comments, engage with us, which we really want to hear from you today, then use the chat box. So there's a Q&A box. And there's a chat box. We also have some folks from both the FMG and the WealthTender team helping with the chat box. So hopefully, we can answer some of your questions live. All right, let's move on ahead. Why are we here? Let's talk about some data. 60% of searches now end without a single click because AI is giving people the answers that they need right away. And we know AI, like ChatGPT, is being heavily used. Samantha, this is some of the data you sent me when we were planning this thing. 700 million people. Let's talk about this for a second. Yeah, I think this is just crazy.

Samantha Russell (2:36): So the adoption rate of who's using these tools has skyrocketed. If we were doing this exact same session last year at this time and we asked how many of you are going to ChatGPT daily, barely anyone would be saying that they are versus today. And we see that in the data. So it's estimated that by the end of this year, just a few months, 1 billion people will be regularly using these tools. And if you think about it, there's about 8 billion people on the earth. So that means one eighth of the planet in like, you know, you talk about zero to 100. That is such a crazy, crazy fast adoption. And so looking at those trajectories, we know what a massive disruptor this is going to be for how people find businesses. Absolutely.

Diana Cabrices (3:24): And I know as we were planning for this webinar, we went online and we asked advisors, you know, how are, are you getting leads from ChatGPT? And we're going to talk about that in a second. But first it's one thing to know, okay, there's a lot of traffic on these tools like ChatGPT and it's growing like a crazy weed, but also what's changing in your traffic and in your conversion. And we found some really interesting information. We found some information that's proving, and guys, this is all still very new. We're learning as we go as well. So this could change, but that's proving that traffic coming from tools like ChatGPT are actually converting at a higher rate than people just going to Google to search for something. So when we were planning this, we thought, you know what? People going to Google and browsing on Google, those are true browsers, right? But perhaps people going to ChatGPT, those are going to be more of your buyers. Any thoughts on this, Sam?

Samantha Russell (4:20): Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that is just so fundamentally different anymore is that it used to be that you would ask a broader question to Google. And even if like you were, maybe you had the names of a couple advisors from friends that you were checking out, you would type their name in, look at their website, look at their LinkedIn, look at other things that come up. You might say, who are some of the best advisors near me? And you might read an article, you might click on a few websites. Now, ChatGPT or whatever the AI tool is, it just gives you the answer. And then it will ask you a follow-up question of what do you want to do next? So the whole experience is very focused on action. And when we are building websites, when we're building marketing funnels, we know that the more choice you give people, the more you lose them from the funnel. And the more clicks that you make someone take, the more you lose them from the funnel. The more forms you make someone fill out, the more you use them from the funnel. So the less choice, the more action and the more results. And so that's really what these AI tools are designed to do.

Diana Cabrices (5:27): Yeah, they're really good at that. And this data is from a company called Ahrefs. I hope I say that right. It's like- I always say Ahrefs, I don't know. Ahrefs, yeah, who knows? I have no idea. Tomato, tomato. But it's basically a competitor tool to Google Analytics. And one thing I wrote down from this blog was that their AI search visitors converted 23 times better than traditional organic search visitors. This is, again, early data. They're going to do some more widespread research in the future. But I really wanted to share this. And very good point, Sam. And behaviors are just changing. But maybe what ChatGPT does so well is it really gives people exactly what they want, right? And just enough information.

Samantha Russell (6:11): Well, think about the way you- when you, all of you, right? How much more detailed, I'd love to know in the chat, if you go to ChatGPT and you say, I just did this. We were going to Switzerland and we were looking for a restaurant. Normally on Google, you'd say, best restaurant serving fondue in wherever Switzerland. Instead, I told ChatGPT, I'm on vacation with my mom and dad, my three kids, here's their ages. We were swimming all day. Now we want to go to a restaurant that's outside, but has an authentic environment that serves fondue. Like you give them so much more context and then they deliver such a specific answer based on that, right? I didn't, I never searched Google that way. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. So I'd love to know if you all feel that way because I think that's why the experience is different is that the out, the input is so much more detailed that the output ends up being so much more likely to be something that we want right off the bat.

Diana Cabrices (7:09): Yeah, that's so true. And just with the conversational aspect of ChatGPT, it makes you want to do that. Like it becomes this thing, almost this human that you're talking to. A lot of people are already saying in the chat, like I'm so much more detailed, especially with voice to text. I use that all the time with ChatGPT from my phone. And so very validating of what you just said. And just a quick story. I hosted my bachelorette party a few weekends ago and it ended up being so hilarious how much we talked about ChatGPT. Everybody was like, I used it for this. And I was like, I used it to plan the party. And I use it as a therapist. And like, it has become such a central part of our lives. And this is just the beginning. So the fact you're all here learning about this stuff now is really, really important. All right, let's move along here. So I want to just share this. You put out a post, Sam, and you ask people like how many of you are getting leads from ChatGPT. And some people said yes, some people said no. But what we know across the board is like, if you're not getting them or you are getting them, like right now getting surface in AI results is so, so very important. So I definitely want to take a moment to like maybe read some of those responses that you got. And we'll launch our poll at the same time. So I'm going to launch a poll for all of you here on the screen.

Samantha Russell (8:30): Yeah, tell us in the poll, have you ever gotten a lead from ChatGPT or another AI search? And the question I just put it into the chat box was I asked everybody on LinkedIn yesterday, if you're an advisor or work for a firm, have you gotten a lead, yes or no? And what I thought was really interesting is that the people who said yes, more likely were tended to say more than one. So for those who are starting to get these leads, they I think have laid the groundwork, they've taken care of a lot of things. And so they're being surfaced in more than one place and they're getting a lot. And then the people who are saying no, it hasn't happened to you yet, but we're going to show you what it is you need to do to be able to say yes, hopefully by the next time we host another one of these.

