Samantha Russell returns to the podcast to explore how AI acts as the gatekeeper for business visibility, and what you can do to stand out.

To learn more or to have Samantha speak at your next event, visit fmgsuite.com.

Hi I’m John.

And I’m Julie.

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Fund’s human-centric investing podcast.

Every other week we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

Let’s go!

Samantha, welcome to the Human Centric Investing podcast. We’re so excited to be here with you today.

Thank you so much for having me.

Samantha, Julie and I have talked to you in the past about how a financial professional might put herself or himself out there for people to find, but there’s another side of the equation, which honestly, I’m probably lagging on, and that’s how to get found. I’m just now starting to learn more about search engine optimization, and now people are talking about AI is kind of leaving that in the dust. So tell us a little bit about the evolution of how people are finding information on financial professionals today versus how they did it maybe a couple of decades ago.

Sure. So, I mean, even if you, you know, people, like you said, a lot of people are still thinking about SEO and now it feels like that’s getting surpassed. If you think even just of your own search behavior, don’t even think just for financial professionals, but just in general, right? A few years ago, if you wanted to find something, you would go to Google. Let’s say you wanted it to find the best restaurant to eat at when you were visiting New York, the best That’s all good. So you would type in, you know, the best burger restaurant in New York, and you’d get a list of results on the page. So you’d have that big bold text you could click on, and it might say, ranked the top 20 burgers in New york. And then under it might save our food and wine editors, you know, have gone and made this list for you. And so you’d read what each of those links said before you decided which of those things you were going to click on and then Google. Would always look at what links were getting clicked and then how long people spend on the page once they were there and were constantly retooling in what order that list went. So your ranking could change and where you fell on the list could change based upon user behavior and so that’s why people would change what they wrote in their meta description and their title, all that good stuff. Now, if you, whether you go into Google or you go straight to ChatGPT or another AI tool, you ask a question and it does not give you a list of websites to click. It gives you the answer straight up. So there is no more you deciding which of those things to click, you’re going to read all of the information given to you and then you have a choice to make. And usually the AI tools now ask you about follow up. So it might say, you know, here’s the five restaurants. That are highly recommended as burger restaurants, would you like me to give you their information so you can make a reservation? Would you like to tell you their opening hours? And so it’s giving us the answer, not giving us the option to keep searching. So people still do use Google, but because Google has layered on their own AI to Google, we are all now using AI powered search, whether we’re intending to or not. So there’s three things that really have come into play with how these AI-powered searches work. And I’ll just give them an overview, then you can kind of decide what we want to dive into. But it’s reviews, then reputation, and then how your content is actually formatted. So those are the three things that they’re using to decide which of those businesses to show you when you’re asking a question.

That’s so interesting. I had never really thought about that differentiator, but you’re absolutely right in chat GPT or whatever, you know, AI platform, right. It gives you the answer, not necessarily where to click. That’s just fascinating that distinction. So if I’m a financial professional, how, what should I start to do? I mean, obviously we have, you know, let’s start with reviews. Let’s just start there. Um, I probably even, uh, maybe a lesser. Detail for a financial professional, depending on how many clients have maybe written in, but give us your thoughts on that for our industry.

Yes. And you know, one of the things to note is even if you’re not asking for reviews or your compliance team has not yet approved for you to ask for reviews, people can still be talking about your business in other places that these AI tools are searching. So because these LLMs, what they really prioritize are real feedback from real humans. So they know that businesses can say anything about themselves. They want to know how has a real human who’s this service or gone to this business. And had an experience, what do they have to say about it? So they scour things like Google reviews, Yelp, Facebook, you can leave reviews for businesses on Facebook, but also Facebook community forums. So people will ask about, hey, has anybody used this person for insurance or anybody invested their money with this advisor? They scour that, they’ll look at things like Reddit. And so these are not always things you can control, but people just talking about your business. Online. But if you are able to solicit reviews, that is the one thing you can’t control. And there are services out there that are compliant that some financial professionals that I work with who are not able to ask for Google reviews are able to use. So there’s things like vouched for, wealth tender, testimonial IQ, I think is another one. So that, you know, you can use these other services sometimes if you’re not able to ask for Google reviews. But one of the things to know is that the AI tools are so smart, obviously, that they’re not just looking for, do you have a five-star review, they’re looking for what are people saying in the context of the review. So if you want to be known as the person that helps business owners with succession planning and insurance and tax strategy. Then people writing in their review, I worked with Samantha, I own a small business here in Cleveland, Ohio. And she really helped me think about my succession plan and minimize my taxes. Like they’re gonna look at those key words. And so when someone’s asking the question, they’ll pay attention to the context, not just how many stars did you get.

