Smirnov Consulting Group books qualified meetings with business owners, company directors, CFOs and founders planning an exit, for independent financial advisers (IFAs), wealth managers and M&A advisory firms, using cold email and LinkedIn.
- Financial services firm selling to business owners: 344 booked sales calls in 60 days, 26 of them in the first 7 days.
- Canadian financial advisory firm: 421 sales calls in 12 months.
- Australian financial advisory firm: 282 sales calls in 3 months.
Smirnov Consulting Group is a Prague-based B2B outbound lead generation agency that runs cold email and LinkedIn campaigns for founder-led B2B companies and books qualified sales calls. 12 years in outbound, hundreds of B2B companies, 24 countries.
Who this is for
Advisory practices that grew on referrals and now need a second source of new clients. We treat three sub-audiences separately, because they sell to different people and answer to different rules.
Independent financial advisers (UK and Ireland). Small practices where the principal still brings in most new clients. The buyer who hires us is usually the principal, a senior partner or the practice manager, with the head of compliance signing off the copy. We book meetings with business owners and company directors who need pension, protection or exit planning.
Wealth managers (US, Canada, Australia). Boutique firms where a founder or partner still brings in most new money. We book meetings with founders after a liquidity event, business owners, senior executives, and CFOs or HR directors who run a company retirement plan.
M&A and corporate finance advisors. Small sell-side boutiques. We book meetings with owners and CEOs of companies large enough to sell, often family businesses where the founder is thinking about succession.
Engagement sizes differ a lot between these three, from an annual advice fee to an M&A mandate, so before launch we work out what one new client is worth to your firm and size the campaign to that.
Why outbound is hard for financial advisers
Referrals stop without warning. The accountant who sent clients for years retires, the senior partner who held the relationships steps back, or robo-advisers take the smaller accounts. Many practices have never prospected, so nobody knows where to start.
Compliance makes teams afraid to write anything. A new head of compliance wants to pre-approve every prospecting email. Advisers worry that a cold message counts as a financial promotion. So nothing goes out.
Your buyer is pitched constantly. A business owner with a profitable company hears from insurance agents, bank relationship managers and other advisers all the time. A message about "investment solutions" or returns reads like all the others.
Trust comes before the first meeting. Nobody hands over their pension or their company sale to a stranger from an email. Before they reply, they check your profile, your firm's website and whether you have helped someone like them.
How we run outbound for an advisory firm
1. One sub-audience, one offer. We pick one group, for example "owners of engineering firms with 20 to 100 staff who will sell within five years", and one reason to talk: an exit-planning review, a pension review for directors, a second opinion on an existing plan. In the 344-call campaign, building a new offer came before any outreach.
2. Profiles first. Prospects check the adviser's LinkedIn profile before they reply. Profile optimization was step one in the 344-call campaign. In the Canadian one we added organic LinkedIn activity.
3. Local lists, rebuilt often. We build lists with Sales Navigator plus a second database such as Apollo, because Sales Navigator alone is not enough. We filter by company size, sector, region and seniority. Local works best: business owners reply more easily to an adviser in their own city, someone they could meet in person. We can also reach the accountants, solicitors and estate attorneys who refer owners to you.
4. Outreach from each adviser's own accounts. Outreach goes out from each adviser's own LinkedIn profile, with warm follow-up emails, and cold email runs separately where the market allows it. In the Australian campaign, each adviser had 1 LinkedIn account, 1 follow-up inbox and 3 cold email inboxes: 5 LinkedIn and 20 email accounts in total, each LinkedIn account reaching 2,800 contacts a month.
5. Compliance built into the process. If your firm requires it, your compliance officer approves every sequence before it goes live. Most of our campaigns target the USA, the UK and English-speaking markets. Everywhere, we contact business contacts only, every email offers a simple way to opt out, and anyone who asks to stop is removed and not re-added. Your existing clients, introducers and anyone you name are excluded before launch. By market:
- UK: the FCA's financial promotion rules are broad, and whether a message counts as a promotion is your compliance team's call. Our messages make no claims about products, returns or performance. Email follows PECR and UK GDPR: sender details and an opt-out in every message, and prior consent for sole traders and some partnerships.
- Ireland: advisers are regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, and email follows GDPR and the Irish ePrivacy rules.
- Canada: CASL covers commercial electronic messages, including email. We check the consent basis for each segment, and every message carries sender identification and an unsubscribe. If your dealer reviews marketing, the copy goes through it too.
- Australia: the Spam Act requires consent, sender identification and a working unsubscribe. ASIC expects financial advertising to be clear and not misleading, and the anti-hawking rules restrict unsolicited offers of financial products to retail clients. We offer a conversation, never a product or a return.
- US: CAN-SPAM for email. SEC-registered RIAs also answer to the SEC Marketing Rule, and broker-dealer reps to FINRA's communications rules. Your compliance team reviews our copy against them.
- Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic: business email needs prior consent there, so we do not send cold email without a compliant basis and use LinkedIn instead.
This is how we work, not legal advice. Your compliance officer has the final say, and we do not hold or claim any regulator's approval.
Case: Canadian financial advisory firm, 421 sales calls in 12 months
What we ran: LinkedIn outreach from the advisers' own optimized profiles, organic LinkedIn activity to warm up their networks, and warm follow-up emails. Lists came from Sales Navigator and Apollo.