Diana Cabrices (9:18): Yes, absolutely. That's the goal. Like I've said, this is really just the beginning. And I'm going to move over to this next slide. You've asked this question before and we just pulled in some of your screenshots here that we've seen already. And I'm going to go ahead and share this poll back with everyone. It looks like the numbers are rounded about. And 53% of you said no, 27% of you said yes. And there's a small portion of you that just aren't really sure. So you should definitely start asking your prospects, like what led you to me if you're not already. Okay, so this is interesting. And this is also exciting because there's a lot of opportunity here. So thank you everyone for participating in that poll. And I think it's good for you as advisors to also see what's happening with your peers. Okay, so we're going to share a playbook with you today. It's three parts. It's as simple as we could have made this for you for this first webinar. I'm sure there will be more webinars to come on the topic. But before we get to that playbook, I really wanted to start with asking two quick questions. Like first, what are people even searching for? Which we touched a little bit on. And why are they searching? Why are they using tools like ChatGPT in the first place or Google? Like what's bringing them there on their search for a financial advisor? So first and foremost, Sam, I figure you can maybe walk us through like, yeah, searches used to work.

Samantha Russell (10:38): So it feels like this was forever ago that we weren't just given the answer, doesn't it? My goodness. But you used to go into Google before they had their AI results at the top. And when you'd ask anything, how to start claiming social security, they just listed out websites. And I used to teach this to people. I would teach them how do we make, you know, the blue where it says planning your social security or your retirement checklist. How do we get people to want to click on that meta title? And then underneath it in the gray is the description. And we would literally say, this is your ad copy in your search results. And this is the place you have to shine and get your site to be clicked on. Well, now I never talk about what to title these pages because it doesn't matter. Nobody's really reading them and clicking on them because this is now what it looks like today. Today, you are just given the answer at the top. And in certain instances, if it's not as straightforward as this search, you'll see right on the upper right-hand corner, Google will list out where it was sourced from. So you can go check out those websites if you want to read more, but they just give us the answer. And that is why two thirds of Google searches end without a click because we don't need to click. We got the information and we left. So that's what I was talking about before. If you ask something like more detailed, right? What is the best way to ensure you have regular income and retirement? It often will source where those different articles it's sourcing from to give you the answer are coming from on the right-hand side. And again, that is why we don't even really focus as much on the meta descriptions and the meta titles anymore because there's a lot of other things that we're going to tell you today that matter. And that really doesn't matter almost at all anymore.

Diana Cabrices (12:20): Yeah. And I like this example of this question. Like, you know, we're leaning on these tools to tell us like the best way. And we're also leaning on these tools to get really specific for what we want. Like this was shared from Chelsea who might be on this webinar today. Hi, Chelsea. And the search was, she actually got a lead from ChatGPT. She let Samantha know. And then she said, hey, my client even shared the prompt with me that they used. And the prompt was, can you help me find a black financial advisor in Philadelphia? And when we pull this search, like I'm just pointing to the first couple of different results here that are coming up. They're coming up from directories like WealthTender, like Black Financial Advisor, which is another directory. And again, like people are searching for what's more specific for them. And I think for the more general searches, the odds of financial advisors appearing like you see here are probably a bit less. But as people get more down their own buying journey, they're getting really, really specific. And the odds of you and your content and your website and third-party websites featuring you populate is so, so much higher. So thanks, Chelsea, for sharing this with us.

Samantha Russell (13:31): I love that point because chances are trying to rank and be the top answer for what's the best retirement income strategy in retirement. That is not what I would focus on if I were sitting there right now. That is not the marketing strategy I would focus on for search. And we're gonna tell you what we do think you should focus on here in just a minute. Yep.

Diana Cabrices (13:51): Ooh, I love this comment. I'm just gonna read it out really quick from Aaron. We use HubSpot to track where our leads are coming from so I can see the drill down clearly. At the beginning of 2025, we got a ChatGPT lead here and there, maybe one to two a month, and now we get a handful per month. That's awesome.

Samantha Russell (14:08): Thanks, Aaron, for sharing that. That is awesome. And to your point, I'm not sure if she's getting better, AI is getting better. Again, that AI adoption is going up. So as the total percentage of the population that's using ChatGPT to ask these questions goes up, the odds are that people using it to find an advisor will go up with it. Yep.

Diana Cabrices (14:28): So the why side, that there's so many different reasons why we're just adopting these tools to begin with. We've talked a little bit about them already, convenience, conversation, but beyond that, why are people using tools to find advisors and not just find, but compare advisors? We did a study recently here at WealthTender. We found some really interesting stats that we pulled together for advisors. First off, 96% of people referred to an advisor will still research them. So getting a referral or somebody referring you to someone is not just an offline activity. Some advisors say, I get enough referrals, I'm fine. It's now becoming more an online activity than ever before, because these prospects are looking you up online and comparing you with other advisors. So that's the second point here, right? Usually they're gonna look at you compared to at least one other advisor. We're not just going to that first option anymore. We're really and truly comparing. And a lot of them are also looking for advisors with reviews. So that's a very common ask in ChatGPT as well, is like, hey, who's the best advisor near me or who has the most reviews? And I personally use ChatGPT in that way when looking for anything, like rank me based on reviews. So this behavior is just growing.

