Money Matters Episode 332- The Prospecting Crisis No One Talks About W/ Eden Ovadia & Victoria Toli

Money Matters 332

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: [00:00:00] While advisors were celebrating 15% portfolio gains, their businesses were quietly dying. Eden Novaya saw the hidden crisis. No one wanted to name organic growth had collapsed. Instead of building more noise, she built Finney an AI that doesn't scale spam. But scale's presence. On today's episode, I'm joined by Eden Naia, CEO, and founder of Finna and Victoria

tulley. . Eden's journey spans machine learning consulting at BCGs, private equity team and Y Combinator Startup Crucible. And Victoria brings deep technical fluency and growth expertise from her time at Uber and Stanford where she studied symbolic systems and artificial intelligence.

Together, they're not automating generic outreach. They're redesigning how financial advisors find the right clients with soul. What makes their story perfect for digital Kaizen for financial advisors is this Finney doesn't ask advisors [00:01:00] to become someone they're not. It simply helps them become better at being who they already are with less guesswork, less rejection, and more connection.

If you've ever felt like prospecting drained your energy instead of deepening your impact, this conversation is for you. Uh, Eden Victoria, thank you so much for joining us today.

Eden Ovadia: Thank you so much for having us. We're super excited.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Absolutely. So let's, uh, let's kind of dive into how Finney got started there. Can you take us through your journey, uh, to, through, through really founding and funding right. Finney ai. Uh, tell us a little bit about that.

Eden Ovadia: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I, uh, like Victoria, both of our careers started in tech and then outta college. Both took slightly different paths. Um, I ended up doing a Boston Consulting group, was working on a private equity team. Um, Victoria joined Uber and was actually [00:02:00] leading, uh, Uber one and the. Expansion of their Uber One product. Um, but I think the common theme was we both had an itch for entrepreneurship. We both had seen or been exposed to that at some point in our lives and knew that that was eventually our calling. Um, on my side, when I was doing, uh, private equity work at Boston Consulting Group, I actually got to work with some of the larger RIAs and wealth management firms in the country, um, helping them with their inorganic growth.

So a lot of m and a work diligence in potential acquisition targets. And a couple themes just really struck me when I was doing that type of work. One, the firms that we were looking to acquire that had had figured out their organic growth were getting such a bump on the multiples. And it became like the number one factor that would determine a great outcome for these wealth management firms was if they could and repeatably actually grow organically. Um, so not just referrals, but figure out a way to grow beyond referrals. The other one was that after this kind of crazy bull [00:03:00] market for the last 10, 15 years, from 2010 onwards, a lot of advisors had just become a little bit complacent to growth and had thought that, hey, if my business growing this quickly, why would I do the really uncomfortable thing, which is client acquisition?

Why would I face rejection? Um, and so a lot of these advisors kind of had. Turned away from the good old fashioned client acquisition through, um, prospecting. But then when the market took a turn and softened a little, a lot of these firms realized that they had to kind of roll up their sleeves and try to find those old skills again and figure out how to bring on new clients, not just through referrals, which was no easy task. And it was around then that. Uh, all these new technology, like large language models and AI was coming out. Um, and so, uh, Victoria and I put our heads together and we thought, Hey, this is clearly a huge problem, really painful problem for a lot of advisors. It's quite important. It's the lifeline of their business, and we think we can actually build something using all this new technology to make it a lot more simple.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I, I love it. That speaks right to the problem. I mean, as an advisor, I've seen many advisors [00:04:00] who just sit on their laurels, right? They, they, they've done really well in the past and they build up this book of business and they just kind of coast, right? We're kind of famous for that. Uh, so the idea of going back.

And, uh, you know, really getting back out there and prospecting and marketing. But then dialing down on the clients that are most important to them. Um. As a, as an advisor who works with the retirees, my book is basically aging out, right? A lot of people are retiring and, and passing away

so going back and, uh, really revisiting prospecting is huge. I think that speaks to a lot of advisors there. Now, uh, Victoria. Let's talk a little bit about your background with machine learning and consulting and how that shaped Finney, because I think when you, when we think of prospecting and then we sprinkle AI on top of that, what does that look like and, and how did that background play into Finney?