So Samantha, I was kind of raised in the industry where reviews were like verboten, like do not ask about them, do not market. It’s advertising and you’re just going to get crushed. It sounds to me like it might be a good idea for financial professionals, at least to talk to their compliance people about what is permitted, because my fear would be, you know, if I can’t say to my client, hey, if you’ve been happy with your experience, I’d love for you to give me a positive review online because we all know. That the negatives are going to be posted, the positives are the ones that people forget about, and if what you said is true, I could get really crushed.

Right. And I think, you know, if you start searching for financial advisors in any city, you will see so many people popping up now who do have reviews and not just independent, you know. All right. Is there across the country compliance teams have really realized, especially with the SEC rule that came out. I think initially everybody was waiting to see how would it be interpreted? What kind of lawsuits would we see? But now that that has the dust sort of settled. There’s certain practices that you can do to make sure that you’re being compliant. So you need to make that every single client has the opportunity to leave you a review and knows where to leave those reviews. And if you ever publish reviews, like on your website or anything, you always want to have a link that says, read all of our reviews on Google or read all our reviews here so that you are always making it accessible for folks. I am not a compliance attorney, let me be clear about that. So you absolutely want to work with somebody who knows the ins and outs of the law. But I can say that I have worked with firms all over the country that are doing this in a compliant way and it really does matter in this new AI powered search world.

Outside of the reviews, what else can financial professionals think about to make their business more AI friendly?

So let’s talk about the two things that I know everyone listening can do. The second one is, so remember we said reviews and then reputation. So reputation is all about how much does the AI tool, the LLM see you as an expert or having authority in the subject matter that is being asked about. So if you think about when we, if you yourself, how you search for things now, it isn’t just financial advisor near me anymore. It’s. Especially with these AI tools, it’s I’m a widowed mom of three kids and I am looking for a financial advisor who can help me with x, y, and z. So they’re so specific in the search queries that we do with these chat tools now. And so if you’ve ever written an article about how you work with widows or you’ve written an articles about the specific question the person’s asking, your chances of coming up are so much higher. So what you really want to do is be the most obvious answer, is what I like to say, to the question, who’s good at providing advice about this? So you can contribute articles. You can obviously have a blog. If you can get somebody to invite you on their podcast, maybe there’s somebody who’s a local CPA and they have a podcast or they have a blog. And you can be invited as the expert or the guest, any of these different content formats where you’re showing that you understand what it is that you’re talking about that leads directly to your services, that is really, really going to up your chances. And you can even start right now, you know, go to chat GPT and ask who’s the best and then fill in whatever your niche is. Who’s the financial advisor, financial professional for, fill in what your niche is, in, put in your city. And see what comes up, and then ask, why did you choose these people? And it will tell you, and then you can figure out what you need to do to get more visibility, but all that content really, really helps.

No, that’s, you know, I spoke at a physician’s conference recently, and the doctors were telling me that their patients are now coming in saying, I know we’ve worked with you for 20 years, but I’m actually going to a person who now specializes in XYZ because they found them right through their AI search engine or whatever it was. So I think it is really, really important. And I guess, you know, one of the resources, Samantha’s just talking with, uh, you know, affiliates or associates in the field. I know, you know we have a network of, of sales representatives across the country, but I know Julie and I work with our PR team all the time. And for the, with the 24 hour demand for content, there’s always a request, Hey, do you know a financial professional who does this or who specializes in this? And I think just for the financial professionals listening, being able to share with your wholesaler network, for example, that, Hey, If you ever have an opportunity, I’m more than willing to talk about this, that, or the other, can really help get a lead in that area. Because I imagine that these engines search for anywhere that you’re quoted and the topic that you are quoted on. I would think it’s more important now than ever.

100%. And, you know, we recorded a podcast all about video marketing. This is one of the other main reasons to really get over your fear and put yourself out there. If you have some videos talking about specific topics and you send them to people, you are so much more likely than to be asked to come talk about that on a podcast because you’ve proven you can add value and speak eloquently about it. So that’s such a great way. If you’ve never been on a podcast before, you’ve ever given a presentation and you wanna start doing that, just record some videos of yourself talking about that topic and people will say, oh, Samantha knows about this topic and she has some great insights and we can have her on. But absolutely, don’t wait for the opportunity to come to you. Being proactive is the better way to go.