Samantha Russell (15:42): And I think one of the things that's important to note there is how new this is. Like when no financial advisor could have a review, consumers couldn't use that as a determinant of who they were gonna go with. But now, even if on the back end, let's say, I don't know what the number is, but let's say 60% of advisors don't ask for reviews. They feel like they're not allowed to ask for them or they feel like that's, you know, it's compliance, this makes it trickier. They feel overwhelmed, whatever the reason is. If the consumer sees that when they're typing it in that some advisors have them, then when you don't, they're going to think that that is suspect. Because why don't you, if this person does? The consumer has no idea about why some do and why some don't. They just, from their viewpoint, it feels weird, right? I won't even buy a pair of jeans without reading reviews, let alone hire someone and give them all my money. So I just think that this is becoming such a crucial point that, you know, and I work with FMG. We help a lot of firms navigate. What does this look like to make sure we're compliant? And I know you do too. But just saying anymore, like, well, we can't have reviews, that's not going to be enough in the consumer's eyes is one thing that I think is really, really important.

Diana Cabrices (17:00): Yeah. And we have a really helpful download on this topic coming a little bit later in the slides. If you are one of those advisors who needs to convince your compliance team that there are, you know, compliant ways of going about this. So stay tuned for that. Okay. We talked a little bit in the marketing of this webinar about this term of answer engine optimization. So we've all known about SEO for many years, and some of us are probably still trying to figure it out. And now we see this shift to this AEO, answer engine optimization. Sam, can you talk a little bit about this?

Samantha Russell (17:33): Yes. And I love that Cody just teed us up. He said, how big of a focus should AEO become as part of our marketing strategy versus traditional models, especially if we're dealing with people 55 and older who are more likely to deal with referrals? I think one of the things to note is I believe, and a lot of the data shows that how people perceive 55 and older to use online media is what we think versus what the actuals are is very different. So one of the largest growing user bases, for instance, of all of TikTok and YouTube shorts are people over 55. The more time people have as they become retired, the more time they spend online watching videos and consuming content because they have more time to do it. And the thing about SEO versus AEO, and the term AEO was coined, we adopted it really quickly. Think of AEO as just now, in my opinion, it really is just the new way of search. So it's really not like, should I use SEO or should I use AEO? You need to be optimizing for this new AI world as the way to think about it. And this is really showing us the old way versus the new way, right? So in the old way, we wanted our website to just rank the highest. Now, because we know people ask these very detailed questions, like we talked about, we wanna be the person that provides the very best answer, right? So it's not about how high on the page do we rank. And you actually, if you look at your Google Analytics, you might see this. You might say, we're getting less traffic, but we're still ranking exactly as high as we used to. That's because on the page, you might still be the first or second result, but now you have this AI recap at the top. So nobody even sees you. So it doesn't matter as much where you're ranking. You don't wanna just be focused on a few keywords. Instead, you wanna be the answer for a very, very specific question, right? And so that's also where having the top spot on the page does not matter as much if you're not in that featured snippet where Google's saying, this is where we sourced from or you're not just the answer that AI gives. And then the last one that's so important, for years, we would talk about, you wanna have people back linking to your site, which just means, get quoted in the New York Times and they link back to your website. And Google says, wow, this is a really authoritative link. The New York Times is a trusted source. So if they're linking to Samantha Russell as a marketing expert, she must be. Now, these sites are really looking more for what we call structured data and schema markup and user intent. So it's all about how is the data being structured to feed to AI tools? This is the user's question, and this is the direct answer. And we're gonna show you how both FMG and WealthTender can help you with that.

Diana Cabrices (20:30): Yeah, and there's a reason that we came together for this webinar. And I'm gonna explain it here by teaching you these terms that we sort of came up with. I don't know if they're real terms or not, but there's a difference between onsite answer engine optimization and offsite, right? Onsite is your website, right? You need that structured content. You need the reviews on your website. You need to have FAQs on your website. But now it's also really, really important to have other pages that feature you with those same exact things I just said, with the content, with the reviews, with the frequently asked questions and all the schema markup, which is basically just another way of saying, some backend coding and development so that the internet knows or AI tool knows, oh, this is a frequently asked question. Oh, this is a review. So that's what it's gonna feed into AI. But offsite AEO is equally as important in my opinion as onsite. Maybe, I don't know if you agree with that or not, Sam. But when someone is looking for a financial advisor, AI is not just gonna say, oh, well, this advisor has a really good website. So we're gonna pull them front and center. It's also gonna look to say, where's that authority? Where's that reputation? Okay, well, this person's featured here, here and here. And the content is good and there's reviews. That increases your chances big time of getting featured in these AI search results. So it's a combination of the two. And in my opinion, FMG and WealthTender are excellent combinations when you think about onsite and offsite. I couldn't agree more. So let's look at an example of that. This is onsite. This is Whitman Wealth Management. And Barbara actually has worked with FMG to build her website. And she also has her reviews featured on WealthTender, which we pulled into this really easy embed widget that you could use if you have an FMG site or we have other options as well. I know FMG also does their own design. So you didn't have to even do this, but this is the website. And then when we look at the offsite, this is her WealthTender profile. She's only got five reviews. She actually just got started getting those reviews with us, which is interesting because in just a couple of weeks of her doing this, she's already strengthened her chat GPT outcomes. So if you look and you Google, like what do people say about Whitman Wealth Management? We see already that results are being pulled from both, right? Her website is just right here at the top and her WealthTender reviews is over here on the right-hand side in that AI snippet. So it's pulling from both.

Samantha Russell (22:59): And I think that's such a good point. If you do have reviews, adding them to your website, the way we've made it really easy with WealthTender and FMG to do that, you can embed it. And there is ways to do it to be compliant so that you're making it very easy for people to go see all the reviews. You're actually allowed to say like, hey, these three reviews are really well-written. They're well-said. I'm gonna feature these three. But then as long as you make it easy for people to go and read all your reviews, it's still a compliant way to choose those really best ones that make you shine. And we can help our companies work really nicely together to help you do that.

