AI Can Help You Become Uncomparable

The best use of AI isn’t replacing what you do. It’s deepening what makes you different.

Yes, I talked about AI last week. And yes, I said we’re all tired of hearing about it. I’m sorry. Here we go again.

There is still a lot of uncertainty about how AI will impact financial advisors. But while people debate that question, I’m starting to see how advisors are already using it to better serve their clients.

In different advisor communities and conversations I’m part of, I’m seeing advisors build entirely new tools for their clients using Claude’s artifact feature. An artifact is an interactive tool, such as a calculator, decision-making app, or comparison chart, that the AI builds for you right inside the conversation. You don’t need to know how to code. You describe what you want, and it creates it. You can then share it with clients via a link.

One of my clients, who works with physicians, used this feature to build a calculator that helps doctors in a medical group evaluate their benefits options. It’s specific to their situation, specific to their decisions, and far more useful than a generic online tool.

And that’s the key: When you have a niche, you can build tools that no one else would think to build because you understand the nuances of what makes your clients different. A generalist advisor wouldn’t know the specific benefits a doctor in a medical group is weighing. A niche advisor does.

I talk about this concept in “Chapter 8: Business Model” of my book, Uncomparable: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Standing Out Through Niche Marketing. Advisors who fully commit to their niche design their entire business around their ideal client, including the tools, processes, and experiences they offer. AI just makes that faster and more accessible. You don’t need a developer or a budget for custom software. You need an understanding of your niche and a clear idea of what would help them. That’s how AI helps you become uncomparable.

A note: Be thoughtful about what information any tool you build collects or displays. Do not build anything that requests information that could create compliance issues for your firm.

The takeaway: AI is most powerful when paired with niche expertise. The advisors who know their clients deeply enough to build something specifically for them will always have an advantage over both generalists and algorithms.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

AI Tips That Are Practical, Not Hype

Here’s how to use AI to standardize your firm’s marketing and communication.

I know. You’re tired of hearing about AI. I am too. But I found a really useful tool that I think can help streamline your marketing and communications.

In mid-January, my team switched to Claude after testing it for a single day. The output was just that much better than what we were getting from ChatGPT. But one of the things I am liking the most is not the original reason we switched: Skills. (I’ve heard ChatGPT now has something similar, but I haven’t tested it.)

A skill is a set of instructions that you write once and that the AI follows every time. Think of it like a standard operating procedures manual that your AI actually reads. You define the rules, the structure, the tone, and the guardrails, and the AI applies them automatically to every piece of content it produces. You don’t have to re-explain your preferences every time you start a new conversation. And because skills can be deployed across your entire organization, everyone on your team is working from the same playbook instead of each person producing things their own way.

Here’s how we use them, and how you could do the same.

SEC Compliance. Everything written for marketing purposes needs to comply with SEC marketing guidelines. We built a skill that ensures the AI won’t produce content with testimonial language, performance claims, superlatives, or other common violations. If you upload a first draft, it will rewrite the language to be compliant. It doesn’t replace a compliance review, but it means the draft that reaches your compliance team is already clean.

Writing Style. We follow Associated Press style with a few modifications, so we created a skill that enforces those rules in everything the AI produces. If your firm has a style guide or even just a set of preferences, you can teach the AI to follow them. Maybe you don’t want your firm to use Oxford commas or em dashes. Or you spell out numbers at different thresholds. Instead of remembering every rule, the skill handles it.

Writing Voice. If you’ve built up a library of original writing, podcast transcripts, or video transcripts, you can create a skill that teaches the AI how you sound. Sentence structure, word choice, tone, how you open an article, how you close one. The output isn’t perfect, but it’s a much better starting point than generic AI copy.

Content Structures. Over time, most firms develop specific ways of doing things. A newsletter follows a certain format. Blog posts have a preferred structure. Social media posts hit certain beats. Client welcome emails, meeting follow-ups, and annual review summaries all have a way they should read. You can build a skill for each type so the AI produces first drafts in your structure rather than inventing its own.

The best part: If you’re on a team plan, skills deploy at the organization level. Your team doesn’t need to know these skills exist for them to work. If a new advisor sits down to write an article with the assistance of AI, the AI will automatically write it in your firm’s style, in the voice you’ve defined, in your standard article structure, and it will flag anything that might raise a compliance issue. The advisor didn’t have to know any of those rules existed.

Don’t know how to create a skill? Just ask Claude to help you build one.

The takeaway: AI gets more useful when you teach it how your firm actually works. If you’re using AI for marketing and communication, take the time to define your style, voice, compliance rules, and content structures.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

You Don't Own Your Social Media Audience

Every social media platform eventually changes the rules. The only question is when.