Victoria Toli: Yeah, absolutely. So my background, both, both of us actually came from the world [00:05:00] of machine learning. And per Adam's point, we realized by taking a look at the market, that there was actually no tool that was AI native and really vertical specific to the use case. And to contrast that. You know, with Uber, we had an algorithm for pretty much everything.

What time to hit you with a specific promotion, what car to try and get you into. Everything was so intelligently, algorithmically driven. And then when it came to organic growth, we surveyed the market. We asked so many advisors before getting started and the, the answers we got time and time again were. Advisors using a patchwork of horizontal solutions like PitchBook plus LinkedIn Sales Navigator tools that were by no means built for that use case. So what we decided to do is really take up the approach of. Building, you know, on top of open ai, on top of philanthropic, leveraging everything that is going on in the tech world. And I think we were able to see that because of our background. Um, [00:06:00] and that was true, you know, not only in the early days of Finney. That's true today. Um. We use AI in pretty much the entire product, but the three areas where AI stands out is I in identifying the leads, scraping all the right data, which I'm sure we'll talk about, and forming a database of qualified prospects, then prioritizing those prospects.

We use AI there as well and, and machine learning specifically. And then we use generative AI to actually go and draft email sequences and, and generally drip on these prospects. Um, so. I'd say AI helped us, helped us come up with the idea and execute on the idea as well.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love it. I love it. So I'm gonna, I wanna dive right into kind of the, your process because, and, and just as somebody, I've kind of had a negative attitude towards marketing companies, so like in the past, right? Because if we think before ai, we think about these companies that would purchase list and then they'd.

Sell them back to [00:07:00] advisors, and it was very expensive and nothing seemed personalized. It seemed like everything was kind of done in mass. Tell me how Finney, um, automates and optimizes this entire prospecting process. How are you different?

Eden Ovadia: Yeah, so, so I think like the previous, the kind of 1.0 version of this was, okay, you buy a list even for like five, $10,000, you're buying this list of people. Um, and then you, the more sophisticated advisors, were potentially putting that in an Excel, having an ea you're having themselves then do research online, so individual line by line, pulling all the information they can about this person, and then cold calling them, drafting cold emails. And so I, I know someone, just to give you an example, who specifically targets, uh, uh, owners of pharma, like local pharmacies. And so what they'll actually do is just like, go on Google, create these lists. Spend five, 10 minutes on every profile, like who's the [00:08:00] owner? How old are they? What's their name? Find any other information we can about them.

Put it in an Excel sheet that'll take eight hours to draft a list of, I don't know, a hundred or more. And then do the, and then the next step is cold. Calling each one. Drafting each one probably takes them 20 hours. Maybe if they're lucky, they'll get one response,

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Mm-hmm.

Eden Ovadia: cold outreach takes rep repetition on Finney. Every single thing I just mentioned, so that entire workflow could be done in minutes. So actually just in minutes, like they would just tell Finney, Hey, I'm looking for people who own pharma stores in these zip codes in this area, research, finance, everything you there know about them. So then all an email introducing us, and then follow up with a call in two days.

And that'll actually be done in a matter of minutes. So it's just like, it cannot be overstated enough, the massive amount of time that can be saved. And it's a lot more effective because we're, we're not just a human Googling them. We're actually scrubbing the entire internet for all this information.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. Victoria, do you have, uh, something to add on top of that as well?

Victoria Toli: I would [00:09:00] say though, the one piece that we constantly think about is that while there are other companies now trying to use AI to do parts of what Edin mentioned, the difference is that we do all of it, right? So we

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Mm-hmm.