Diana Cabrices (23:35): Yes, I love that point. Thank you. And if you look in ChatGPT, like just to round this out, we looked at Google, we looked at the website, looked at the WealthTender page. A lot of people, when they're going to search about an advisor, they may not necessarily say, what do you know about Whitman Wealth Management? They're probably gonna say, what do you know about Beverly Whitman? It's a person, a human that I'm trying to do business with. Remember, people do business with humans, not just with a brand. And when we pulled that in ChatGPT, we said, what do clients of Beverly say about their experience? It pulled all of those reviews and it pulled them from WealthTender. And I'm sure also from her website, cause you can only see like, you know, one of the links here, but WealthTender, WealthTender, WealthTender. So that's the point, right? Having more than just onsite AEO, we also want some offsite featuring you as well.

Samantha Russell (24:24): One thing I just wanna mention about the reviews that a lot of people don't realize, the context of the reviews really matters. So let's say Beverly was really working with widows and helping people who'd lost a spouse and what they're going through and navigating that transition. And in the reviews, women were saying things like, when my husband died, it was a really difficult time and Beverly really helped me as a new widow to deal with this transition. And all those kinds of keywords are there. When someone's looking for, I don't know where Beverly is located, but let's say she's in San Diego. You know, someone who work, I'm a recent widow, my husband just died, we live in San Diego and I'm looking for a financial advisor to help me navigate this time. She's a lot more likely to be shown. So the context of the review does matter as well.

Diana Cabrices (25:10): Such a good point. I know you've talked about that before on LinkedIn and it could not be more true because people, like you said, they're searching for their unique situation. Another example of this is like, if you work at a large employer or any employer, you might say, find me a financial advisor for, in this case, Abby executives. And so we know people are searching more for that niche advisor that's going to fit their exact needs. And this is cool because you see in the AI overview, like, you know, AI kind of sourced a few different things, a few different pages. You've got some of the snippets you've got down below here. Why is this really happening? Well, a couple of reasons. This exact advisor has an Abby landing page on his FMG website and he has been featured on a WealthTender Q&A article. We do these large employer Q&A articles where we featured this advisor as an Abby financial advisor. So again, you're hitting onsite, you're hitting offsite, chat GPT really loves it. You get such a good point. So we see some trends, right?

Samantha Russell (26:14): And I'm going to take a breather here and check the chat. And while you're doing that, I think one of the questions that came in that I think we should address, I think this is such a great question. Someone said, I know how powerful reviews are for both SEO and AEO, but does that mean that they have to be legit Google reviews? My reluctance around soliciting clients for Google reviews is that they're not always anonymous and they could open the client up to getting scammed or if someone could identify them as my client or impersonate us, what would be the way around this? Or are there anonymous reviews, just having an anonymous review featured on the website good enough? Number one, it doesn't have to be Google reviews. I hope you recognize that. WealthTender is solving for this problem with their product. But do you want to talk a little bit about with what you all suggest in terms of it being anonymous or someone saying like Beverly H and just having like an initial versus their last name?

Diana Cabrices (27:12): Yeah, so great points. And you're totally right. Like you don't have to just use Google. In fact, we have advisors that can't use Google and we have advisors that don't want to use Google because they've just dealt with bad players in the past, putting reviews that weren't even true. And then you literally can't deal with Google to try and delete it. It's a nightmare. So that's why WealthTender was born is a compliant way to go about it. And also you can have your clients leave a review anonymously. Now, when you're promoting those reviews on your website, and the question is, is this going to look genuine if it just says anonymous? I don't think there's like a perfect answer, but I will say you could use somebody's initials. You could use just a last name in that first initial or a first name and a last initial would probably be better in this case to keep them as anonymous as possible, unless their last name is super generic. But yeah, you can totally do that. And not every client maybe wants to be anonymous. So you might be surprised who actually would be very excited to be sort of this brand ambassador for you. That's what these reviews are. Like they are your brand ambassadors.

Samantha Russell (28:17): So there's multiple ways to go about it. And I think having one anonymous, two anonymous reviews is not a problem, but if everyone is anonymous, that looks a little shady. So I think, you know, saying to people or, you know, you don't have to say anything. Some people will just leave the review with their name, no problem. But having a first name last initial is usually what we see and recommend.

Diana Cabrices (28:38): Yeah, and I love what Brian said in the chat. He said first name, last initial, Widow and Charlotte. So you could really like add a little detail around that person's last name or first name and last initial and lean into your niche. And it's about the content, just like Samantha said. So, all right. So you're seeing some trends, right? Specific searches, longer searches, reviews are important. So we're going to kind of like make this into an easy format for you in a playbook. So it's a three part sort of chat GPT me playbook. And it's going to focus heavily on on-site AEO and off-site AEO. How this combination is so, so good for you in this AI search driven world. All right, part one. So we're talking about the topic already. Get reviews. There's a reason that AI loves reviews. There's a reason Google always loved reviews. It's social proof. People are going to follow and lean into what other people are saying or doing. It's sentiment signaling and tools like chat GPT are going to show preference to advisors that have reviews. A lot of people search. What's the best ex near me? Advisor, restaurant, plumber, like whatever it might be, especially in a trust-based profession like being an advisor, like attorneys, like doctors that have leaned on this for so, so long. This is really, really important to have if you want to show up. So Sam, I pulled one of this. This is one of your slides. I'd love to talk through this.