If this topic sounds familiar, it's because I write some version of this article almost every year. And every year, there's a new example proving the same point.

Let’s start with Facebook. Its business pages used to be a legitimate organic channel. In 2012, an average post reached about 16% of its followers. Today, that number is between 1% and 2%. Facebook didn't announce "we're turning off your free reach." They just slowly turned the dial until paying became the only option.

Next, Twitter became X overnight after an ownership change, and businesses that spent years building an audience watched the platform shift beneath them.

Finally, Google+ shut down entirely in 2019. If you'd invested time there, that audience simply disappeared.

Now it's LinkedIn's turn. LinkedIn was one of the last platforms where organic reach still worked the way social media was originally supposed to. You connected with someone, you posted, they saw it. Not anymore. According to the Algorithm InSights 2025 report, LinkedIn views are down 50% year over year, engagement has dropped 25%, and follower growth has declined 59%. Company pages now reach only about 1.6% of their followers. And if you've noticed LinkedIn suggesting you boost your posts more often, that's not a coincidence. It's the same playbook Facebook ran a decade ago.

This is the life cycle of every social media platform. They launch with a generous organic reach to attract users. Once the audience is there, they reduce visibility to push businesses toward paid advertising. It's not a conspiracy. It's a business model.

The lesson isn't to avoid social media. It still has a role. The lesson is to never let a platform you don't control be the primary way you reach your audience. Get your social media followers onto a list you own: email, SMS, or even a physical address. If the algorithm changes tomorrow, or a platform shuts down, or ownership changes the rules, you still have a direct line to the people who have chosen to hear from you.

The takeaway: Social media platforms will always change the rules. Build your audience there, but don't store it there. When you move your social media followers to your owned lists, you will never be at the mercy of an algorithm update, an ownership change, or a platform that decides your content is no longer worth showing for free.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

Setting Growth Goals Isn't Enough

Firms love setting targets. They rarely provide the support to hit them.

Does this sound familiar? Leadership sets growth expectations for advisors, teams, or offices. "Bring in $X in new revenue this year" or "Generate Y new clients."

Then they step back and wait for results. And when the goals aren't met, they're surprised.

What's missing? Support to actually get there. The goal is clear. The path to get there isn't.

Who should this advisor focus on? How should they reach these people? What activities should they focus on each quarter? Once they commit, are they actually doing what they committed to? Who is helping them stay accountable? Who is helping them reflect and adjust each quarter to meet their goals? Who can they turn to when they hit a roadblock?

Most firms don't have a system in place to answer these questions. They set the expectation and assume advisors will figure it out. Some advisors try generic tactics that don't work. Others do nothing because they don't know where to start. Either way, the firm ends up frustrated that goals aren't being met, and advisors feel set up to fail.

If you want to do things differently, here's what it takes:

First, strategy. Who should this advisor focus on? What are the best channels to reach them? Advisors don't naturally think this way, so they need help developing a clear strategy.

Second, a plan. What tactics should they focus on this quarter? And the quarter after that? A plan turns strategy into actionable steps and prevents advisors from spinning their wheels on low-impact activities.

Third, ongoing support. Who is checking in on progress? Who helps them troubleshoot when things aren't working? Who removes obstacles that prevent them from moving forward? Without this, even good plans stall.

Firms have great intentions to help their teams hit goals, but without a support system in place, team members are unlikely to achieve those goals.

The takeaway: If you're going to set revenue or client expectations for your advisors, you need to invest in the strategy, plan, and support that make achievement possible. Anything less is setting them up to fail.

If your firm is ready to provide this level of strategic support to your advisors, schedule a call to learn how OnNiche® can help.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

Why Tomorrow's Marketing Will Look More Like 2000 Than 2020

The future of advisor marketing isn't more technology. It's more human.

Last week, I published a piece on my Substack about how AI is fundamentally changing the marketing landscape for financial advisors. The core argument: The pandemic forced advisors onto digital channels, and now AI is forcing us to rethink what actually works.

👉 Read the full article here

Most people assume the answer to AI is more technology. More AI tools. More automation. More digital. I think the opposite is true. Tomorrow's most effective financial advisor marketing is going to look a lot more like 2000 than 2020.

Here's why: The digital world is becoming static noise. So much content floods every channel that it all blurs together. But while digital gets noisier and more impersonal, the value of genuine human-to-human interaction is going up. We're in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. People are craving real connection.

Think about what actually builds trust: sitting across from someone at a small dinner, showing up at industry events, hosting quarterly gatherings where people know each other by name. That's an old-school relationship strategy. And it's the future.

