This month marks the launch of a brand new collection of interviews with firms that lately made their debuts on the Finovate stage. I had an amazing alternative earlier this month to meet up with a variety of firms demoing at FinovateSpring in San Diego, and am trying ahead to introducing our weblog readers to those modern fintechs!
First up, we checked in with Joe Steuter, Associate and Chief of Consumer Technique with Intention.ly. Based in 2021 and headquartered in King of Prussia, Intention.ly is a progress consultancy and advertising and marketing company for monetary companies firms. At FinovateSpring this 12 months, Intention.y demoed its Advisor Model Builder platform that permits breakaway advisors, fast-evolving companies, and buying enterprises to construct skilled, high-impact grand identities and model tales.
What downside does Intention.ly resolve and who does it resolve it for?
Joe Steuter: Intention.ly helps monetary companies companies develop by fixing one of many {industry}’s most persistent challenges: model differentiation. Past that, the problem of differentiation with pace to market and considerate measurement to hint ROI to advertising and marketing efforts. Advisors, RIAs, enterprises, fintechs, financial institution managers, insurance coverage reps, and asset managers are all competing in a market that may really feel like a sea of sameness, the place companies usually sound alike, look alike, and wrestle to obviously articulate why they’re totally different.
That downside turns into particularly acute for monetary advisors and advisor enterprises. Constructing a powerful model has historically required an extended, labor-intensive course of with an outdoor accomplice that won’t deeply perceive the monetary companies {industry}. The choice is commonly a quick, templated web site construct or model message that saves time however leaves companies trying, sounding, and positioning themselves like everybody else.
Advisor Model Builder (ABB) was created by Intention.ly to get rid of that tradeoff. It offers advisors and enterprises a quicker, smarter option to construct genuine, differentiated manufacturers grounded in who they’re, who they serve, and why they matter.
Extra broadly, Intention.ly solves progress challenges for monetary companies firms by combining technique, model, advertising and marketing, know-how, content material, and execution. We assist companies transfer from ambiguity to readability, from disconnected advertising and marketing efforts to cohesive progress programs, and from generic positioning to a model presence that may really help enterprise growth.
How does Intention.ly resolve this downside higher than different firms?
Steuter: Intention.ly solves this downside in another way as a result of we mix deep monetary companies experience with know-how, artistic technique, and execution. We aren’t a generalist company studying the {industry} from the skin. Our staff has spent a long time constructing manufacturers, shaping narratives, and serving to monetary companies companies differentiate in a extremely complicated, extremely regulated, and infrequently extremely commoditized market.
Advisor Model Builder, which was the expertise proven to the group at FinovateSpring 2026, is a powerful instance of how we strategy innovation. The normal branding course of can take months and even years, particularly when a number of stakeholders, decision-makers, and rounds of discovery are concerned. ABB condenses that course of right into a guided, AI-backed expertise that may construct a model basis in weeks.
However pace is barely a part of the story. ABB isn’t just an automatic template. It combines guided discovery, industry-specific intelligence, AI-assisted model growth, and human experience from strategists, writers, designers, and entrepreneurs. The result’s quicker, however nonetheless substantive.
The platform captures the advisor’s genuine story, creates messaging and visible id, builds a cohesive model information, generates property, and extends that basis into digital presence and web site route.
That mixture of executional pace with really differentiated campaigns and messaging is the place our staff stands out. We assist companies transfer quicker with out sacrificing authenticity, high quality, or differentiation. And in an {industry} that’s evolving at a quicker tempo than ever earlier than, this couldn’t be extra essential to a agency’s progress.
Who’re Intention.ly’s main clients? How do you attain them?
Steuter: Intention.ly’s main clients are growth-minded monetary companies companies. That features impartial RIAs, breakaway advisors, hybrid companies, broker-dealers, custodians, asset managers, fintechs, banks, massive insurance coverage firms, and modern enterprises that help advisor communities.
