Brian Thorp is the Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Wealthtender, the industry's first SEC-compliant online review platform for financial advisors and a leading independent financial advisor directory. Under his leadership, the company has become a vital resource for half a million consumers annually, helping them connect with knowledgeable financial advisors. Before founding Wealthtender in 2019, Brian had a successful 22-year career with Invesco, where he led a team managing wealth management firm partnerships with over $100 billion in assets. He is also an active angel investor who enjoys working with entrepreneurs to help them grow.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[02:09] Brian Thorp discusses how Wealthtender reduces money stress for Americans
[03:48] How Wealthtender attracts consumers looking for tailored financial advisory services
[05:58] Insight into the life events that trigger individuals to seek financial advisors
[09:59] The spectrum of clients Wealthtender serves, from entry-level to high net worth individuals
[12:11] Wealthtender’s approach to enhancing advisors' online reputation
[14:53] Brian talks about Wealthtender's journey to boost advisors' search engine success
[19:52] AI’s impact on Wealthtender's content and search visibility
[31:28] Brian's personal drivers and influences on his leadership style and entrepreneurial spirit
In this episode…
In a world filled with financial uncertainties, having a reliable source for guidance is crucial. With so many options available, how can you determine where to begin your search for a trustworthy financial advisor?
Brian Thorp, an experienced financial services professional, provides a solution to these questions by offering an SEC-complaint online review platform for financial advisors. He shares how he created his company to help Americans reduce money stress by connecting them with qualified financial advisors. He explains how he designed the platform like other trusted directories, such as those for doctors or lawyers, but uniquely focuses on financial advisors. Brian discusses how his firm is working to enhance transparency by allowing consumers to read verified reviews of financial advisors. The conversation also delves into the importance of matching specific client needs with advisors with the right expertise, whether handling equity compensation for tech professionals or offering hourly financial planning services.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Brian Thorp, Founder and CEO of Wealthtender, about creating transparency in the financial advisory industry. Brian discusses how Wealthtender reduces money stress for Americans, the spectrum of clients the firm serves, how it enhances advisors' online reputations, and the impact of AI on Wealthtender's content and search visibility.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Quotable Moments:
"I launched Wealthtender to help Americans enjoy life more with less money stress by finding financial advisors for their money matters."
"Nothing will replace that human connection, especially when it comes to the emotional side of investing."
"There's a catalyst more often than not, and that becomes the reason someone says, now is the time to do this."
"For advisors, it's impactful to have reviews, especially today, because so many advisors don't."
"Ultimately, AI will play a role more as a tool, not a replacement to traditional financial advisor relationships."
Action Steps:
Develop content that addresses specific life events: This approach aligns with the natural moments when people seek financial advice, increasing the chances of connecting with potential clients who are actively looking for guidance.
Leverage online reviews: Positive reviews act as social proof, which can differentiate advisors from larger firms that may not yet have such testimonials, creating an opportunity to attract more clients.
Optimize search engine visibility: By ranking higher on search engine results, advisors can reach a broader audience and increase their chances of connecting with individuals actively searching for financial advice.
Utilize social media platforms: Social media provides a free yet effective avenue for engagement and can drive traffic to an advisor's website, supplementing their overall marketing strategy.
Stay updated with compliance regulations: Understanding and adhering to these regulations will allow advisors to leverage client testimonials effectively while staying within legal boundaries, therefore enhancing their marketing efforts.
Sponsor for this episode...
This is brought to you by Quik!
At Quik!, we provide forms automation and management solutions for companies seeking to maximize their potential productivity.
Using our FormXtract API, you can submit your completed forms and get clean, context-rich data that is 99.9% accurate.
Our vision is to become the leading forms automation company by making paperwork the easiest part of every transaction.
Meanwhile, our mission is to help the top firms in the financial industry raise their bottom line by streamlining the customer experience with automated, convenient solutions.
Go to www.quickforms.com to learn more, or contact us with questions at support@quikforms.com.
Episode Transcript:
Intro: 00:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.