Physical touchpoints matter more than ever, too. An automated email gets deleted. A handwritten birthday card stays on someone's desk for a week. In a world where every interaction is increasingly digital and automated, something you can hold in your hands stands out precisely because it's rare.

The takeaway: The pandemic taught us that digital was essential. AI is teaching us that digital alone isn't enough. The advisors who recognize this shift early, investing in human connection and physical presence, won't be scrambling to adapt when the rest of the industry catches up.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

A New Case for Focusing on a Niche: AI Can't Replace What It Can't Access

AI is about to make generic financial advice worthless. But niche expertise? That's still invaluable.

I wrote my book Uncomparable: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Standing Out Through Niche Marketing about why focusing on a niche is so valuable for financial advisors. The core argument: When you specialize, you become the obvious choice for a specific type of client rather than one option among thousands of generalists. You stand out. You build a reputation that generates referrals.

But there's a new reason to focus on a niche that I didn't anticipate when I wrote the book: AI.

AI is getting very good at basic financial planning advice. It can explain fundamental concepts, suggest standard strategies, and walk someone through generic planning scenarios. For basic financial advice, AI will soon be able to advise on much of what generalist advisors do today. And it will do it faster and cheaper.

But here's what AI can't replace: the pattern recognition and contextual expertise that comes from working deeply within a specific niche.

When you've spent years working with business owners preparing to sell their companies, you know the real timeline isn't what the investment bankers promise. You've seen what happens when someone doesn't properly plan for taxes on the sale. You know which wealth management mistakes newly liquid entrepreneurs make in their first year post-exit. You know exactly which attorney, which insurance specialist, which tax preparer to connect a client with for their specific situation. That knowledge isn't documented anywhere AI can access. It's in your head, built from watching the same patterns play out dozens of times.

This is the knowledge that matters most to clients, and it's the knowledge AI can't easily replicate. Why? Because it exists in the minds of people with deep experience in a niche, not in training data.

Generic financial planning advice will become commoditized by AI. But niche expertise built from years of focused experience? That becomes more valuable, not less.

The takeaway: AI will make generalist financial advice a commodity. The advisors who thrive will be the ones with deep niche expertise that can't be easily replicated because it exists in experience, not documentation. If you've been on the fence about specializing, this is your signal.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

The Best Marketing Investment for Your Youngest Advisors

Your 25-year-old advisor might not be ready to bring in clients. But they're perfectly positioned to build the relationships that will.

I see advisory firms struggle with this question: What marketing should our youngest advisors be doing, if anything? They're too early in their careers to have real credibility with prospects. They can contribute to the firm's content marketing, but there is an even better marketing activity these young advisors are uniquely positioned to do: building relationships with future centers of influence (COIs) who can become referral partners.

Think about it. Your 25-year-old advisor can't easily connect with a 55-year-old business owner who needs exit planning. The credibility gap is too wide. But they can absolutely connect with a 26-year-old attorney at a large law firm or a 27-year-old CPA at a local accounting practice. Because they are peers, the relationship is natural and not forced.

Here's what makes this so valuable: These young professionals are building their own careers at the same time. In five or ten years, that attorney might be a partner bringing in estate planning clients who need wealth management. That CPA might have their own book of high-net-worth clients. And when they do, who will they think of first? The advisor who built a real relationship with them early, before everyone else was competing for their attention.

The key is setting the right expectations. You shouldn't set the expectation with your advisors that anything will come from these relationships in the short term. These young COIs aren't established enough yet to be consistent referral sources. Some might work at firms where they can occasionally refer, but that's not the point. The point is building strong relationships now, during a unique window before these professionals already have referral partners locked in.

This is relationship-building without the pressure of immediate results. Your young advisor can focus on building genuine relationships, staying connected, and establishing trust over time. They're not asking for referrals. They're just building a network of peers who will grow their careers together.

The takeaway: You don't need to wait until your youngest advisors have credibility with prospects to start their marketing efforts. Put them to work building relationships with future referral partners now, while they're peers. It's an investment that compounds over years.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

Why Your Marketing Budget Shouldn't Be Divided Equally Across the Year

Consistent spending doesn't guarantee consistent results.

When it comes to a marketing budget, it's easy to fall into the habit of dividing it equally across the year: $10K per month, every month, like clockwork. A little spending in January, a little in February, steady through December. The thinking is that consistent spending means consistent results.

But it doesn't. Steady spending doesn't create steady results. You end up wasting money in months when no one is paying attention to your marketing and not investing enough when they are.

The ebook The Lightning Strike Strategy, by Category Pirates, argues that the most effective marketing isn't evenly distributed across the year. It's concentrated. Instead of spreading resources thin across 12 months, you focus 70% of your budget on two to four major initiatives per year, investing heavily when it matters most.

