From 1998 to 2004, I built and scaled a consulting practice that helped professional services firms grow through structured marketing systems, client diagnostics, and measurable behavior change. It started while I was still in college, promoted from Administrative Assistant to Marketing Coordinator at Lincoln Financial Advisors' Salt Lake City regional office.
"The best investment I've made as a CEO was to develop a marketing department.". Todd Anderson, Regional CEO, Lincoln Financial Advisors
The office earned a #1 internal ranking among Lincoln Financial's regional marketing departments, and the program drove $640K+ in new advisory fees across 256 converted clients (11% lead-to-client conversion). A 12-planner subset that tracked both fees and non-cash compensation showed $790,700 in total attributed value. I took the methodology independent through Gleason Marketing Group, partnering with Second Summer Advisory. My first independent engagement was a $120K year-long consulting project for a national accounting firm.
Diagnosing the real problem
Challenge. Professional services firms struggled to grow because of misidentified bottlenecks. Agents assumed they needed more leads when the real issue was inconsistent follow-through. A healthcare practice assumed they needed more patients when the real issue was their pricing architecture, staff structure, and delegation gaps.
Approach. Built a repeatable diagnostic process: a structured preliminary questionnaire captured practice data, team structure, revenue goals, and client profiles before the first meeting. In-person discovery sessions surfaced gaps between stated priorities and actual behavior. Each engagement produced a tailored "Opportunities and Observations" assessment with prioritized recommendations.
Outcome. Delivered diagnostic assessments across financial services (MassMutual, Lincoln Financial Advisors), law (LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and Macrae), healthcare (Epione Medical), and accounting (Rose, Snyder and Jacobs). The RSJ engagement became a $120K year-long project. The diagnostic framework consistently revealed that the presenting problem was rarely the real one.
Tiering advisors to optimize limited resources
Challenge. Lincoln Financial Advisors' Salt Lake City office had 150 independent financial advisors, one marketing department (me), and no consistent marketing practices. I could not coach all 150 with equal intensity, within a regulatory environment (SEC, FINRA, CFPB) that required compliance built into every deliverable.
Approach. I built a 2x2 segmentation matrix to classify all 150 advisors by growth potential and services adoption.
All 150 advisors received baseline resources: a letter library, monthly workshops, marketing collateral. 42 fee-based planners (high potential, high adoption) qualified for the intensive acquisition program: structured one-on-one coaching, accountability frameworks, action step commitments, prospect research briefings, and visible ROI tracking, 945 tracked coaching hours.
High potential, low adoption advisors got strategic outreach and targeted workshops. Low potential, high adoption advisors got self-serve tools and group sessions. I paired advisors across quadrants, matching strong execution habits with larger markets.
I built a prospect intelligence layer within the intensive tier: research workflows, trained administrative staff to prepare pre-qualified prospect briefings, and a cost-sharing subscription (MarketSmart) for monthly research reports. All processes met SEC, FINRA, and CFPB regulatory standards.
Outcome
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Adoption rate (fee-based planners) | 82% (34 of 42) |
| Lead generation meetings conducted | 196 |
| Qualified leads generated | 2,304 |
| Converted to clients | 256 (11% conversion) |
| New advisory fees | $640,000 |
| Total attributed value (12-planner subset incl. non-cash comp) | $790,700 |
| Internal ranking | #1 among Lincoln Financial regional marketing departments |
Individual results included one advisor doubling mid-six-figure income within four months, and another hitting 75% of annual goal by mid-year in his first year.
Productizing expertise into scalable services
Challenge. The methodology was effective one-on-one but not scalable.
Approach. Designed a three-tier service model:
| Tier | Annual fee | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Full Service Marketing | $36,700 | Custom plans, research, all meeting types, client events |
| Lead Generation Coaching | $12,700 | 20 structured client meetings, coaching, research, drip mail |
| Meeting Preparation | $6,500 | Meeting agendas, coaching, research reports |
Also created an a la carte menu and a regional rollout package ($9,000 for nine months) with weekly coaching, monthly group calls, and quarterly reporting. Developed a workshop catalog of 25+ topics.
Outcome. The first independent engagement (Rose, Snyder and Jacobs) was a $120K year-long project for a national accounting firm, working on-site 32 hours per week, building marketing operations from scratch, designing a "Concierge Service" program for their top 40-60 clients, running structured group meetings with partners on a six-month progression (Evaluate, Explore, Execute, Refine, Enhance, Evolve), weekly coaching, and monthly reports.
This work established a pattern that has held across every role since: find the gap between what an organization thinks the problem is and what it is, design a structured system to address it, and drive adoption in environments where behavior change is the hardest part. The scale and tools evolved at Amazon, O'Reilly, and TCW, but the consulting muscle behind them started here.