Richard Walker: 00:17
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how they're focused on customer experience leads to growth. Some of our past guests have included Brett Gilliland of Visionary Wealth Advisors, Wim Van Lerberghe of Advintro, and Lacey Shrum of Smart Kx. Today, I'm speaking with Brian Thorp, founder and CEO of Wealthtender. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms.
Instead, get quick using our Form Xtract API. Simply submit your completed forms and get back clean, context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of a thousand submissions. Visit Quik Forms to get started. All right. I've been looking forward to talking to Brian.
Brian Thorp: 01:50
Thank you so much, Rich. Great to be here.
Richard Walker: 01:53
All right, so for those of you who have not heard this podcast before, I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win. How they built and deliver a great customer experience and the challenges to growing their own company. Brian, let's understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Brian Thorp: 02:09
Sure. Thanks so much again for having me, Rich. So I launched Wealthtender in 2019, ultimately to help Americans enjoy life more with less money, stress, and specifically the way that we do that is by helping them find financial advisors and professionals that are able to then help them with their money matters and take that stress off their shoulders. So, you know, in today's age, there are a lot of tools and resources that do it yourself. Investors and individuals can choose, but I really believe that nothing will replace that human connection.
And especially for couples, you know, there's a dynamic there where it can be really valuable to have an arbitrator and the role of a financial advisor beyond actually helping with investments, but importantly, financial planning, as well as just that emotional side of investing we think can be really valuable. So at its core, helping consumers that visit Wealthtender every day, find advisors. And then ultimately we're a digital marketing platform for those advisors. So you even mentioned in the introductions another advisor and others in our space, and our goal is to help those advisors get more visibility with the consumers and importantly, also be able to share what their clients have to say about their experience. And so with Wealthtender, an advisor can collect reviews from their clients and publish those reviews.
As we go through the conversation today, talk a little bit more about why that's unique and something that really hasn't been available in our industry before.
Richard Walker: 03:32
Yeah, having more transparency, I mean, Amazon coming out with reviews or eBay, whichever it was that started the whole review process and creating transparency was really, really valuable. What is it that attracts somebody to Wealthtech? Com why would a consumer go to that website?
Brian Thorp: 03:48
Yeah. Great question. So the way we designed Wealthtender was really looking at the way similar platforms have operated and other trust-based professions like doctors and lawyers, where sites like Tinder have existed for quite some time. Ultimately to help people find a doctor, find a lawyer, or in our case, to find a financial advisor. In the case of financial advisors who are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission or the SEC, there was actually a prohibition that's been in place that precluded advisors from being able to invite their clients to write reviews.
And so, up until a new rule came through, just recently, a platform like Tinder really couldn't exist. But when we saw the opportunity that was coming to fruition, we really looked and said, okay, we know this is working well in other professions. You can think about sites like Zocdoc that help consumers find a doctor. And we really just emulated what they do well, and the way that they get traffic and get consumers to their site in a significant way is by putting out a lot of educational, high-quality content around the types of things people might be searching for if they have health symptoms that they're looking up or need help with a legal matter. And so we really emulated that when we launched in 2019, putting out articles that are educational in nature.
So if somebody needs help, maybe they're a new family, they've got a new child that they're introducing into the world, and they're starting to think about education funding, or they're empty nesters and now thinking about retirement planning. People are turning to the internet and they're doing that search. So we provide that information where they can learn more about that topic. But then we're also providing an opportunity for them to then get to know the financial advisors in our community. If they are interested in working with somebody professionally, that can help them in that regard.
And that's really what's driving the consumers. To answer your question to the site, is traffic from articles that were focused on ranking on the first page of Google. So now if somebody is doing that search, they see an article from Wealthtender. And then that's what's getting about half a million consumers today to the site each year.
Richard Walker: 05:42
Okay. So you guys are highly optimized for search engines with great content. What is the kind of person that is attracted to the website? And I mean, how do you classify and quantify there? I don't know, likelihood to use an advisor.
Brian Thorp: 05:58
Yeah. And what we've seen with historically a lot of find an advisor sites. The way that they would invite a consumer to learn more is to ask that person to enter their zip code, and then find the three best advisors for that individual. Now, as you can imagine, when you put in a zip code, you know, that's maybe helpful if you're trying to order a pizza and find the three best pizza places within a delivery radius. But when you're looking to find the best financial advisor, if a website just produces the three closest advisors, that could be very different from the three best advisors, especially in an age like today where we can easily work with a professional, a financial advisor capacity that might be on the other side of the country.
