Advisology: Teaches highly regulated industries to mine social media for sales leads, increased revenue, recruiting

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Sue Pierman, Pierman Communications, LLC
Email: pierman.sue@gmail.com
Phone number: 414-405-4436

Former finance executives’ start-up brings new opportunities to financial services, insurance, and banking pros while emphasizing compliance

MILWAUKEE, Wis. ( April 14, 2014) – Katie Jansen and Phil Gerbyshak have launched Advisology, a Milwaukee-based consulting business that teaches financial advisors, managers, executive leadership and planners to effectively integrate social media into their business and dramatically expand their potential client base.

“We teach them the science of integrating a traditional sales model with innovative digital and social selling strategies,” Jansen said. “By researching potential clients on social media, advisors can turn cold calls into ‘warm’ calls. And, if they know how to use it properly, they can increase the number of new opportunities and grow revenue.”

Both Jansen and Gerbyshak have extensive experience working at large financial services organizations and both were early adopters of social media.

“Social media has changed the way people communicate – it can’t help but change business relationships as well. In a relationship-driven industry like financial services, you need to be where your customers are, and it’s on social media,” Gerbyshak said.

“Financial advisors have always used news about a new job, a birth or a wedding to recognize potential changes in client needs. It’s how they become more vested in the lives of their clients as a trusted advisor. Social media is a great way to get more referrals, increase leads and amplify revenue.”

While some financial leaders may be reluctant to use social media in an industry that is highly regulated, Advisology has a key differentiator.

“Many people who perform social media training may not understand the very specific compliance requirements of financial services organizations and its client-centric approach,” Jansen said. “Phil and I both have been licensed and have held leadership positions at financial institutions for more than a decade apiece. We understand the guardrails; we know how to get results and how to achieve them in a compliant manner.”

In addition to initial training, Jansen and Gerbyshak provide ongoing coaching for three to six months to make certain implementation is done correctly. This ongoing support is another differentiator for Advisology.

“Historically, many businesses have seen software as ineffective because employees receive training in how a software package works, but aren’t taught how to integrate it into their day-to-day work to increase sales,” Gerbyshak said. “That’s why we train an organization’s whole team – sales management, financial advisors and support staff, and offer ongoing coaching over several months. We want each employee to learn how to use the software to succeed in their particular role.”

Advisology also provides other products and services, including social recruiting training, recruiting services, and writing online profiles for LinkedIn and other social media networks.

The inspiration for the firm began with Jansen, who has focused on sales, recruiting and compliance for much of her career in financial services.

“At one company, I was working with relatively young advisors and was charged with increasing revenues by a significant amount. I thought, ‘What can I do to really knock this out of the park?’ Financial services were slow to implement digital and social selling, but I put together a training platform on LinkedIn and rolled it out,” she said.

“It was so successful, experienced advisors wanted to get in on it. They were closing big sales, and it just snowballed. I spoke about the platform at a chamber of commerce meeting and had several people ask if I could help them as well. It made me realize there was a real demand for my expertise.”

Teaming up with Gerbyshak, who recently sold his first social media company, Milwaukee Social Media, to concentrate on the new venture made perfect sense to Jansen.

“This is our chance to have the greatest impact on the industry that we love so much,” Jansen said. “In my other roles I had an impact, but not as great as the one we can have by teaching companies to use the digital & social communication era to their advantage.”

About Advisology

Advisology provides coaching, training, and products to financial service industry professionals and companies nationwide to assist advisors, managers, planners, and companies effectively integrate social media sales and recruiting strategies into their businesses to dramatically expand their potential client base, revenue growth and profitability.

About Katie Jansen

Katie Jansen, founder and president of Advisology, created the organization because she believes technology is revolutionizing the way the financial services industry communicates with clients. As a financial services veteran and early adopter of social media, she has a unique perspective on how to harness technology to grow sales, recruit more effectively and maintain compliance with federal regulations.

Since 2001, Jansen has held executive roles in Fortune 500 companies such Edward Jones, CapHarbor, MetLife and Securian Financial Group, where her work included business development, recruiting, team building, sales and marketing, digital/social media implementation and strategy, training and development, sales management and compliance.

She has been integrating social media into sales processes since 2008, when she first implemented a social media strategy to assist advisors and improve company profitability.

About Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak, vice president of sales and marketing of Advisology, co-founded the organization because he wanted to make a difference by helping financial professionals grow their businesses. As a seasoned social media, marketing and information technology professional, Gerbyshak has a unique blend of marketing, sales and technology to improve the businesses of his clients.

Gerbyshak began working with financial professionals since 2000, first as a registered representative, then working in online stocks and options trading. He began teaching colleagues how to leverage technology, and became a vice president of information technology, managing and teaching a team to do what he knew how to do.

In 2005 Gerbyshak saw the potential social media held for financial professionals. Since then, he has helped financial professionals grow their bottom line with LinkedIn, blogs, e-mail marketing, Google+, Twitter and Facebook.