Samantha Russell (30:00): Yeah. So, you know, whenever I give this talk and I say the same thing, which is if you're a robot, if you're AI, how do you determine what the word best means? Or if someone says, you know, the best, the favorite, whatever the word is that they're using, they're going to think about other people that have used that business and had a good experience, right? So that is why reviews matter so much for that type of a query, because they're trying to figure out, OK, well, you know, Brian is searching for the best whatever. I'm going to look at other people who use that same service and they had a good experience. So that is where, like when we look at here, what's the number one thing that all these businesses have in common? They all have a lot of four or five star reviews. And now not every review, everybody needs to be five star. I like to say a lot of times, you know, we all have been reading an Amazon review or TripAdvisor review or whatever and saw someone give one star and their review was like, this was a terrible experience. And you could just tell there's sort of a curmudgeon. Way everything right. The exception proves the rule. So don't be afraid. If you have a one star review from one person, but 70 other reviews that are four and five stars, that's great. And don't let that be the thing that prevents you from wanting to, you know, get those reviews. But absolutely reviews is one of the first things that is going to be pulled.

Diana Cabrices (31:32): Yeah, it's almost like a little more authentic to see that somebody has, you know, one bad review across a bunch of really good reviews. Like sometimes on Amazon, I'm like, did they really like, do these people actually buy this product or is it somebody from the company? I don't know if it's five stars. So we talked about Google. It's very important. If you do want to use Google for your reviews, go for it. Remember, it's just one of the pathways. There's multiple pathways. But I have a really interesting story from advisor and advisor's name is TJ. And he had reviews on Google and he actually was not showing up in chat GPT. And so we let him know, hey, you're actually not showing up in chat GPT. And he said, I had no idea that chat GPT and Gemini, which is owned by Google, which blows my mind, were overlooking my Google reviews. And so we imported those Google reviews for TJ. And within like literally minutes, AI chat GPT started pulling him in. So like within minutes, he started populating into chat GPT results that feature WealthTender, because again, like WealthTender in the world of SEO, right? I would sit here and say, like, we've got domain authority. We've got a lot of visitors. We rank highly. All of that stuff is still true. But now in the world of AEO, it means we're going to help you show up faster and higher and more prominently in these AI search results. So that was really interesting. And then just this morning, as I was prepping for this, I searched, can you find the best financial advisor near me? And the very first recommendation is Jeff Schlatterbeck, who I actually have engaged with online. And if you're here, Jeff, hello. And two different articles got pulled, NAPFA.org. So that's, you know, featuring advisors, part of that organization. And WealthTender. And I said, you know, let me dig a little bit deeper. Like, what made ChatGPT surface this one first? And when I, like, kind of dug into this information, these off-site directories. First off, this one doesn't want to pull up, but his WealthTender page had reviews. So I was like, OK, that's interesting. Then I went to his website and I was like, I guess if the website has reviews too. Yep, the website had reviews. So I just find it like very validating that, again, if you have reviews on more than one place, your likelihood of getting surfaced is much higher.

Samantha Russell (33:46): And I think that on that website, by the way, the way it says what clients are saying are, because remember, people might say, what are people saying about this? Or just having it say client reviews, I actually think is way more powerful than testimonial. Don't like write testimonials because think about yourself. Do you ever go and search for something and you're like, show me testimonials? No, you use the word review. So when you're thinking about how to label that page, don't say testimonial.

Diana Cabrices (34:15): Yeah, I totally agree. Nobody really relates to that. I don't even love using the term, but in a marketing world, it's more formal. What clients are saying, what our clients say about working with us. There's so many different variations of that. So great job, Jeff, for doing that. There's one thing I want to wrap this section with this, this part one of this playbook. In that survey I mentioned earlier that we ran at WealthTender, we know that 83% of people want to read online reviews when hiring a financial advisor. That's the most recent data you're going to find in our industry. But what's also very interesting is that only 9.3% of advisors publish reviews. And I know this because I've been preaching this for a few years now. Brian, Sam, like we've all been preaching this, and we know there's compliance, but we also know that that is changing and with AI changing even faster. So if you need some help, feel free to pull out your iPhone or your phone, take a picture of this, this QR code, and it's a free testimonial marketing playbook. You're welcome to use. It's got templates for how to ask your client. It's got templates for pretty much everything you need and just a full playbook on how to go about testimonial marketing, aka online reviews.

Samantha Russell (35:25): Love it. And everyone should download that because if only 9% of people are allowed to use them, chances are many of you sit in that bucket. And I do hope that as, you know, more compliance and home office teams are exposed to tools like WealthTender, that are out of the box compliant, that they will approve that for use so you can get started right away.

Diana Cabrices (35:45): Yeah, I totally agree. Getting some awesome chatter in the chat box here. Thanks everyone. And Kevin made a good point. If it helps, you can get ChatGPT referrals even if you can't have reviews. Yeah, this is just part one of the playbook. Let's go to part two. Yeah, build reputation, authority, expertise, tools like ChatGPT. They will show preference over advisors who aren't just featured on their own pages, but are also featured from other credible pages like third party directories, in the media, on award pages, top financial advisor list. I know not everybody loves those lists, but like they are really helpful in this sort of section here of building reputation for ChatGPT. Yep. And I want to look at this data. This data is really interesting. So MuckRack is a PR software and they did a study recently and show that more than 89% of AI cited links, so the links that ChatGPT is pulling up and surfacing to your prospects come from earned media. What does that mean? Earned media is coverage or promotion generated by others. So not generated by you and not something you're paying Google like ads to show up high. None of that. It's what everyone else is saying about you.