So a lot of what's driving Traffic to Wealthtender are articles that people are reading, because they're doing a search to specifically find an advisor that can work with somebody like them. So in some cases, it might be an educator or educator. Somebody who's a teacher. And they're doing a Google search to say, I want to find a financial advisor who works with teachers, or somebody who works specifically with technology professionals that has education and knowledge around equity compensation, or in other instances, it could be somebody that's saying, well, I want to work with an advisor that offers hourly financial planning. So for an hourly fee, instead of taking a percentage of the assets that they manage.
And in aggregate, it's all these different articles, hundreds of different articles around any different number of topics that somebody might be looking for that ultimately is trying to a ensure that they're getting the education that they need on that particular topic. And then B have a community of advisors. And today we have over 500 advisors, wealth management firms featured on Wealthtech that when you have that diversity of advisors, many of them specialize in those different areas that people are searching for. So it's really providing a much better search experience for the consumer. And again, for the advisors that join our platform, a great opportunity for them to get visibility with the right eyeballs and the types of clients that they're looking to attract.
Richard Walker: 07:54
All right, Brian. So I'm maybe a little naive because I haven't been an advisor for 20 years now. And, I mean, I remember trying to meet clients, go to networking events and social events and join clubs and whatever. And you're taught to think, okay, there's life events. Oh, someone's getting married.
Oh, somebody is having a child. Oh, somebody's switching jobs. Whatever. There's life events that are good points in time to talk to somebody. But I bet you have some statistics or some insight as to why people are searching for an advisor and then therefore finding your articles and your website.
What are these triggers that make somebody say, oh, I need a financial advisor?
Brian Thorp: 08:30
Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. There's a catalyst more often than not. And, you know, in some cases people are being thoughtful and just proactively taking that step to say, hey, this is something I know I've been wanting to get around to. And they do it.
And it's more truly just based on that moment in time. But more often than not, there's a catalyst in life where that becomes. The reason that somebody says now is the time that we need to do this. And again, it could be quite often, you know, people that are getting married. And so that becomes not only in itself potentially a sizable event from a financial perspective, but now you're bringing those finances together for the first time and really trying to think through, you know, what does that look like?
Do you combine your finances? Do you keep them separate and then thinking about where there's maybe overlap and, you know, for one, plan on each other's side right.
Richard Walker: 09:18
There searching for an article like, should we commingle our assets right there saying, should we have a joint bank account?
Brian Thorp: 09:23
Exactly. That's a great example in that instance. Other instances could be that new baby that they're bringing into the world. And how do we start thinking about education funding or if they are becoming, you know, empty nesters or moving into retirement or, you know, maybe they have a child that's just recently graduated and they're trying to think about how to help get them off to a great start and to do so thoughtfully with some type of, you know, generational wealth transfer as well.
Richard Walker: 09:49
Do you have a sense of the caliber of client? Are these all entry-level type clients who are starting out? Are they high net worth or is there a spectrum that you're seeing?
Brian Thorp: 09:59
Yeah. What we see is it's really reflective of the query, right. So if you were to Google high net worth wealth management, one of the first results you would see is an article published by Wealthtender, where you can then learn the benefits of working with an advisor that specializes in that segment, and then also get the opportunity to meet advisors that serve that segment as well. But alternatively, we do have articles around subscription-based services with advisors that are providing a more foundational level of financial planning for $99 a month. And it could be an individual that's on the other end of the spectrum.
So maybe aspiring to be high net worth, but that's really far from where they are today. And so seeing increasingly a number of advisors that are, excuse me, consumers that are interested in working with advisors just to kind of get their feet wet and begin working with a professional. And so in that instance, it's a little bit more of a great place to start out. Now we do see, and it's been really interesting to watch areas like crypto. And you know, we've seen crypto be a really hot and exciting area.