Numbers:
- 1,224 new LinkedIn connections
- 1,962 profile views
- 993 messages sent, 429 replies
- Month 1: 19 sales calls. Month 2: 26. Month 3: 32.
- 421 sales calls in 12 months
Calls grew in each of the first three months and kept coming through month 12. Because everything ran from the advisers' own profiles, the 1,224 new connections stay with the advisers after the campaign.
Two more results in financial services:
- Financial services firm selling to business owners: LinkedIn plus warm emails in 7-step sequences, a separate 4-step cold email sequence, and more weekly volume once the first market feedback came in. 26 calls and 4 contracts in the first 7 days, 132 calls in 30 days, 344 calls in 60 days.
- Australian financial advisory firm: targeting business owners across industries, 5 LinkedIn accounts and 20 email accounts, 282 sales calls in 3 months.
These are three separate clients. More in our case studies.
Timeline and price
- About 15 days from signed contract to launch: onboarding starts in the first week (usually one 60-minute call plus a few emails), then sub-audience and offer, adviser profiles, lists, copy, compliance sign-off, domains and inboxes. If your compliance review takes longer, launch moves with it.
- First weeks live: first replies and booked calls. Starts vary: 26 calls in the first 7 days in the 344-call campaign, 19 calls in month 1 in the Canadian one.
- Months 1 to 3: we test sequences, rebuild lists as they run out and keep the weekly volume steady.
- After that: we raise weekly volume on what works, as in the 344-call campaign.
Judge the first months on qualified calls booked, not on new assets signed. People decide slowly in this space. B2B sales cycles of 6, 9 or 12 months are normal, so a call booked in the first 30 days may become a client four months later or more. That is why we recommend at least 3 months, and why about 6 months is the industry average for outbound to work fully.
Who runs your campaign. Senior people only, no interns or juniors writing to your prospects: lead generation experts, GTM architects, GTM engineers and AI specialists. We keep a small number of clients so each gets full attention, and we take full responsibility for results. A senior team member is your day-to-day contact, and you have a direct line to Artem, the founder. You get a weekly and a monthly report, live notifications every day, and a client portal with live campaign data if you want one. In a market built on trust, ask any agency who exactly will write to your prospects, and check those people on LinkedIn before you sign.
Price. From USD 3,000 (about EUR 2,500) per month, up to USD 10,000+ for firms that need more advisers, markets or volume. The final number depends on scope, markets, volume and team size. The fee covers all our work: strategy, list building, copy, campaign setup, sending management, reply handling and reporting. Tools, sending domains, mailboxes and data are paid by you directly. If the foundations are missing, such as adviser profiles or case studies, a one-time setup fee may apply, agreed case by case. No minimum contract, one month's notice to cancel. See pricing.
Not a fit if
- Your compliance function will not approve any outbound at all.
- You want us to give financial advice, quote returns or promote specific products in outreach. We will not.
- Your advisers will not take calls with business owners who have never heard of the firm.
- You serve retail consumers only. We run B2B outbound.
FAQ
Is cold email appropriate for a financial advisory firm, or should we stick to LinkedIn?
It can be, but we start with LinkedIn and add email. For a trust-first buyer, a message from an adviser with a real profile is a softer first touch, and warm emails then follow people who have seen the name. Cold email runs separately where local email law allows it and compliance has approved the copy. The Canadian case above used LinkedIn plus warm emails: 421 calls in 12 months.
Is there a compliant way for a wealth management firm in England to prospect business owners directly?
Usually yes, with your compliance officer making the final call. Keep outreach to an invitation to talk, with no claims about products, returns or performance, and let compliance decide whether it counts as a financial promotion. Email company addresses rather than sole traders, who need prior consent under PECR, and include your details and an opt-out in every message. This is how we work, not legal advice.
How does a small wealth management firm get new clients without depending on referrals?
Add a direct channel next to referrals. Pick one group of business owners you already serve well, ideally local, and reach them on LinkedIn and email with one clear reason to talk. Also reach the accountants and solicitors who serve those owners. The Australian firm above targeted business owners and booked 282 calls in 3 months.
Who does appointment setting for wealth management firms in Canada?
We do. We are based in Prague and run campaigns for clients in Canada and many other countries. Our Canadian financial advisory client booked 421 sales calls in 12 months from LinkedIn outreach, organic LinkedIn activity and warm emails. We check the CASL consent basis for every email segment before sending.
Should we hire a fractional business development person or an agency?
Choose an agency if your offer is proven and you want volume, and a fractional hire if you want one person inside the firm building relationships at a slower pace. Volume means lists, copy, several LinkedIn and email accounts at once, reply handling and booking. The Australian firm above ran 5 LinkedIn and 20 email accounts, each LinkedIn account reaching 2,800 contacts a month. That is a lot for one part-time person.
Do you work with advisory firms in Ireland, the UK and Czechia?
Yes. Our office is in Prague, and we work with clients in the UK, across Europe and in many other countries. The market rules above apply: FCA, PECR and UK GDPR in the UK, the Central Bank of Ireland and GDPR in Ireland. The Czech Republic, like Germany and Austria, requires prior consent even for business email, so there we do not send cold email without a compliant basis and use LinkedIn instead.