Practically all of high-earning households planning to hire a financial adviser – 96%, to be precise – say they will research that adviser online before making a decision.
While the figure itself is perhaps unsurprising, what gives it weight is the parallel finding from the same 2025 Wealthtender study: the rate is identical among households who have already received a personal referral from a trusted contact.
In other words, the warm introduction does not change the behaviour. It may accelerate the process, but it does not replace the research step that now sits between the introduction and the decision. For advisers whose books have been built and sustained on referrals, that finding warrants a direct examination.
The same study found more than four-fifths (83%) of its high-earning prospects look specifically for online reviews and reputation signals when evaluating an adviser, while approaching three-quarters (72%) visit the adviser’s personal website as part of that process.
Guarding against AI-generated reputation risk – read more from Tony McChrystal here
To be clear, this is not a general background check – it is a deliberate search for evidence from other clients and a direct assessment of how the adviser presents themselves. The prospect is not inheriting the referee’s relationship with the adviser – they are evaluating whether to begin their own. For that purpose, they turn to what is available online.
In conversations with advisers over a number of years, the resilience argument tends to rest on the strength of the referring relationship. The logic runs that a satisfied client’s endorsement is itself a sufficient signal. That is a reasonable position as far as the referee is concerned, but it does not survive contact with how the prospect actually behaves. The referral opens the door; it does not reliably close the engagement.
“The prospect is not inheriting the referee’s relationship with the adviser – they are evaluating whether to begin their own. For that purpose, they turn to what is available online.
The gap between what referred prospects are looking for and what most advisers currently provide is wide enough that moving first carries a genuine advantage.”
Given the level of demand for reputation signals, the profession’s response has been limited. The 2025 Investment Adviser Industry Snapshot found approximately fewer than one in 10 (9%) of advisers currently use testimonials or reviews in their marketing. Set against that 83% of prospective clients actively seeking them, the gap is not a marginal one. It reflects a structural mismatch between what clients are looking for and what the profession is making available.
The J.D. Power 2025 Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study meanwhile offers some indication of how quickly this is likely to change. Across the adviser population surveyed, only 20% of those under 40 describe their firm as ‘brand-conscious’.
Even among a younger cohort, this is not a high priority at firm level. The client side of the same demographic shift moves in the opposite direction: the EY 2025 Global Wealth Research Report found over half (53%) of UK millennial investors expect to switch wealth provider within three years, compared with 14% of baby boomers.
The pace of change matters for individual advisers making decisions now. A profession-wide shift toward active online reputation management will occur – but gradually. The advisers who establish a credible and findable digital presence ahead of that shift will hold a compounding advantage: a body of positive reviews generates further enquiries, which in turn produces further reviews. Those who wait for a firm-wide programme, or for a compliance environment that feels more permissive, will find the field less open when they eventually turn to it.
Five steps individual advisers can take
The following five steps require neither a marketing budget nor a firm-wide mandate. Each can be taken by an individual wealth manager or financial adviser, independently of any central programme:
Step 1: The LinkedIn profile. The standard adviser profile presents career history and qualifications to a referred prospect who is not primarily interested in either. A profile that states clearly who the adviser works with, what outcomes they help clients achieve, and something of their professional character does substantially more work than a career summary. This is the most visible individual asset most advisers own outside their firm’s own infrastructure – and the most commonly underinvested.
Step 2: The named search test. Searching your name alongside ‘wealth manager’ or ‘financial adviser’ in an incognito browser window shows what a referred prospect will find in the minutes before their first contact with you. If the results are limited to a firm directory listing, the online presence is insufficient. Owning that result – through a populated LinkedIn profile, a relevant directory listing or a firm website page with substantive individual content – is the baseline requirement.
Step 3: The firm website page. Most adviser pages carry a photograph, a brief biography and a qualifications list. A page that reflects genuine specialism, describes the client profile the adviser works with and provides some evidence of professional perspective does materially more to convert a referred prospect than a standard staff entry.
Step 4: Testimonials and case studies. The compliance position varies materially by firm and by regulator. In the US, for example, the SEC’s marketing rule has provided a clearer route to client testimonials than was previously available. For its part, the UK position is more nuanced and worth checking firm by firm. Rather than proceeding on an assumption the answer is prohibitive, however, what should be established is precisely what your regime permits. Case studies – anonymised – where required, are a further option that many compliance frameworks accommodate.
Step 5: Test what AI tools return on your name. The 2025 Wealthtender study found a quarter (25%) of prospects now use AI search tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity as part of the adviser-selection process. Where the online presence is thin, those tools will return thin results. The remedies are consistent with those that apply to conventional search – a substantive digital presence, credible third-party references, evidence of professional activity – but the mechanism is distinct enough that it warrants a specific check.
The cost of waiting
The referral alone can no longer be relied upon to carry a prospect through to a committed engagement. The gap between what referred prospects are looking for and what most advisers currently provide is wide enough that moving first carries a genuine advantage.
That gap will narrow as the profession responds, and the advantage available to early movers will narrow with it. The steps required are not large ones while the cost of continuing to defer them increases each year. The research step now sits between the introduction and the decision. And what a prospect finds during that step matters.
Tony McChrystal is the founder of Pavesen, a London-based reputation management firm advising high-profile individuals, family offices and C-suite executives on reputation risk and digital footprint strategy