And then it really cooled off. And now it's maybe exciting again. And that's really been interesting in the five years that we've been operating where we've seen a query for crypto financial advisor, you know, really peak. And we see a lot of inquiries coming in from people looking for advisors that understand various cryptocurrencies. And then that got fairly quiet.
Now as it got quiet, we also started to hear from consumers saying, I've been burned, I've lost all this money in crypto. But they weren't looking for an advisor proactively to invest their money. It was more, what did I do and how do I get my money back? So that was a little bit after the fact. But increasingly now as crypto has been on a big rally, as we look forward to a new administration coming into Washington in January, we're seeing a lot of lot of inquiry again from consumers that are looking to find advisors that can help in cryptocurrency.
So there's kind of more of the evergreen type areas and then some more just thematic depending upon what's going on out there in the world.
Richard Walker: 11:55
Yeah. Let's take the advisors perspective when they find your platform and say, let's try this out. Are they seeing it as just one other avenue, or are they treating Wealthtender as the avenue to prospect? How does it play into their overall marketing plans, do you feel?
Brian Thorp: 12:11
Sure. So with Wealthtender, we're really focused on helping advisors with their online reputation ultimately strengthen their SEO or search engine optimization, and overall ultimately being a really great compliment to their website. You know, we would always encourage an advisor to have a strong website that really is that destination to ultimately get somebody to learn in detail more about you, more about your firm in more depth than what we would provide in a single page. But you're not necessarily going to get traffic to your website without putting yourself out there. So the goal as an advisor is that you've got a great website, but then the ways that you're getting people to it could be through your social media accounts and then being featured on find an advisor directory like Wealthtender.
Now, of course, there are other lead gen services that come at a much higher cost. Just for reference, when an advisor joins Wealthtender, the most popular plan we offer is $49 a month. And if somebody a consumer finds them through the platform, there's no additional fee. With that said, we're not promising that your phone is going to start ringing off the hook. There are services out there that do promise that, and those cost about 3000 or $4000 a month.
So very different. But short answer. We're a great compliment. And ultimately for that particular cost, we think very foundational in helping advisors strengthen their reputation, get visibility. And then of course, with online reviews, because the SEC now permits reviews, they're also very prescriptive in how you can do it.
So we've designed the platform to provide a compliant approach so advisors can collect those reviews, then also take them from Tinder and display them on their website, and really start to build that social proof and incorporate those reviews into their marketing activities as well. So more of a sales enablement tool, but we love hearing the stories from advisors who are featured on our platform that say, hey, I found a client. That or I should say a client found me through Wealthtender. And, you know, letting us know that they are getting those types of opportunities periodically throughout the year is terrific as well.
Richard Walker: 14:08
So take me through a journey a little bit, because you've been doing this for 5 or 6 years at this point, right. You've been doing this a while. So if an advisor comes to you and says, hey, I want to do these things, I want to get reviews, I want to improve my reputation, I want to see more traffic, etc.. And I'll give you a similar story. Before I started my podcast, if I posted on LinkedIn, it was rare.
And so I might get 100 to 200 views or impressions a week. Now I get 7 to 10,000 every week because I have the podcast and it keeps generating content. So I have improved my online reputation, so to speak, or presence. And that's kind of a, you know, see it ramp up. So what's the journey an advisor sees with you or your firm as they embark on this?
How do you measure their success and improvement?
Brian Thorp: 14:53
Yeah. So we encourage advisors, you know, walk before you run before you even think about getting started with Wealthtender. Make sure you've got a great website. And once you have that up and running, you know, get your primary social accounts and you don't need to be on every social platform, but find those that you're most comfortable with and can really start to incorporate in your marketing. For many advisors, that's LinkedIn.
Again, those are generally free, but there's upgrade or premium opportunities for depending upon the use cases. And then for many advisors, they're part of India's industry affiliations, where they could have a listing through those sites at no additional cost. So that's really foundationally where we encourage advisors to start. And then we really see ourselves at that next layer where for a small investment monthly, they're getting a lot stronger. SEO You benefits from being on the platform and importantly, from a compliance perspective, because we are a marketing technology, but importantly, compliance technology, that this becomes an avenue for them to be able to collect those reviews and, you know, really getting into the weeds just briefly.
