Step 1: Build the Prospect Pipeline
Open Opportunities, create a pipeline called "Prospect Pipeline" with stages mapped to your actual process.
A typical fee-only advisor pipeline:
- New Lead — just came in through a form, ad, or referral
- Contact Attempted — initial outreach made
- Discovery Call Scheduled — booked on the calendar
- Discovery Call Completed — first call happened, next step determined
- Financial Planning Meeting Scheduled — second meeting booked (if applicable)
- Proposal Delivered — engagement letter / ADV / fee agreement sent
- Signed Client — documents returned, onboarding begins
- Long-Term Nurture — not ready now, but a fit for future
Every prospect becomes a card on this board. You move cards between stages as the relationship progresses. Dollar value attached to each card (projected AUM × advisory fee) shows real-time pipeline value.
Step 2: Build the Intake Form
Keep forms short. The more fields you add, the fewer completed submissions you get.
Essential fields:
- Full name
- Email
- Phone
- Brief description of what they're looking for help with
- How they heard about you (attribution)
Optional qualifiers (if you have a minimum account size):
- Approximate investable assets (pre-set ranges: <$250K / $250K-$1M / $1M-$5M / $5M+)
- Timeline (immediate / 3-6 months / just researching)
Don't ask for SSN, account numbers, or anything sensitive on the initial form. That happens at the engagement stage, through your compliance-approved process.
Step 3: Set Up the Speed-to-Lead Workflow
This is the single highest-ROI automation in the entire system.
Instant (0-60 seconds):
- SMS: "Hi [First Name], this is [Advisor Name]. Thanks for reaching out about [topic]. I've got time Thursday 2pm or Friday 10am for a quick 15-min intro call. Here's my calendar if another time works better: [link]"
- Email: "Thanks for reaching out. I've received your message and will be in touch within 24 hours. If you'd like to schedule directly, here's my calendar: [link]"
- Internal notification to you via SMS or Slack
If no response in 24 hours:
- Second email with a relevant resource (e.g., "Our 5-page financial planning checklist") and another CTA to book
If no response in 72 hours:
- Personal phone call from you or your assistant
If still no response:
- Drop into the long-term nurture sequence (more on that below)
Advisors who implement this workflow consistently report 30-50% more first-call conversions from the same lead flow.
Step 4: Set Up the Discovery Call Calendar
Create a GoHighLevel calendar called "Discovery Call" with:
- 20-30 minute slots
- 15-minute buffer between slots
- Minimum 4-hour advance booking
- Max 3 discovery calls per day (protect deep-work time)
- Automatic reminders: email 24 hours before, SMS 1 hour before
- Post-call automation: send a follow-up email with next steps 2 hours after the scheduled end time
The calendar link should live in your email signature, your website's "Schedule a Call" button, your SMS templates, your LinkedIn bio, and your podcast/YouTube CTAs.
Step 5: Build the Long-Term Nurture Sequence
A prospect who's "not ready now" is still a future client — if you stay in their orbit. Most advisors stop communicating after two rejected outreaches. That's the mistake.
Build a 12-month nurture sequence that drops prospects into monthly touchpoints:
- Month 1: Helpful guide specific to their topic of interest (retirement, business exit, estate planning)
- Month 2: Case study or example (anonymized, compliance-approved)
- Month 3: Newsletter or market commentary
- Month 4: Educational video or podcast episode
- Month 5: Seasonal content (year-end tax planning, RMD reminders, etc.)
- Month 6: Direct check-in: "Anything changed on your end? Happy to revisit whether we should chat."
- Months 7-12: Cycle back through with new content
The key: every message provides value before asking for anything. By the time month 6 hits, the prospect knows your name, has read your content, and responds to the check-in much more warmly than they would have to a cold follow-up.
Step 6: Automate Your Seminar and Webinar Funnel
If you run dinner seminars, workshops, webinars, or lunch-and-learns for COIs, the follow-up is often where the system breaks down.
Pre-event sequence:
- Registration confirmation email + calendar invite
- Reminder email 1 week before
- Reminder SMS 24 hours before
- Final reminder SMS 1 hour before
Post-event sequence for attendees:
- Same-day thank-you email with the slide deck or recording
- 48 hours later: invite to a 1-on-1 consultation with a calendar link
- 7 days later: follow-up email with relevant content
- 14 days later: personal call from your team
Post-event sequence for no-shows:
- Apology email: "Sorry we missed you — here's the recording"
- 72 hours later: invite to the next session
- Drop into long-term nurture
Seminars without automated follow-up convert at 3-8%. Seminars with structured automation convert at 15-25%. On a 30-person dinner seminar, that's the difference between 1-2 new clients and 5-7.
Step 7: Track Referrals Systematically
Referrals are the lifeblood of most advisory practices. Yet most advisors can't tell you which client has sent them the most referrals this year.
Tag every new prospect with a "Source" field:
- Client referral (and which client)
- Centers of influence (and which COI)
- Digital ad (and which campaign)
- Seminar (and which event)
- LinkedIn outbound
- Organic (SEO, podcast, YouTube)
Build a quarterly report showing:
- Referrals received per source
- Conversion rate per source
- Revenue generated per source
The insight is almost always the same: 20% of your referral sources send 80% of your best prospects. Invest more in those — gifts, dinners, direct outreach — and the ROI compounds.