For financial advisory firms, this might mean going all-in during the months when your niche is most likely to make decisions. Maybe you invest heavily around the start of the year, around the end of tax season, and early fall when prospects are already thinking about their finances, and pull back in November, December, and the summer months when nobody's paying attention.

This doesn't mean everything else stops during the quiet months. Some activities require a consistent budget regardless: your marketing technology like email and website costs, podcast production, or a networking breakfast you attend every month. But the big-money campaigns get concentrated in the windows where they can actually move the needle.

This makes perfect sense when you hear it, but it's rarely how firms operate. Most advisors default to even monthly spending because it's easier to budget. But you'll spend your money more wisely and get better returns when you invest in attracting clients during the windows when they're actually ready to hire you.

The takeaway: Strategic concentration beats equal distribution. When you focus your marketing budget on the right moments and give those initiatives the resources to actually break through, you get results.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

Are Your Next-Gen Advisors Business Development or Service Advisors?

Not every advisor who wants ownership is built for what ownership requires.

A pattern keeps showing up in my work with advisory firms: A talented next-generation advisor who was hired to service existing clients starts asking about ownership. They're good at their job. They care about the firm. They want to build something long-term. But when the ownership conversation happens, it stalls. Why? Because firm owners aren't confident that these advisors can bring in new business.

It's a fair concern. Servicing clients and developing business require different skill sets, different mindsets, and different levels of comfort with uncertainty. An advisor can be exceptional at one and struggle with the other. The challenge is figuring out which type of advisor you have before making ownership decisions that affect the entire firm's future.

Working with advisors through our OnNiche® program has taught me something: The difference between a business development advisor and a service advisor shows up almost immediately—not in what they say they want, but in how they behave when given the opportunity.

Business development advisors engage quickly. They're anxious to build their plan. They ask questions about implementation. They start taking action, even when it feels uncomfortable. They treat business development as a challenge to tackle, not an obligation to avoid.

Service advisors drag their feet. Even with professional support and coaching behind them, they struggle to get anything off the ground. It's not that they don't care or aren't capable—they're often excellent advisors. They're just not wired for the proactive work of putting themselves out there in ways that feel uncomfortable. And that's perfectly fine. Both roles are valuable.

The mistake firms make is waiting too long to figure out which type of advisor they have. They assume that interest in ownership indicates a capacity for business development, or they hope that with enough training, any advisor can become a rainmaker. But aptitude matters. Some advisors will thrive in business development. Others won't, no matter how much support you provide.

The takeaway: Before discussing ownership, give next-gen advisors a real opportunity to demonstrate business development capability—not through hypotheticals, but through action. How they respond will tell you what role they're truly built for in your firm's future.

Want to see if your advisors are built for business development or client service? Schedule a call to learn more about OnNiche®.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®

Why Your Marketing Metrics Might Be Lying to You

The things easiest to measure in marketing are usually the things that matter least.

I'm currently reading The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game by C. Thi Nguyen, and one concept keeps showing up in my thinking about financial advisor marketing: The Gap. Nguyen defines it as "the distance between what is being measured and what actually matters." It's a simple idea with big implications for how firms approach their marketing efforts.

Here's how it plays out: Marketing platforms give firms endless metrics: likes, impressions, click-through rates, email open rates, website traffic. These numbers are easy to track, easy to report, and easy to compare month over month. So firms do. They check them constantly. They celebrate when they go up and worry when they go down. They make decisions based on them.

But these metrics mostly measure one thing: attention. And attention isn't the same as trust. It's not the same as credibility. It's definitely not the same as a prospective client thinking, "This is the advisor I want to work with."

The things that actually lead to new client relationships—depth of connection, perceived expertise, whether someone feels understood—are much harder to measure. There's no dashboard for "this person now trusts you enough to have a real conversation." No metric for "your content helped someone realize they need help." No score for "you're now top of mind when they're ready to hire an advisor."

So advisors default to what they can measure. They optimize for engagement instead of trust-building. They chase virality instead of relevance. They produce more content to increase impressions rather than better content that deepens relationships. The scoring system focuses them on the wrong outcomes simply because those outcomes are quantifiable.

The gap between what firms measure and what actually matters widens, and they wonder why all that activity isn't translating into new clients.

The takeaway: The best marketing metrics are often the ones you can't easily track. Don't let the ease of measurement pull your focus away from the harder work of building real relationships and demonstrating genuine expertise. Those are what convert attention into clients.

Kristen Luke

Founder of Kaleido Creative Studio and OnNiche®