Many advisors are SEC-registered. Other advisors are registered in states like Texas or other individual states, and many of those states don't yet permit testimonials for advisors. So it's a little bit of a hodgepodge, but where we're seeing the greatest interest from advisors and wealth management firms, joining Wealthtender today is to take advantage of that compliant online review collection and promotion system, and then all the benefits that surround that as well. So at its core, we really see that as an advisor, just like if you or I, as consumers, we're going to hire a doctor, a lawyer or even a plumber. We know the first thing we're going to look at, you know, we're not looking up to see what school that plumber went to or what credentials they have.
We're reading those reviews, Views. And I think for advisors, it's just going to be so impactful going forward to have those reviews, especially today, because so many advisors don't. And that's what we've heard from advisors out of the gate, is that they've now started seeing opportunities where there are some very large national firms that aren't yet permitting their advisors to collect reviews or promote testimonials. And those very large firms have a lot of resources versus the independent firm that brings maybe a higher degree of personal service and customization. But can they compete with that larger firm?
And what they're finding is that when they're up against that advisor from a very large firm, they're able to say, well, does that firm have reviews that look like this? And then what they find is that there's no reviews for that other firm. And just using an advisor I spoke to the other day said this particular now client moved a million and a half dollars over the next day and chose them over that national firm because they saw all the great things that their clients were saying about them within their reviews. So that is where I think we're seeing the greatest opportunity for advisors to take the most full advantage of the wealth center platform.
Richard Walker: 17:44
That is awesome. And in fact, I think that's one of the appeals of being an independent is that it's your name, it's your brand. It's not the big firm's brand which could be tarnished by a cyber breach or something. So anyway, not to say they have bad circumstances, but things happen. Okay, Brian, let me shift gears a little bit here because I've been really curious about how artificial intelligence and these large language models are impacting your business.
What is going on with that is are you using it? Do you see it as a threat? What's happening?
Brian Thorp: 18:14
Yeah. So I think, you know, when I think about AI, I think back to like the.com boom. And then more specifically in our industry, what was going to displace and replace financial advisors was robo advisors, you know, oh, who needs a financial advisor? Who needs that human advice when you can simply plug in a few details about yourself and a and robo advisor is going to do all of the investing for you. And flash forward 20 years and financial advisers are doing just fine.
And most of the robo advisors have added, if they still exist, have added. Human advice as a component because ultimately, you know, finances are complicated and a very emotional topic. And, you know, robots. And today I can't necessarily provide more of that emotional conversation that a financial advisor can. So of course, I think we're going to continue to see I play a role, but I think ultimately we're going to see I play a role more as a tool and a supplement to a traditional financial advisor relationship with their clients.
And many cases, it's already starting to provide some greater efficiencies for financial advisors to be able to potentially serve their clients better or potentially serve more clients because they have less administrative work they're doing from an AI perspective. But ultimately, I just don't see AI becoming a replacement to that traditional relationship between a financial advisor and their clients.
Richard Walker: 19:35
No, I totally agree. Okay, I'm going to ask this from a naive perspective though. If wealth is built on building articles of content and SEO, does I pose a threat? I mean, won't advisors think, oh, I should just do that myself? I can build all these articles.
Hey ChatGPT, write me an article.
Brian Thorp: 19:52
But yeah, great question. And you know, again, ultimately, at least today, what we're seeing with all of the AI-generated responses. So if somebody says, hey, I'm looking for a high net worth wealth manager, you know, I might say, well, you should consider these things. And a lot of times it's sourcing from Wealthtender. And, you know, fortunately they're providing attribution.
And ultimately if you want to find an advisor that specializes in that space, AI tools, at least today, aren't providing a directory of advisors. So they are providing the link to Wealthtender. And so, you know, that's where I think we're going to continue to, you know, do just fine from that perspective that AI recognizes Wealthtender just as Google or and search engines have historically has a good place to find an advisor for advisors that are interested in using AI to just put out a lot of content that could be helpful, potentially harmful. Otherwise, in terms of putting that on your website, it's probably not going to help the advisors website start ranking for all sorts of different search queries, because it's such a very competitive space to rank for particular articles and resources. We've been at this for five years, and you know, you'll see wealth under articles alongside NerdWallet and Investopedia, sites that have been around for a very long time.
