Melissa Day and her husband, Todd, took a leap of faith in 2023 when they launched the Independent Advisor Team in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. As a husband-and-wife duo under the Fortis Capital Advisors umbrella, they set out to build something personal and local, a boutique advisory practice that offers the “family office” experience to everyday investors. Their approach combines Melissa’s expertise in financial planning and tax strategies with Todd’s focus on investment management, creating a holistic model designed to help clients see the bigger picture of their financial lives.
From the beginning, one of the biggest challenges they faced as a new firm was lead generation. Starting from scratch meant finding a reliable, scalable way to connect with qualified prospects, and SmartAsset quickly became central to that strategy. By targeting their local area through SmartAsset’s platform, the Days were able to meet with clients face to face and grow a steady pipeline. Today, roughly a reported 70% of their business comes from SmartAsset leads, with many of those relationships leading to referrals and long-term clients.
That consistency has paid off. In less than two years, the Independent Advisor Team has closed more than a reported $8.6 million in assets under management (AUM) from SmartAsset leads, while reporting on average 17 new prospects per month. Their disciplined follow-up process, commitment to personalized service, and willingness to nurture leads over time have been key drivers of their success, even converting some prospects years after the initial outreach.
In a recent conversation with SmartAsset founder and CEO Michael Carvin, Melissa discussed how she and Todd have built their firm, refined their outreach through SmartAsset’s Advisor Marketing Platform (AMP), and achieved a strong return on investment by focusing on connection, persistence and client trust.
Looking to grow your business? Learn more about how SmartAsset AMP helps advisors connect and communicate with leads.
Interview Video and Transcript
Michael Carvin: Hi. My name is Michael Carvin. I am the CEO and founder of SmartAsset. Welcome to our Advisor Success Series with Melissa Day.
Melissa Day: Hi there, Michael. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m excited to talk with you and share my experience about the platform.
Michael Carvin: Again, thanks so much for taking the time. We’d love to start by just hearing a little bit about how you got into wealth management and what your practice looks like today.
Melissa Day: Well, I actually began my career in banking and worked for several years there in many different roles, as a branch manager, private banker and the business banking division. I was really interested in learning more about investments and being a financial advisor as I grew up in the financial services industry.
I joined a local RIA in 2010 here in Winston-Salem, and worked there for quite a while, and really learned more about overall comprehensive financial planning and working with clients in that capacity.
There in 2023 my husband Todd and I joined Fortis Capital Advisors, and we decided to start our own company here, the Independent Advisor Team, husband and wife working together, here in Winston-Salem, as this is where we were born and raised. And Fortis really allows us the opportunity to be independent and run our own business and have that autonomy, but providing the support we need for compliance and operations and specialist teams that are available for tax planning, estate and business planning, as well as insurance.
So we really feel like that allows us to be the boutique kind of offering for our clients, and give that “family office” experience that is typically only available for more ultra-high-net-worth clients. We’ve really enjoyed the support that we’ve gotten being part of the Fortis Capital Team.
Michael Carvin: Tell me a little bit about what the ideal client looks like for you, and a little bit more about the service models. Is it financial planning-led?
Melissa Day: Definitely, we lead with financial planning with a real focus on tax strategies. Most everybody you talk to. I’ve never talked to anyone that didn’t want to lower their tax liability. So that’s really key. But also just taking all the pieces of the puzzle and putting them together. I’m certified in the financial planning area, and my husband, Todd, he takes the lead on the investment management, and that’s a super important part, as well, the investments.
But that way we work together as a team and really complement each other. I think that having a husband and wife team allows us to, you know, they kind of get two advisors for one, two people that are intimately aware with what’s going on with our clients. We really want to provide that high level of service and be a team that they can really trust and know that we’re working for their best interest.
Michael Carvin: So that’s really interesting. So do you both work with all of your clients?
Melissa Day: Yes, that may possibly change, but right now, that’s how we’re working with folks and building our business. Starting out in 2023, we pretty much started out from scratch. Finding consistent lead generation resources was incredibly important for us, and it was the key to our success.
SmartAsset was able to target our local area, and a lot of other companies aren’t able to do that, and it’s important for us. We want to be able to meet with people face to face, not virtually. SmartAsset just really was the best fit for us. The number of leads that we could count on receiving on a consistent basis being with the program, you know, 70% of our business has come through the SmartAsset program. So definitely a key to our success.
In addition to referrals and networking in the community, we’ve gotten a lot of referrals from SmartAsset clients. Getting a referral from a client from SmartAsset is just, that’s like gold. It adds to that return on investment and really is a snowball effect, and grows on itself.
Michael Carvin: Can you tell me, how is your account set up? What AMP package are you in? How many leads are you getting on a monthly basis?
Melissa Day: We’re getting an average of 17 leads per month right now. It’s fluctuated over time, but right now we’re getting 17 leads. And we’ve been increasing it steadily over time, and plan on increasing that, as well. But we’ve worked in some of the different tiers, the $1 million-plus and $250,000 and a couple of the lower tiers, right under the $250,000, but right now we’re at $250,000 to $1 million, and that’s really the sweet spot for us.
We also find a lot of times that people underreport when they’re filling out the questionnaire. Our experience has been, with someone with $250,000 to $500,000 in assets, they tend to be quicker to close, and there’s less complex planning involved. And I’ll take that all day long, in the $250,000 to $500,000 range. So people that have a higher net worth or $1 million-plus, they tend to have more complex planning. It tends to take a little longer to close on those clients. So they may be looking for a larger firm.
Michael Carvin: It makes a lot of sense. Do you remember how much you’re spending per month in your current package?