Samantha Russell (36:57): This is I think one of the things that's so interesting here that if you think about it makes so much sense. Remember, what is the goal of AI or Google or any other tool? It's to give you and me the best possible answer. So does it trust the business? What the business wants to say about itself? Maybe a little bit. There are certain things, yes. But what it really trusts is what other people have to say. So reviews are from your clients. Videos, podcasts, a news article, a press release are basically saying these are other credible sources listing you, citing you as an authority on the topic. And that is where content marketing is so incredibly valuable because you can create a video and put it on YouTube and YouTube is not you, you know, just necessarily talking about yourself. But you're talking about a million different topics, not just your services. You're not saying come work with me as a financial advisor. You're saying here's what to know about estate planning. Here's what to know about retirement income distribution strategies. And all of that thought leadership is building your reputation and showing you to be an authority and an expert in that subject. So that is one of the reasons that FMG, one of the things we've really, really leaned into in recent years is giving you scripts so that you can record video, post it on YouTube, record a podcast, get it posted, even on social media. Any time that you have like a longer article, if it's on LinkedIn, those are not just on your website and those can all be referenced when someone is doing a ChatGPT search. So here's just a quick example in our library now. We have so many different ways that you can take any of that content and use it for this part two, the second bucket, right? So making yourself be positioned as an authority and an expert so that ChatGPT, AI, Gemini will reference it when it is looking for you. And this is also such a great way, a strategy I've been preaching for years. You know, I actually don't have my own podcast. I create a lot of videos. I go on everyone else's podcast. Because when, you know, someone's like, hey, who's a great person to come have speak at our conference to teach advisors about marketing and they ask ChatGPT that, ChatGPT is going to see Samantha Russell has been on a hundred podcasts this year talking about marketing. All these podcasts must think she knows what she's talking about. The same can be. And you do. You don't even have to have your own podcast. You know, it can be an amazing strategy to go on other people's.

Diana Cabrices (39:29): Yeah, such a good point. And I really love this feature. And I know we're not going to talk about today because we won't have time, but like social, social searching in the world of ChatGPT is also very important. I love how your tool like creates these really long social posts using like AI. It's awesome. This is a quick list that you had put together as well. Some of what you're already saying.

Samantha Russell (39:50): Yeah. And I'll just one of the things like I think this is really important is you want to become the most obvious answer to whatever the question is. So think about what are some of the biggest questions. I just use who's a good retirement advisor near me. But maybe for you, the question is something related to, you know, RSUs and you work with a lot of tech executives in California. If you know that your target audience is asking about that, you want to be the most obvious answer that is listed. So the more original long for long form content that you have demonstrating that particular niche subject, really, really matter. So this is where you can have the long form piece on your blog that lives on your website. Then you make a video about it or you talk about it on a podcast or you post it on social media. So it is being utilized that one piece in multiple, multiple places and can be pulled in. That's why publishing in many different formats is really, really a good play here. But it can be the same piece. You can really, really repurpose it. And being quoted as an expert, if you have a PR person who can help you with this or a journalist, wealth tender, any of those things where you have a quote and it's living on someone else's site, that also speaks volumes for AI when they're pulling in these results.

Diana Cabrices (41:12): Yeah. And someone asked, did you still do the on-site SEO basics? Yes, you still should because a lot of that is also feeding into chat GPT. But now it's kind of just become this one thing, right? It's not like Sam said earlier. It's not one or the other. It's kind of just all under one umbrella. And there's a few more check boxes you need to make.

Samantha Russell (41:29): Yeah. And remember the example we gave about the person who was looking for the best black financial advisor. I think it was in Philadelphia. The sites that were listed, they on their website and their wealth tender profile talked about that, right? So the way that you say who it is you specifically work with is more important than ever. People who are still trying to be generalists are going to have a harder time in some instances, getting shown because you need something to be the thing that, you know, again, when people are who's a good retirement advisor for and they're going to list out what it is that they're looking for, the more specific, the better. Totally.

Diana Cabrices (42:10): And we have a really cool media feature on WealthTender where we've partnered with different publications. We get these like journalist prompts that we'll send to our advisors and they can respond to them. And many of them have gotten quoted. But even if that feels a big over coming for you, like an overtaking, like, OK, I don't know how to get quoted in the media. You know, in the past, I think it was like having all these backlinks is really helpful and they still will be helpful. But like now with these types of tools, I know there was help a reporter out, but they shut down. But I think they got picked up by somebody else. So maybe look into that. But even like if you're using the tool on WealthTender and you respond, even if you don't get that backlink, most of these reporters, they're going to mention you and your firm name. And I loves that stuff. So it's not just about the backlinks anymore. It's also just getting your name mentioned because now that's, you know, the stuff that I is pulling in as well. So we'll skip past this. And I love this comment from Dan. Dan said, I asked to be to where the top ten advisors in my area. And I was an honorable mention because of WealthTender. Pretty cool. I just moved here seven months ago and ranked higher than firms that have been in the area for years. So you don't have to be at this for many, many years. You just have to know this stuff. This is awesome. All right. Part three. And just a quick time check. It's 147. So maybe we'll leave, you know, five to seven minutes for Q&A at the end. So we're going to go through this one and then we'll open up for Q&A. Sam, I feel like this is so.