And that's rare air. That's a difficult place to be. And I think that's where it's going to be. Continue to be hard for advisors to simply put out content and expect to, you know, rank at the top for common search results. Now, if they do specialize in a particular niche, there's a great opportunity to maybe put some very specialized articles out there and get visibility for longer tail keywords.
Richard Walker: 21:32
Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's a naive question to ask because I know these types of things. But here's here's a more pointed question that I really wanted to get to as well. How are you changing or modifying your articles so that I will reference them and pick them up? And if a secret sauce, don't tell me.
But I mean, I'm really curious, how do you get content into the AI engine so that somebody's going to ChatGPT talking about their needs can have that as a source reference?
Brian Thorp: 22:03
So at this point, we really haven't changed anything in terms of our approach. The first and foremost would be continuing to write high-quality content, but then the traditional SEO tactics to rank at the top of search, we're generally finding, still works well to rank prominently within AI search as well, or AI-generated results. And especially with, you know, whether it's open AI and Bing or with Google and its own AI version. It really, to me at least at this point, still feels like all of that is built more or less on top of their existing kind of search technology. Now it's pulling that in and aggregating it and trying to turn it into a logical article unto itself, sourcing 3 or 4 different resources.
But at least as long as today they're still providing attribution. That's providing that opportunity for us to get visibility as contributing to that result that they're publishing. Now, I think the other thing that's really interesting, and historically within the SEO space, there's been what's called email your money or your life that those articles and content published on the internet that are related to personal finances or health have been harder to rank within search results because Google realizes that if it impacts your money or your health, they need to be even more careful about the search results that they're putting at the top. And so that's where it's important for us to ensure that we come across as a very credible resource, that we're delivering thoughtful personal finance education versus some other sites that might just throw something up and try to rank prominently, but not necessarily have the pedigree or the content or the credentialed writers behind it that are suitable to be putting content out there. And of course, with AI, what we saw at earlier this year was Google getting a little carried away, putting AI results at the top of just about everything.
And we did see, you know, a pullback in our traffic. And it's fully rebounded since then. But when they first got carried away, you might recall there were some stories talking about how say how do I make a pizza. And Google was saying, well you should use this glue on it and the little pepperoni and you're like, what? So that's where I think they realize, like, okay, maybe we're not ready for this to be fully pushed out, and especially in that money or your life area, let's make sure that we're relying more on credible sources.
Now, Google does have a deal now with Reddit. So we are seeing more threads from Reddit showing up in search results, but less so in the finance space. If you think about doing a Google search like we're traveling to Italy, what would be a great itinerary? Having results from travel and leisure alongside a Reddit thread that our consumers or people who have traveled to Italy and provided their experience. That's a great use case for a Reddit thread to be near the top.
But when it comes to, hey, you know, we're going through a layoff at my company and, you know, this particular company has these types of, you know, awards or in the case of a layoff, you know, severance, you know, what should we do. And you know, in a Reddit thread, you're going to have people ranting about, you know, that experience is like, you know, take an Uzi and walk in and do some bad things. Right? But, you know, that's not the answer. The answer is to, you know, be thoughtful about it and have a financial professional that can truly help you with competent advice and not necessarily something that's coming from people ranting in a in a Reddit thread.
Richard Walker: 25:25
Man, you make such an important point here about context and keeping the eye in the right context of things. Because you're right, the professional advice is exceptionally hard to replicate because of the nuance of information and the lack of information in a simple query. When somebody says, I got laid off, you don't know anything else. You don't know what their time frame is. You don't know what their benefits are.
You know nothing else. So you have to have a lot more context to it. I think that's an incredibly important aspect to use of AI. Let me ask you something else. What is Wealthtender using AI for?
Are you automating your business? Are you generating articles with it? Are you qualifying articles? I'm just totally curious how you guys see AI affecting your own business.
