A DFW-based wealth management firm reached out after I sent them a cold audit of their website. The founder's reply was three words: "Alright, you got me."
Nine days later, we had a signed contract. Thirty days after that, they had a brand-new website, three live Google Ads campaigns, LinkedIn outreach running on three team members' profiles, a book download funnel converting visitors into leads, and automated notifications pushing every new lead to the entire team in real time.
Here's how it happened.
The Starting Point: A $1B+ Firm With 8 Indexed Pages
This firm manages over a billion dollars in client assets. Their founder has published two books. They host a podcast. They have designations most advisors spend a decade earning.
And their website? A cookie-cutter template from their broker-dealer's approved vendor. Eight pages indexed by Google. Zero blog posts showing up in search. Zero Google reviews. Inconsistent business addresses across directories. A former team member's profile still live on the site months after they'd left.
Their credentials were stronger than their website. That's the gap I walked into.
Week 1: Kill the Template, Build the Brand
The first thing I did was audit every page on the old site. Out of 254 pages, 242 were boilerplate from the template vendor — identical content running on thousands of financial advisor sites across the country. I kept 12 and killed the rest.
Then I built a custom site from scratch. Not a theme. Not a template with different colors. A ground-up build with:
- Real photography from their professional photoshoots — replacing every AI-generated stock image
- A brand-specific design system built from their style guide — warm walnut tones, editorial typography, a magazine-quality feel that matched their Fort Worth clientele
- Their actual content — not invented messaging. Every word on the site came from their books, their podcast, their team conversations
- A proprietary framework page built around their client discovery process — turning their intellectual property into a conversion asset
- Scroll-triggered animations, dropdown navigation, mobile optimization, and a shared component system so every page loads fast and looks consistent
Twenty-five pages launched in Week 1. The founder's feedback: "I love the clean, elevated, Apple feel."
Week 2: Google Ads — Live and Targeting
Most wealth management firms in DFW are too scared to run Google Ads. The big wirehouses dominate "financial advisor Dallas" at $50/click. So they don't even try.
I didn't chase those keywords. I found the gaps.
The play: Target niche intent keywords that no competitor was bidding on — things like exit planning, business succession, and the founder's professional designation. Low CPC ($3-8), near-zero competition, and searchers with extremely high intent.
Three campaigns went live with a combined daily budget of $62:
- Exit Planning — 8 keywords, $40/day, targeting business owners planning their exit
- Business Succession — 6 keywords, $16/day, targeting family businesses and succession planning
- Branded Defense — 7 keywords, $6/day, owning their own name in search results
Each campaign had custom landing pages with inline contact forms, sticky mobile CTAs, and conversion tracking wired to every form submission, phone call click, and book download.
I also caught a critical error during setup: the geo-targeting was pointed at New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee — nowhere near DFW. Fixed it, added 21 metro cities, and launched.
Week 3: LinkedIn — Three Campaigns, Three Team Members
The firm has three advisors. Each one has a different story, a different alma mater, and a different network. I built separate LinkedIn campaigns for each:
- The founder: Alumni-based outreach targeting business owners from his university, local to Fort Worth. Camaraderie-first messaging — "Cool to bump into a fellow [alum]. Love to grab coffee."
- Two junior advisors: Separate university alumni plays, with football season messaging variants, peer connection angles, and a book-offer follow-up sequence
Each campaign had a multi-step sequence: profile view, connect request, post engagement, direct message, email follow-up, skills endorsement. The messaging was personal and never pitched financial services directly.
I also rewrote all three LinkedIn profiles from scratch — custom banners, optimized about sections, strategic headline positioning.
Week 4: The Book Funnel — Where Everything Connects
The founder had published two books. They were sitting in a Google Drive folder. Nobody could download them from the website.
I built a book download funnel that turns every visitor into a lead:
- Download form on the site — captures name and email
- Automated delivery email sends both books immediately from the founder's address
- Self-attribution survey on the thank-you page — "How did you find us?"
- CRM integration creates a shared contact visible to the entire team
- LinkedIn enrichment pipeline finds the downloader's LinkedIn profile, then auto-enrolls them in a warm follow-up sequence
- Team notification emails alert every advisor the moment a new lead comes in
The book funnel didn't just collect leads. It started relationships.
The Results
From cold audit email to fully operational digital marketing system in 30 days. Website rebuilt from template to custom. Ads running. LinkedIn outreach live on three profiles. Book funnel converting. Team notifications wired. Every lead tracked, attributed, and followed up on automatically.
The founder's working style was the key constraint: "If you're not here, I won't do it." He wanted zero homework. So I built everything, ran everything, and routed approvals through his operations manager. He approved content, clicked "accept" on LinkedIn connection requests, and watched leads come in.
That's the model. Build the machine, run the machine, deliver the results.
What This Means for You
If you're running a professional services firm — wealth management, law, accounting, insurance, consulting — and your website looks like it was built in 2018, your Google Ads aren't running (or aren't running well), and your LinkedIn presence is a headshot and a job title, you're leaving money on the table every single day.
I build these systems from scratch, tailored to your firm, and I get them live fast. Not in 6 months. In weeks.