Victoria Toli: use AI to help, you know, dump a ton of data on advisors. We don't just use AI to prioritize the leads. We are an all-in-one platform and the product thesis here is that if you have Finney, you actually don't need any other tools to grow.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. I mean, as, as somebody who is. Really hyper-focused on productivity. One of the things that I learned a long time ago was try to do everything with as minimal amount of platforms as you, as you can. If you have a whole bunch of stuff all over the place, it makes it noisy. Right? So that's, uh, that's really cool.

One of the things that, you know, stood out when I, when I looked at this, was this. The idea of the F score, right? The, the idea of a matching engine. I think you've described it as like hinge for financial [00:10:00] advisors with, with clients. Tell me about that. What, for people who don't know what that F score is, what is that?

Victoria Toli: Yeah, happy to. So F score stands for a Finn score, and it's actually a proprietary machine

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I.

Victoria Toli: that we developed in-house, and all it really does is really understand the advisor's preferences, understand who the advisor's. Best suited for what does their book of business look like? Who do they have the best chance of success with? it on the one hand, predicts that compatibility between the advisor and the prospect. But then on the other hand, it also predicts the prospect's propensity to need a financial advisor. Right? Did they go through any money in motion event recently? Did they Google terms like financial planning or advisors near me? All that data or data that we track and we're able to pretty accurately if someone needs a financial advisor and how well they would do with you [00:11:00] in particular,

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. I love that.

Victoria Toli: I was just gonna say, Christopher, one um, that we use internally that is potentially helpful is that it's almost similar to Netflix, how Netflix learns, what movies you'd like, and then keeps recommending more and more of these. We do a very similar thing under the hood.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that.

Eden Ovadia: And the thing that I was gonna add is, I think it's something that you actually pressed me about before, which was, Hey, are you actually, since if you're learning, you're gonna, at some point, Finney's going to be actually know the advisor's own. client better than themselves will actually be able to predict it better than themselves.

And I think that's the secret there, right? Like humans and the human brain is our imperfect systems. Um, machines don't make mistakes. Machines learn from patterns. Humans, human minds have a lot of biases. Like there's a recency bias. Um, and so it's very easy to say, oh yeah, I think I work with this demographic the best.

I think I work with this type of person the best. But actually using Finney in the long run will say, you know. [00:12:00] Mathematically, this is the demographic that that's resonating the most, and this is the messaging that's resonating most with this demographic. And so we can actually learn better than the advisor.

And I like the term like we're actually gonna become their second brain, right? Like we actually, all this knowledge is going to be captive in Finney and will be their second brain actually helping them find a new clients.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. I love that. I, you know, I, I'm very picky, right? So, so to, to, for a prospect. For me, I've gotten to a point where I do webinars, you know, twice a month. Uh, and if somebody finds me online, like cold. I'm less excited about that person than somebody who's attended my webinars over months because they've kind of gotten to know me.

They've gotten the, um, my style, they fit my niche. They're 55 and up. They're state employees, they're about to retire, and so it really helps me narrow. One of the things that you talk about is, is helping the advisor really find a true fit. How does Finney's technology identify not just prospects, but prospects [00:13:00] who are a true fit?

Eden Ovadia: So a lot of what we do, I, I would summarize it into three broad buckets that, that we're using to match on. So the first is the similarity between the advisor and that prospect. So not. You know, and not about their, what a potential client could need or any offerings really like human to human. So do they, do they grow up in similar towns?

Do they go to similar schools? Do they go to the same school? Do they have similar interests? Do they have kids the same age? Um, are there behaviors online the same? And I think Victoria can talk a lot about that a little bit more too. Um, but really just showing the similarity, shared experiences. 'cause all of those things are known to, to actually lead to like a longer, healthier relationship. Probably sim similar markings when you're looking to find a potential partner in life.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Yep. Yep.

Eden Ovadia: that's the first. The second, um, thing that Finney is modeling on is the similarity between the prospect and, and, and past clients of the advisor. So [00:14:00] how much do they look alike, right? And so sometimes an advisor will do really, really well in a specific group of people or specific demographic. We're gonna model it to that. And then the last point is really just how does the, uh, advisor services overlap with the client's potential pain points? And so what our platform is able to do really, really well. It in ingest a potential prospect and actually predicts what financial pain points they'll be going through based off all its knowledge that it knows.