Brian Thorp: 26:05
Yeah. You know, like any new technology? Absolutely. Looking to see where we can drive greater efficiency. Now, even before I came around these automation tools, you know, different project management tools, tools like Zapier that connect multiple types of applications, incredibly powerful.
And, you know, I think just like we saw back in the.com era when all these firms that did various things, they're like, oh yeah, let's put.com on our name, or let's add to our website that we do these things, you know. Same thing happening today. There's been some incredible tools that we use. And I'm sure they're incorporating AI in various ways. But importantly I think a lot of the functionality even came around before I became a thing.
And, you know, beyond that, you know, as we continue to look at ways that we can incorporate AI into areas, the one place as we are, you know, putting out articles that I have used, it would be to say, hey, ChatGPT, give me ten different article headlines for this particular article that we're working on, because I feel like that's fairly innocuous. It's helping with that creative process. And, you know, sometimes we might if we're looking for different article ideas, you know, pop something into ChatGPT to get some ideas, but really stopping there to ensure that when it comes to the true editorial that we continue to lean on writers who are bringing that human, authentic voice to the story and not putting ourselves at risk of just pushing out automated content that who knows where exactly it came from, and not necessarily a good reflection of high editorial standards.
Richard Walker: 27:38
Well, yeah. And you have to reflect quality back to your consumers and customers, your advisors. You wouldn't want to have a bunch of trash articles out there getting the wrong types of prospects over to advisors. Right. So I think that's super important for sure.
Brian Thorp: 27:53
And we've seen that really work in our favor as well, because there are a lot of sites historically that have put out a lot of content that hasn't really been well-researched. They played some different games to essentially game the SEO system and see those articles appear towards the top of search results. But now we're really seeing a lot of that getting hammered, as Google is saying, you know, no more. And in fact, even some big prominent sites like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. CNN kind of got into this game over the last couple of years of leveraging the strength of their website, their own domain authority from an SEO perspective, and launching all these articles that are like best vacuum cleaners.
And, you know, you do a Google search for best vacuum cleaners and you're like, why is it showing me Forbes and CNN and Wall Street Journal? And essentially, they all got caught up in this game where they could make a lot of money. So they took advantage of it. And I can't necessarily blame them. You know, strike while the iron is hot.
But it was just bad all around. It was bad for consumers. It was just ultimately a bad not not good for Google's reputation. And just in the last few weeks, all of those sites will no longer appear in Google search results. And so to Google's credit, and again, there's a lot of things that I could be frustrated with Google for.
But to their credit, I think they really are, in aggregate, trying to do the right thing and provide consumers a better search experience whether or not AI is involved.
Richard Walker: 29:18
Yeah. You know, for this podcast we create lots of one-minute clips out of episodes. And our first attempt at naming the clip to give it a title we just feel is descriptive. And then we use a custom GPT we built to create a more viral hook type of title. And we actually have it score it according to how well it thinks it's going to perform.
I have no idea if the score is right or wrong or just something make-believe, but it's kind of fun to have something that goes out there. And, you know, frankly, when we go on to YouTube, all of our podcast episodes rate at 80 to 100% SEO scores with the tool that we're using. And I think part of it is using the AI to help us do that, but not actually write the content, because the content is you and me.
Brian Thorp: 30:03
Yeah. And I think that's a great use case. I love all of the tools that, you know, everybody should listen to this podcast in its entirety, but I do like the tools that would summarize it and hit the highlights in five minutes. So there are some neat use cases out there with some of the various note takers and Acres and summarizing tools.
Richard Walker: 30:18
Yeah. So should I take my podcast and run it into notebook and create a podcast on my podcast?
Brian Thorp: 30:25
It's an idea.
Richard Walker: 30:28
I know not all AI uses are good ideas though. Brian, we're getting close to the end here. And there's another big question I'd like to ask you before we get there. What is the best way for people to find and connect with you?
Brian Thorp: 30:41
Sure. So with all the work that we've done from an SEO perspective, it shouldn't be hard to find me. You can type Brian Thorp into Google. Brian at com is my email go to Com and you can go to About us and find more information.
Or just look me up on LinkedIn or come to Austin and let's grab tacos.