Melissa Day: 15 to 17, I think we’re targeting the $2,000-a-month range, which, working with the sales reps has been great, too. That’s another part of the program that we really appreciate. It’s been really helpful. Reaching out, especially getting started and onboarding, they’re very supportive, providing tools and helping to recommend ways to reach out through content, or your cadence and how often to contact, and how to use the training on the OAT platform. There’s some pre-programmed campaigns, but also how to customize those to what you want to do and your own cadence. That’s been really helpful, and anytime you have a question about anything, reach out to them. They’ll help you stick with the program when you’re going through a slow period.
It’s good to talk to them about that and reach out, and they can reinforce that you gotta stay persistent. You gotta stick with the phone. The slow part is, that’s just time to maybe take advantage to reevaluate your processes and fine-tune those, and also reach out to some of the older leads that maybe have fallen off your radar if you haven’t been able to connect with them.
I mean, just a couple of months ago, we closed the second SmartAsset lead we’d ever received when we started the program, like two years ago, we finally closed. We have been talking and just kept calling this person back. People are busy in their life, and meeting with a financial advisor is not on the top of their list, for most of them, unless they have a really urgent need that they’re looking for. A lot of times they reach out to the program and they were just interested in learning a little bit about some type of tax strategy or estate planning, or looking at retirement, whatever question that drew them into the program.
Michael Carvin: I think one of the things that people really underestimate is the number of people who come back later and re-engage because the timing may not have just been right initially, and so those connections can be really valuable.
Melissa, you mentioned some of the marketing tools that SmartAsset offers that you’re currently using. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What tools are you using? Are you using some of the marketing automation capabilities that we offer, outreach automation? Can you tell us a little about what you’re using?
Melissa Day: We have a 1-to-40 day campaign that we’ve built out, and then we’ve got the start of a new campaign, 50 to 180 days so, and we tweak those over the course of time, on what we include on there, but really the functions we’re using in the campaign is the automated emails. We also use the connection tool that tells you who you’re supposed to call every day and keeps you on track with that. I love the new newsletter that’s available now. It’s a great resource, and something that I think could benefit a lot of people to plug into there.
Michael Carvin: So you’re using the marketing, simply marketing automations, the email nurturing. Can you tell us what’s the average month? You’re getting 17 leads per month, $250,000 to $1 million. Tell us about what your contact rate is. Is it pretty metrics-focused? How many consumer meetings are you trying to get? How many closes are you trying to get in a month?
Melissa Day: Okay, well, let’s kind of start with our connection rate. It’s really around 60% to 65% of the leads that come in, and we basically have a closing ratio of 7% for all of our leads. Basically that comes down to, for every 14 leads we get, we close one household out of every two and a half to three meetings. So we feel really good about those numbers. We’re always trying to fine-tune and increase them, obviously, but we feel like that’s really strong return on investment, and this is a net number after expenses.
For every dollar that we spend in the program, we’re making two and a quarter, and that’s a net return on investment. And we think that’s wonderful. And really that’s not including any of the insurance that we made, commissions, or anything like along those lines that we offer. So it’s purely based on the AUM that we’ve brought in.
Michael Carvin: So you’re closing roughly one client a month. Two and a quarter times is your ROI. Can you talk big picture? How many clients have you closed? How much AUM have you raised?
Melissa Day: From SmartAsset, right now we’ve got, I think 20, maybe 21 or 22 households, of assets under management from SmartAsset as of last week. We believe $8,645,000 is where we are in the program, and we’re really celebrating that. And you know, looking to bring that up to $10 million by the end of the year. Like you said, our goal is really to sit down with people, and we want to be a resource and help answer their questions. That’s how we lead in. That’s our commitment to the SmartAsset program. That’s why we’re advisors in the program. We offer them two hours of financial planning and build out a base plan for them with no obligation. We’re not selling anything unless it’d be a good fit and a value for both of us. And when we meet with them, we tell them, this is your time. What do you want to accomplish in this meeting, what’s important to you? And keeping the focus on them and not us.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution by any means. So I think people understand that we genuinely care about them and love our job. And I wake up every day, it’s the reason my feet hit the ground. I just love meeting with people and having that positive impact and knowing that I’m making that positive impact on their lives, not just with clients, but with our personal relationships, too.
Michael Carvin: What advice do you have for an advisor that may be struggling, that may not have the conversion rates up as high. If there’s one piece of advice that you would give an advisor that’s not doing as well, that’s not closing as much, what would that be?
Melissa Day: Stick with it. Stay consistent. Keep picking up the phone calls. The more you do it, the more comfortable you’re going to get with it, the more genuine you’re going to be. Like I said, being a resource and just finding out what prompted them to reach out to SmartAsset when they went on the platform, and being there to answer their questions. And getting them to let their guard down, because they’ve been getting… we all get a lot of phone calls and a lot of texts and sales, and as an advisor, you’ve got a high level of knowledge and expertise, and it’s valuable. And every time you pick up that phone and call somebody, you’re doing them a service. You’re reaching out to help them.
Michael Carvin: How many times will you call a consumer before giving up?
Melissa Day: We don’t stop until they tell us to stop. Okay, we call, call, call. You know, we’ve been in a program, if we’ve got a lead that’s been on there for, you know, two years, we’re still calling them unless they say “do not call” or told us they’re not interested.
So they get dripped on through our weekly newsletter and different resources. They go into our email campaigns. And obviously we call less and less over time. You know, when they have a three-month, and then they move to a six-month kind of outreach. But, just keep calling.
Michael Carvin: Well, Melissa, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I think our advisors can get a lot of value out of this discussion. So thank you and congrats on all the success.
Transcript may contain errors.
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