And then it'll say is, do these pain points match up nicely to the advisors key offerings?

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. I love that I'm smiling real big because when you said it's the same, sort of similar to looking for a, a, a partner or in a relationship. I'm, I'm writing this book right now and I'm doing a beta read, and so I'm exchanging a, a. A copy with a, a, a different author, and it's a relationship book on compatibility.

It's like 400 pages long. I didn't,

Eden Ovadia: that's.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I didn't think I was signing up for that, but now I, I'm deep into the weeds with that. So it's interesting when you mention that some of these, [00:15:00] uh, I think compatibility with, with it, you know, having those similar traits with your prospects or your potential clients, right.

It makes for an easier relationship over the life of, of the, uh, of the advisory practice for sure. Um. , in what ways does Finney's multi-channel processing prospecting system differentiate itself in supporting advisors?

Victoria Toli: Yep. it.

Eden Ovadia: a good question.

Victoria Toli: We, we think about that all the time. It really ties back to our earlier point of trying to be the only platform that advisors need. Right? So naturally to be able to, to, to do that successfully, we need to allow advisors. To really touch prospects through mul multiple channels. Not everyone is equally responsive over email.

For example, if you try to reach Harry Retiree over email, good luck to you, right? Versus, uh, tech executive for example, might be super responsive on LinkedIn. So instead of, you know, [00:16:00] forcing the advisors to go down a specific path, what we want to do is give them the toolkit to really meet the prospect where they're at.

So tangibly that means being able to reach out to them via email. Via LinkedIn via an AI voicemail, which is our newest and, and most, you know, exciting feature, um, via handwritten direct mail that arrives in someone's home with their name on personalized to them, which obviously as you can imagine is, is super effective for certain. Segments of the population. But all in all, we want to be that one platform that allows advisors to, to really, you know, communicate in a way that is hyper personalized to the individual the most effective that it can be. And for that, we believe that the, the advisor needs to exist in, in multiple channels.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that I, you know, personally, I, I'll, I'll do things that work and I get in this groove and habit and I say, well, that works. [00:17:00] I'll keep doing that. And you just listed four or five other touchpoints with prospects. I'm definitely not leaving AI voicemails, right? I mean, these are things that advisors just aren't doing.

We're lucky if we get one. Marketing channel going. So the idea that this is embedded in finney's uh, technology. That's awesome. I wanna switch gears for a moment and talk about the, the idea, 'cause we talked about this in the article about human first and human first approach to ai. How can advisors strike the right balance between automation and human touch?

Eden Ovadia: Yeah, that's, um, it's a good question. So I, I think that as we're talking about all these AI tools and how they're going to affect, um, kind of the future workflow of the advisor. thing will be more and more important is, um, the future role of the advisor will be centered around that human touch. And so, uh, how can the advisor leverage ai not to lose that human touch ever, but to actually [00:18:00] deepen and unlock more time for them so that every one of their clients actually gets face time with them and actually feels that really genuine connection. Um, so it's something that Victoria and I talk about quite a bit actually. It's the idea that. Prospecting or really great prospecting will automate all the manual repetitive work required, so it'll free up more of that actual face time with the advisor. And so it'll be a mix of that human touch plus the AI to get to a really genuine connection, I think as and is kind of across all industries, not just wealth. The expectation on the consumer side is going to increase. So the consumers are going to expect more personalization, more high touch services, um, just a higher level of service and AI is going to unlock that. And so the idea is with Finney, end client is getting hyper-personalized communication from the very beginning.

They're not, the relationship isn't starting from some cold email, from generic, from a generic newsletter. It's actually starting with a very. Personalized outbound, whether it's [00:19:00] on LinkedIn, on email, on through a phone call, through direct mail, and that type of, that like high touch, high service feeling is gonna carry through to every interaction, including that first meeting, including that dinner, the webinar, the, the event that they're hosting.