Samantha Russell (43:40): Yeah, I can start with this one. Yep. So basically what you want to know is that the way that you put the content on your website matters a lot more in the sense of we are writing these really, really detailed questions. Right. And then we want to be the most obvious answer. So the more we can write the content on our website and structure and format it in a way that it is question and answer based, the better. So if you had a blog post before, that was, you know, the five things, you know, to know about Social Security and it was lists like that. Now you want to question, right? Before it was what to know about capital gains as an executive. Now the question might be, can capital gains push me into a higher tax bracket? And then you list out the answer. So this is one way to do it. That's a blog. But then you also want to format it this way in something with using FAQs. So frequently asked questions, because it allows you to think of all the different ways a prospect or a client might be asking a question about something and turn it into a little part of that particular page. So for instance, can capital gains push me into a higher tax bracket? At the bottom, you add a little FAQ section and then you just think of what are the top questions someone would have about this topic? And you just list them out Q&A style really, really quickly. So that's the first thing with formatting. The second thing with formatting is there's something called schema markup. I don't know if I'm skipping ahead, but in the interest of time, it's the way that the AI tools read your data. So we actually had a question in here about if I have a video, can AI read that? Can they crawl it or does it need to be text? The best thing you can do is anywhere you're embedding a video, writing a blog post, putting anything else, you want to make sure A, you have the transcript of the video still on the page and then take what is the main things that that piece of content is about. And again, list them in Q&A style. And then whenever you can have your web developer add what's called schema markup to that page. So that is code that's on the back end that tells AI, this is the question and this was the answer. This is the question. This is the answer. And it allows them to really understand what the page is all about. We at FMG just rolled out FAQs with schema markup already added to your website. So it's just a widget you can add to your page. But so the schema markup and structuring the comment as a Q&A is really, really crucial with just telling AI, hey, here's what this is all about and allowing them to surface your content.

Diana Cabrices (46:25): I love that. Sorry, I skipped around the slides on you there a little bit, but I wanted to follow what you were saying with a few visuals. And again, onsite, your website, offsite, WealthTender. We also launched FAQ with schema markup. And so we're also coding this information to make sure ChatGPT and other AI tools know exactly what Sam said. This is the question. This is the answer. I put this video in here from Larry Sprung. Maybe we can play it. There we go. This is his WealthTender page. He also has this all on his website as well. And I think his wife is here. She's a chief marketing officer as well at the company. Yes. Hi, Denise. And I just scrolled through his WealthTender page really quickly. He's got a video. He's got all the information. And then we can see here, he's got his reviews. He's even got an award. We launched a new award at WealthTender Voice of Client. It's literally just based on your reviews, nothing else. And we're finding that's being helpful in ChatGPT as well. But the FAQs, right? Who is Larry Sprung? What does he do? Why does Larry Sprung lead with joy and financial planning? Where are they located? Who do they serve? Entrepreneurs on Long Island. You see how specific we're even getting in these questions because we want this to populate in tools like ChatGPT. So again, offsite and offsite. FMG will help you with your website and getting this done. And we can help you as well if you decide that you want to work on the offsite stuff as well. There was one question in the chat of what tool can I use to figure out what people are asking? And you can literally go to ChatGPT and say, what are people asking when they're looking for an advisor?

Samantha Russell (47:58): I love this slide, Sam. Yeah, so I had done that. Somebody asked me, and this is what I, you know, I asked ChatGPT, what are some good questions to ask an advisor before hiring them? You could have a page or a section on your FAQ that just answers those frequently asked questions that are broad. But you could also take on the persona of your client. So you could say, I'm a widow and I live in California and I'm looking to hire a financial advisor. What are some questions I should ask? And let it give you the questions that somebody would want to then ask you. And then you build that. So again, the strategy here is really twofold, right? You are first taking care of what you're saying about your business on your website and structuring that data with the FAQs, the question and answer format and the schema markup, which we at FMG can help you with to make sure that you're saying this is specifically who I work with and making sure that AI can find those answers. Then you're letting the voice of the customer come through and working with a firm like WALTENDER is a great way to do that because of all these other things they're doing that Google reviews are not going to let you do, which is formatting it in a way that, again, surfaces it. So you both need to think about old SEO is just how do I talk about myself? In the world of AO, it's how do I talk about myself and how do other people talk about my business?

Diana Cabrices (49:21): So, so important. That's such a high note to end that on. And we'll just give a really quick recap and then we're going to go right into Q&A, get reviews, make sure you're not just hitting them on one single platform. Try to diversify that, you know, Google, WALTENDER, your website, build your reputation, publish different types of content, different formats, repurpose, as Sam said, land on podcasts and other sites, get quoted in the media. We can help you with that as well. Apply for industry awards, even if you don't totally love them or agree with them, like it is going to be helpful for you in the world of chat and QPT and format your content for AI. So long form Q&A, FAQs, on-site, off-site, I can't stress that enough, schema markups and quick summaries.

Samantha Russell (50:03): So I think that, you know, I see so many questions about compliance or just mentions in the chat. I think this is just another reason why when you are, you know, thinking about marketing your business and being found online, working with a company that both understands how these trends work, but also is particularly focused on finance, you know, whether it's WALTENDER or FMG, we're not just going to slap things on your website or your page or give you advice that goes against best compliance practices. We'll make sure you're still compliant and still being found. And those two things are key.

Diana Cabrices (50:35): Yep. I love that. So really quickly, before we get into the Q&A, if you want to get featured on WALTENDER so you can build onto that off-site as AEO, also, you know, collect reviews in a compliant way. And we have that media feature where you can get quoted in the media a lot more easily than trying to go about it on your own. Feel free to scan this QR code. You can literally sign up in less than two minutes. We actually set up your profile for you. We make it as hands-off as possible for you. And we have a coupon code. So it's AEO. And if you use it by this Friday, you'll get 50% off your first two months. We'll also drop the link to this exact page in the chat if you don't feel like pulling out your phone right now. And again, use that code AEO by Friday for 50% off whatever plan that you choose. And then if you're already on WALTENDER because I know a lot of you on this call are already on WALTENDER. And thank you so much. Feel free to just scan that QR code, sign in. If you refer an advisor, we will give you a referral bonus for each referral. So if you sign in, you'll see the button refer and earn. And that's how you can refer other financial advisors. And then Sam, I know you guys offer a really cool 20 minutes.