Richard Walker: 30:59
Nice. What's your favorite taco place?
Brian Thorp: 31:02
You know, it depends. Breakfast tacos. Love. Taco. Dolly.
And lately I've really enjoyed cosmic. Over on the East Side, they've got a great little taco setup at cosmic.
Richard Walker: 31:11
Yeah. I discovered birria tacos recently. Love those man.
Brian Thorp: 31:18
Absolutely. They're delicious.
Richard Walker: 31:20
All right, so here's my last question. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role?
Brian Thorp: 31:28
Yeah, it's a great question. And for me, I would really look back on my father growing up, you know, as I chose to go on what's become an entrepreneurial journey. Prior to launching Welton, I spent 22-plus years in, you know, working for a large corporate organization. And part of that reason is because I had the benefit of growing up with my father. And, you know, my mom always had a steady job and was wonderful with a nursing career.
But my father, after leaving a corporate job, started his own company. And ultimately, in the end, it worked out. But the trials and tribulations, you know, trying to put food on our plate, let alone making sure that payroll was met and some very difficult periods of time. And I learned so much from that experience growing up as part of it and working with him for some time just throughout high school. That really made me appreciate the entrepreneurial journey and just how hard it is.
But of course, how rewarding it can be as well. And as I started my career more in the corporate world, I always kept that in the back of my mind, always had that entrepreneurial drive, but also the recognition that it's hard. It's just not going to be easy. And it sure would be a lot easier to do it if you've got a little bit more cushion in the bank and stability in your life than trying to worry about having to, you know, pay for children and all these other things that could come up along the way. And so as I had different ideas, I really was very patient.
And ensuring that I got to a point in my career where I felt like it would be a good time to jump off and really enjoyed my career at Invesco. But the timing was right about five years ago, and I felt from my own financial perspective that I would also be in a position to have enough runway to fund Wealthtender with dollars out of our own pocket. Very supportive. Wife is incredible by the way too. So definitely make sure as an entrepreneur if you can, you've got a significant other that you know is along the along with you for that journey.
But ultimately, I would say just those lessons that I learned from my father would be the answer to the question in terms of just inspiring that leadership and everything that I've learned that has contributed so much to my entrepreneurial journey.
Richard Walker: 33:36
I love hearing about that because I started my business with my mom, and she's been the greatest influence on me as well. Okay, I have to ask a follow-up question. Coming out of the corporate world and starting what I presume to be your first entrepreneurial journey. How scary was it?
Brian Thorp: 33:55
You know, incredibly, right now, it's it's been a roller coaster. I think it was because I had that cushion. And what I felt was a good vision right out of the gate. I wasn't necessarily as scared right out of the gate. But then you get into it and you're realizing, wow, this might take a little longer than you thought.
Which, of course, goes back into the things that you've learned along the way that I mentioned earlier. And then it takes even longer and costs even more. And that's where it probably got further along, you know, a year and two years in like, oh my gosh, what have I done? I need to go back to the corporate world and just, you know, cut. And that, that that to me was what's just been, you know, the roller coaster of, you know, what's now been five years.
But now, you know, very comfortable. You'll see nothing but smiles and happy that we've kind of got to this point now, which I know you can appreciate all too well, that you can sleep much easier at night or sleep at night in general. But that absolutely was scary. Jumping off point and then scary for a few years thereafter.
Richard Walker: 34:57
Yeah, I don't know what the actual statistics are, but I've heard something like 98, 99% of new businesses close within the first year. So to be five years in is a huge success. It means you have figured things out. So I applaud you in that. And I love entrepreneurs.
I think we need more of them in our world because you're creating opportunity and job and innovation and making it easier for the customer to do what they want to do. So yeah, I applaud all that. All right. We got to wrap it up. So I want to give a huge thank you to Brian Thorp, founder and CEO of Wealthtender, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins.
Go check out Brian's website at Wealthtender.com, and don't forget to check out quick at Quick Forbes.com where we make processing forms easy. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. We'll click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channel for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Brian, thank you so much for joining me today.
Brian Thorp: 35:48
My pleasure Rich. Appreciate it.
Outro: 35:51
Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
Comentarios