And so some of the most successful prospecting strategies on Finney is a combination of an in-person event plus AI outreach to get them there. And so it's a AI message that's really personalized to get, Hey, I'm hosting an event at a local golf club. Why don't you come by and, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll do a dinner.

It's for other business owners just like you. So, and then leading up to that event, it's all automated communication that feels personalized at the actual event. That's the time for the advisor to shine and build that really personal relationship. But they're not starting from zero, right? They're, they've already built that level of trust and report.

Victoria Toli: Yep. And it goes back, Christopher, to what you said in the very beginning, which I loved, which is that what we are enabling advisors to do is. Is not be someone that they're not, but rather do [00:20:00] more of a thing that they do love. And if you, you know, ask most advisors, hardly anyone would say that their favorite thing about their job is, you know, like cold outreach or, or anything along those lines. With Finney, they can put that on autopilot and really take the time and invest it in the things that they do really enjoy, which is building trust and deepening the relationship.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that. I love that. Now we've got, I'm gonna paint a picture because where we're at, I mean, AI's been around for 20 years, but we've really seen this. This compounded effect in the last two years. And when we even dialed down into FinTech into our field, uh, we saw the note takers, the AI note takers take off, right?

That was a big thing. But this is a moving target and you've got people who are, you know, early adopters who will jump on quickly and, and, and be okay with the word ai. Right? And then you've got advisors who've been doing stuff for years. And so what I wanna talk about are to those people, uh, some of the [00:21:00] misconceptions.

What are some of those misconceptions that advisors have about AI replacing relationships?

Eden Ovadia: So, so just to, so I understand your question correctly, are, are you saying some, some advisors are concerned that AI's going to replace them.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: Yeah, I mean, as you're talking to advisors out there who are thinking about you, you know, bringing AI into their practice, there's probably some of those. Leftover people that have those roadblocks and those objections and just don't like AI altogether. Right. Uh, what, what would you share with 'em as far as misconceptions on that?

Eden Ovadia: Yeah. No, no. I, I think I got it. Um, I think that a lot of advisors are a little bit traumatized from this new technology. I mean, every 10 years there's a new technology that's to replacing the advisor. And so whether it's, you know, direct indexing, roboadvisors, whatever it, it was, I feel like over the last. Even 50 years, there's been a new trend of like, [00:22:00] advisors are gonna be a thing of the past and, you know, they're still here to stay. And I think they've, they've proved and withstood the test of time, but it doesn't mean that there's not some just underlying anxiety and distrust towards this new technology. I think there's two schools of camp amongst those. kind of like pushing AI and one is that AI will replace the advisor and then the others, which is where Finney lives and a lot of these other tools is that AI is going to enhance the role of the advisor and actually unlock, you know, capabilities for the advisor to focus and do what they wanna do more, spend more time on, um. And I think that the, to your point, there's a lot of AI fatigue going on. And so the word AI is often being thrown around in places and every new technology now is ai. And so it's, it could be of almost a decision paralysis when you're not sure where to start. And so my, my recommendation on this is just spend some time thinking about if you are an advisor, like what are the couple of pain points or areas where you're not feeling super energized, you don't really enjoy doing it every single day.

Um, you really wish you could outsource it. You know, either [00:23:00] to an assistant or to someone else in your team or to technology and like those low hanging fruits, those like really small things. Test out some tools, right? Um, and then start dipping your toes and truly starting to understand like where AI can help and automate a lot of those workflows.

It doesn't need to be a total AI revamp. Like no one is asking you to rip out all your existing technology and just, and replace them with ai. It could just start small. So it can start small with a meeting note taker. With Finney for prospecting, um, with some tools that just help you draft emails, for example, or help you remember, you know, different appointments and, and as you start implementing those and starting to gain trust and understand where your level of comfort is, that's where you can start doing those like bigger implementations.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that that speaks right to it. I mean, you, you led with the idea of, of, uh, us as advisors being told that we were gonna be replaced by visors directing. There's a whole list of things that we're supposed to replace us and we're still here. So, uh, so that's one. But you also mentioned. Uh, the idea of [00:24:00] AI fatigue, that there's so many things out there that people are getting kind of bombarded by these different things that are new to them.