Would you encourage a financial professional to start using some AI platforms, even in their personal life, if it’s not even for business, but just to really understand it and get to know it a little bit better so that they can maybe wrap their minds around it, especially if they have just stuck with the traditional Google approach? One.

Yes, I think anytime you want to start, you know, utilizing something or you want to figure out how to capitalize it on it for your business, you need to be a consumer of it in order to understand it. And they’re all a little bit different. So if you go and ask the same question against perplexity, clods, anthropic, Google Gemini, chat GPT, co-pilot, you will get different answers. Which is really interesting. And you, with all of them though, I would ask, why did you give me this answer? And then you can even say, I’m a financial advisor in this area and I’d like to be the answer given in a future request. What can I do to improve? And they will, the AI will tell you, which is very interesting. I mean, it’s not gonna give you a complete blueprint, but it will give you some guidance of what you can do. Just know that the more that you talk about a certain topic, the more it’s going to pigeonhole you on that one thing. So if you’re talking some about financial planning and some about investment management and some of this insurance, it sort of dilutes the message. So I would choose One or two things that you really want to be known for and that you feel like the most clients are struggling with that pinpoint and that’s where they’re coming in the door and wrap most of your content around that. You’ll have a much better chance of making your way to the top for those types of queries.

Samantha, would it make sense then that kind of growing your professional network, certainly accountants, certainly estate planning attorneys, but maybe even beyond that to services that your clients are using so that you may get invited to speak at one of their events, or you may write in a newsletter for them or something like that. I would think that that would make you even more desirable from an AI standpoint. Would that be accurate?

100%. So if you work with, you know, physicians and doctors, and you can go to a conference where all these doctors are there and you’re listed on the agenda, you can scrape the agenda’s website, see the Mayo Clinic hosted John to talk about financial planning for physicians. And that’s a credible source with domain authority, linking back to you 100%. But even if you worked with a lot of retirees and you are going at the local library and giving a talk, Um, and it’s got those keywords, retirement income planning for, you know, people over 65 at the Cleveland public library. And you want to be known as someone who helps people with retirement income planning in Cleveland, that is going to help you. It’s having the domain be not associated with your website or your profile. It’s somebody external from you signals trust that somebody beyond you and your business sees you as an expert.

What are your thoughts on financial professional teams and using their formal team name versus individual names, especially when people are searching or trying to find the right fit? You know, I know some teams have names that are, you know, some sort of a third party entity, right? Nothing to do with their names and some names are all the last names. What are you thoughts on that just from an AI friendly perspective? So,

I don’t think actually the naming convention is going to matter as much in that regard. The one thing you do want to do is be consistent in what you use. So for instance, let’s say I’m Russell Wealth Management, Samantha Russell. But then on my website, in my footer, I have Russell Wealth Management LLC. So like every, on my LinkedIn and everywhere, I don’t have the LLC there. And then when I spell out my address, I spell it out, sweet S-U-I-T-E street S-T E-E-T, or I missed an R in there, but you get the idea, um, I’m spelling everything out and then on my linkedin profile, I shortened it to STE period for speed and streets just ST period. That actually is harder for any kind of search engine. And this was the case with SEO too. To recognize that it’s the same business listings. So, however you write out your name, so I wouldn’t just be Sam in some places and Samantha others, you want to be consistent on your Google business page, all your social profiles, your website footer, your email communications. That’s the most important thing. But if you’re asking more from like a branding perspective, it is easier if you have a more common name Um, to... You know, match your name with your business if you use it in both cases, right? So like if you’re just John Smith, that’s a pretty, you know a name that is used many different ways. So having it always be, you, know an advisor at so-and-so financial is going to make it a little easier for the AI to recognize that you’re different than this other John Smith.

That’s great guidance. The details matter, right?

Yeah.

Samantha, if I wanted to broaden my reach, do I have to be careful about how many times I say, hey, John’s in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. John spoke at Myrte Beach. John’s here at Myrrtle Beach. Does it matter or not? Would I be better off to accept invitations if I get invited to speak in Texas or California to appear as a broader expert in the area, or am I okay just talking about what I’ve done locally?

Yes, you do not just be focused on local. I mean, it’s fine. There’s still people that are, you know, set focus more on local search. But I’m just probably.

But it’ll probably find me anyway, right? Because my address is gonna be out there.