Samantha Russell (51:41): Yes, I see some, actually a lot of FMG customers as well. So hello to all of you. If you want to take advantage of our new schema markup that we've added to all the pages so that you're really making sure that AI is finding those pages and surfacing your content even easier and you're already a customer or you want to just learn how we can help you. Either way, you can use this QR code and get in touch with our team. If you're not using FMG, again, we will make sure we're taking care of all that on-site part of this new AEO strategy, new AEO world. But then we'll also give you so many different content strategies so that you can use podcasting, video marketing, social media posts, all through that FMG dashboard so that you can really have so many different parts of this strategy taken care of with you and pair it with the Wealthsender reviews.

Diana Cabrices (52:35): Yay, I love that. And I'm reading the chat and somebody's AI notetaker just gave us a whole recap of our meeting. I love that. Love that too. Okay, so we're going to launch the poll and then I'll open up for Q&A. So I am just curious because I always like to learn from my audience what's next for you. So, okay, it should have just launched. What do you plan on optimizing within your marketing ahead? And if you don't feel like answering this and you just want to go straight to the questions, totally fine. I'm going to go ahead and pull up our Q&A box while you guys answer this poll. Did I launch it? Do you see it? I don't see it. Okay, let's see. All right, that's okay. Feel free to let us know in the chat box what it is that you would like to… I see why I never stop sharing the other poll. Here we go. Okay, so I know how powerful review are both SEO and especially AEO. But does that require legit Google reviews? Oh, you've already answered this one.

Samantha Russell (53:37): Sorry about that. Nope, that's okay. I think one of the things that was an interesting question was… Oh, somebody just said, are you going to email us with links to book demos with your companies? We absolutely will send you a recap of everything and how to book with both of the companies. Absolutely. I can't wait to talk with you and help you. What other questions? Laura said, thank you. She took lots of notes. I love it. Thank you, Laura. How about this one? What's a good method to get more reviews? I've sent an email, but not everybody always wants to put their name in there or if it's a Google link, they don't always want to sign up for Google. Oh, I love this one.

Diana Cabrices (54:18): So you don't have to go about it via email. I guess if you were to host like an event or something, you could go about it there. But an advisor actually shared this with me and it's inspired me ever since. So it was his birthday and he sent out like a little birthday card email to all of his clients. And he said, hey, it's my birthday. But in lieu of any gifts, I would just ask that you share your experience on, you know, my WealthTender. He like linked his WealthTender and he got so many reviews that day. I love that idea.

Samantha Russell (54:48): It's so cool. You can also do it for like your company anniversary. Anniversary. I was going to say, I've seen people do it for that. You know, another one that someone shared with me that they just laminated a QR code to their reviews page. So again, whether it's Google reviews, WealthTender, whatever it is, and they had it in their office. And so when people would come in for a meeting and then he ended up actually doing it as like the last page. So if he met with somebody virtually at the end of the meeting, he'd put it up and he would just say, you know, thanks for meeting. Now that we've met, one of the things I'm starting to do is collect reviews from all of my clients. And he explained why. And just ask them to leave a quick review right there on the spot. And I think at the end of a meeting like that can be a really great time after you've just proven your value. Great time to ask as well.

Diana Cabrices (55:35): Totally. I launched the wrong poll, guys. I am not good at multitasking. So I just launched the wrong poll. You're probably like, what? We didn't talk about this. So this is a good question. With all, and I don't know if you can answer this or not, Sam, but I know you do a lot of research. With all these AI changes, what's the best way to use Google ads now that SEO isn't the only priority?

Samantha Russell (55:54): You know, I have to say, if I, I don't know everybody on the call or who's asking the question, but for probably 90% of the firms that I work with, I would not suggest Google ads as a good use of your budget. Organic, you can, if you spend more time on the right methods with organic, you can get so much more bang for your buck. And I don't know about you, I cannot tell you the last time I clicked on a Google ad. Of any sort, they've been, they've gotten better at kind of hiding the fact that it's a sponsored or paid one. But depending on who you, your audience is, where they're hanging out, you know, LinkedIn ads have a, can have a high conversion rate. If you're working with a particular type of client, some other social, like Facebook ads, but Google would be probably the lowest bucket for ad spend that I would choose.

Diana Cabrices (56:45): Yeah, I appreciate that. Just honest answer. And I'm sure a lot of the advisors on the line do as well, because there's so many different things to do with your marketing and you need to be as strategic and cost-effective as possible. So, and some people are agreeing with you. That's awesome. All right, any other questions?

Samantha Russell (57:05): If you haven't already, please connect with us on LinkedIn. And that's an easy way to get in touch with us. If you have a follow-up question that maybe you were, didn't have time or you digest this and you wanna ask, we both love hearing directly from any of you. And if you wanna tell us a story about something that's happened to your AI, or say, hey, I looked myself up and where I asked ChatGPT to recommend a team, like a team or an advisor in my area, and I'm not being listed. I don't know about you, I get so excited, like digging in and hearing these personal stories. So please connect with us on LinkedIn and, you know, follow up. We will make sure we send you all the resources and everything from today as well. But thank you all for the great feedback and thanks to WealthTender for asking us to join you today.

Diana Cabrices (57:48): Oh my God, thank you. You and your team have been so fantastic to work with. And, you know, I'm just, again, from that story in the beginning, I'm just so excited to be here and be on this webinar with you. You're such a fantastic woman. So thank you so much. Likewise, that's on your big nuptials coming up soon.

Samantha Russell (58:05): I'm nervous, I'm scared. All right, thank you everyone. Take care. Thank you.