And so getting comfortable with what you say, the idea of enhancing, right? Not replacing, but enhancing in digital kaizen. I talk about that as well, of it augmenting our role, but not replacing the role as a human. We've got just about. Six minutes or so left in the show. And I wanted to, to ask you on this, you know, we've got our fingers on the pulse as far as what's going on in the industry right now, but where do you see this all going?

Where are we gonna be in the next five years or so? With, with what you're doing, with what's going on in FinTech? Uh, what does that look like for you?

Eden Ovadia: Yeah. Um. I'll, uh, I'll let Victoria talk about like finney's specific roadmap and where, where we're going. But I think, um, where the industry is going is to the super RIA, the super advisor. Um, I think like the last 10 [00:25:00] years, the trend was towards this holistic advisor that can like, have, you know, be a financial planner and also help you, uh, with college savings and help with and, and tax planning.

And it became like a ton of different, and then I think. This next role is, or this next jump is towards the supervisor that can not only help you with EV all your needs, but also do it for a lot more people and actually serve a lot more people. Because a lot of the work, the back office, the type of tools that, or the type of tasks that just really don't scale with the advisor are going to start scaling.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love that, uh, the super, I'm thinking of a big S on my shirt here for, it's like, all right, we're doing a whole bunch now. We gotta do that too. So, uh, Victoria, what are, what are your thoughts on this?

Victoria Toli: Yeah, I mean ed said it perfectly that supervisor world where we believe we have the right to win and, and by we, I mean, Finney is really anything that touches the prospect and client relationship because we sit at the very top of the funnel. We own all that data about the prospect. We're actually really well [00:26:00] positioned to keep advisors, help advisors keep in touch with, you know, initially the prospect, but eventually that when that prospect turns into a client, that client as well put differently.

What we want to be is, is really the organic growth engine for advisors. And if you break that down, what it really means is helping them with the top of funnel, which is what we're doing right now, but then eventually. Not only helping them with acquisition, but also with client retention. And there's so many, you know, opportunities that lie in, in plain sight in the advisor's existing book of business.

Being able to help an advisor, you know, monitor their client data to know who just got married or who stock recently appreciated and empowering them to reach out to them at the perfect time with the perfect message and the perfect insight. That's something that we are. Incredibly well positioned to do. And actually a lot of our customers are already pushing us towards that direction. Uh, they [00:27:00] keep telling us, you know, can I use Finn for my clients? And that's very much like, you know, where, where we want to go. But yeah, all in the world of, of organic growth, for sure.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love it. I love it. So the idea of organic growth, helping us with that funnel acquisition, retention. You mentioned these life events, and this is what Eden had mentioned earlier, that second brain I can remember maybe. Five, seven things tops, right? Like chew gum and walk at the same time. And then we've got people getting married, kids going through college, all of these different life events.

And it's very hard for advisors to keep on top of it, but it's what's key to keeping connected and having those relationships. Eden Victoria, thank you so much for being on the show today. For listeners who'd like to find out more about Finney, where can they go to find out more information?

Eden Ovadia: You can just go to our website. So, uh, it's www.finneyai.com. Um, we post everything there. We also are very active on LinkedIn, so you [00:28:00] can just look up Finney AI on LinkedIn. Um, we're often posting there. We have. A couple of great threads recently with Jason Wang, the CEO of Altruist, and a few others who are engaging with our content.

So, um, LinkedIn is where we're most active. Our website has all our information and if they wanna book a demo, they can go to our website too.

Christopher Hensley RICP, CES: I love it. I love it. So go find them on LinkedIn. Book a demo if you're interested in finding out more about Finney. And with that, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Eden Ovadia: Thanks so

Victoria Toli: So much.

Eden Ovadia: for having us. This was a lot of fun.

Victoria Toli: Yeah.