So just this year, Wealth Tender, which is a company that I just did a presentation with, they actually did a study of people who had $100,000 or more to invest, but it really ran the gamut. There was ultra high net worth. And then they asked them all different questions. And over 33%, more than a third, said that they actually would prefer for the to not be. Or not that they prefer, but that they care less where the person is located, basically. That they’re more interested in, are they specifically going to be like my niche? Are they specific to working with people like me? And that number I think is only gonna change. And if we look at the percentage of people who are meeting in office, it’s really gone down. So I think it’s fine to still include your location, obviously, and you might have multiple locations. The strategy of what you focus on for keywords should be more focused on who you serve and the types of questions they’re asking, which actually leads me to the third thing of those three things with AI, which is the way you format your content, which we can get into if you guys are interested. It’s really focused on what are the questions people ask because with all of these AI tools, we are no longer making statements. We’re asking very detailed questions. So the more that you can be the best answer for that detailed question, the better. And so the more specific you can add content that is a question and then an answer. A question and an answer, right? So it might be before five things to know before you claim social security. Now it might, you know, should I claim social-security early? And four other questions we get asked the most. Then you ask each one of those questions as the title in the content, and then you have the answer. Then on the back end, you skin a little technical, but you can ask your web designer or developer, whoever helps you with your website, to add something called Schema Markup, and that really gives you a leg up because it’s like a back-end code way to tell AI. This was the question, and then this is how I answered it. This was a question. This is how it answered it, and because they’re so question and answer driven, they love that, and it really, really helps you rank high.

Samantha makes me laugh because I just think recently, I took something where I had written an answer, basically written a presentation and I took it to AI and said, reformat this as question and answer. And it did a beautiful job, right? So maybe if you’re comfortable writing on something, that’s fine, but in order to fit that format that you just mentioned, maybe it’s best to ask AI to help you do that.

100%. I mean, that’s one of the things I think AI shines at is taking any kind of content and reformatting it, whether it’s into a presentation, if it’s in to a video script, if it’s been to a blog post. And you can also write something or if let’s say you have old blogs on your website, you know, go to any of these AI tools and say, I want to update this for 2025 and make it more question and answer driven and have new stats. Can you help me? That’s a great way to go back and reuse your. Repurpose your old contact.

That’s awesome.

That is awesome. Well, Samantha, I’ve learned so much today. Thank you so much. And because it’s the Human Centric Investing Podcast, if you’re willing, we would love to take you into our lightning round and continue to get to know a little bit more about you.

Absolutely.

Perfect. Well, let’s get started. What’s your favorite quote or sort of life mantra?

Um, I’m really, really into stoicism and I use it to guide just how I kind of get through challenges or think about different things and you know, one of the main tenets of it is that we can’t control most of life, but what we can control our own thoughts and how we think about things. And so there’s a quote that it’s not what happens to you, it’s your perception of it that is really the reality, makes your reality. And I love.

Oh, that is incredible.

What’s the first concert that you ever went to?

O-A-R, I don’t know if any of you know what that is, or remember that. I grew up in Ohio and they were a big band back then.

What’s your favorite season of the year?

Summer, I love the warm weather and the kids out of school and lack of waking up at the butt cracker trying to catch the bus.

Packing lunches.

Right.

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A teacher, a teacher, which is nice because I feel like I am still teaching just.

You just did.

Yeah.

What was your favorite board game as a kid?

Oh, there was this game called Mall Madness where you had to, like you would go to the mall. It was a very 80s game. You went to the mall and you had go to different stores and collect different shopping bags and there was a feature in the middle where you would press something and it would talk which was so exciting. That was definitely my favorite game.

And my last question is, are you a morning person or a night owl?

Morning all the way. I wake up at about 430 every morning and just naturally like, but I’m ready for bed at 9 p.m.

Amen.

I hear you.

What’s your favorite guilty pleasure TV show?

I’m going to sound like such a nerd, but I do not watch any TV at all. I just have found that I don’t have time for it this season in my life. I used to love, again, sounded like such an nerd, on PBS. A good Rick Steves documentary about travel was always good. But right now me and my kids, if I do watch TV, it’s with them, like a Friday night show because they don’t watch screens during the week. So they love Friday night shows and we’ll watch. Any kind of competition. So there’s like the British Bake Off shows or Mr. Beast had like a series where they had to go and do these different games. So yeah, any kind of like game shows like that with the kids.

Very cool.

That’s great.

Well, again, Samantha, we can’t thank you enough for joining us here again today on the Human Centric Investing Podcast. And for our listeners, if you would like to know more about Samantha and the work that she does, please feel free to visit her website at fmgsuite.com. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Hartford Funds Human Centric Investing podcast. If you’d like to tune in for more episodes, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

And if you’d like to be a guest and share your best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us at guestbooking at HartfordFunds.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Talk to you soon.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest who is not affiliated with Hartford Funds.