With Advisor Model Builder particularly, we’re fixing for each particular person advisor companies and the enterprises that serve them. For an advisor or breakaway staff, ABB gives a quicker path to a reputable, differentiated model, full with messaging, visible id, model property, and web site route. For bigger enterprises, ABB creates a scalable option to help many advisors with out forcing each agency by means of a sluggish, customized, one-off branding course of.
We attain our clients by means of a mixture of relationships, {industry} presence, referrals, thought management, partnerships, occasions, and direct engagement with companies which might be actively making an attempt to develop. As a result of Intention.ly is deeply embedded within the monetary {industry}, a lot of our conversations start with belief and shared context.
The companies that come to us are often dealing with a transition level: launching, rebranding, going impartial, getting into a brand new market, scaling advisor help, or making an attempt to create a extra fashionable progress engine. Our worth helps them transfer from intention to execution with readability, pace, and confidence.
Are you able to inform us a few favourite implementation of your know-how, or a very invaluable partnership expertise?
Steuter: One latest instance is Brick by Brick Wealth Administration, a agency shifting from a big wirehouse setting into the impartial area. That sort of transition requires far more than a brand new identify or brand. The staff wanted to create an entire model id, make clear its worth proposition, reframe the worth they delivered to shoppers, develop a differentiated story, and launch a digital presence that would help the subsequent stage of the enterprise.
By Advisor Model Builder, we helped carry that work collectively in roughly six weeks. The method began with the idea for the agency’s identify and advanced right into a full model story, visible id, messaging system, model property, and web site presence.
What made the implementation particular was the steadiness between pace and authenticity. Brick by Brick wanted to maneuver shortly, however in addition they wanted a model that felt actual, private, and credible. ABB allowed us to seize the agency’s underlying story and translate it into one thing polished, differentiated, and usable.
That’s precisely the sort of second Advisor Model Builder was constructed for. We’ve taken greater than 25 companies of each dimension by means of this method, and it usually works most successfully when advisors have to make a significant enterprise transfer, however they can’t afford to spend months caught in an id disaster. They want a model that offers them readability, confidence, and momentum.
What in your background gave you the boldness to answer this problem?
Steuter: My confidence comes from the staff I encompass myself with and the greater than twenty years I’ve spent serving to monetary companies companies and startups inform their story. Collectively, as a company, our confidence comes from having spent a long time contained in the monetary companies {industry}, working immediately on the identical challenges our shoppers face. Our CEO, Kelly Waltrich, constructed the agency to answer the problem she noticed as most prevalent in monetary companies: a scarcity of purpose-led technique and progress pushed by disciplined execution and measurable objectives. Each member of our staff carries that very same in depth {industry} expertise the place they’re drawing on years of getting constructed manufacturers, formed messaging, led advertising and marketing methods, supported advisor progress, launched campaigns, guided companies by means of transitions, and helped monetary companies firms inform extra compelling tales.
Advisor Model Builder is only one product of that have. We’ve got seen firsthand how tough it may be for advisors to distinguish themselves. Many companies have a strong story, however they wrestle to articulate it. Others know they want a extra fashionable model, however the conventional course of feels too sluggish, too costly, or too disconnected from the realities of their enterprise.
Over time, we noticed the identical sample repeatedly: advisors wanted each strategic depth and pace. They wanted {industry} experience, not generic branding workouts. They wanted a course of that would uncover what made them totally different and switch it into messaging, design, property, and a digital presence.
We weren’t ranging from idea. We have been translating years of actual monetary companies brand-building expertise right into a extra scalable, technology-enabled course of.
You lately opened new places of work in Omaha, Nebraska. How does the opening of a Midwest hub drive Intention.ly’s mission?
Steuter: Opening a Midwest hub in Omaha is an strategic step in Intention.ly’s progress and mission. It was additionally a really private endeavor for me, as I dwell in Omaha and perceive simply how a lot of a monetary hub town is to this {industry}. Omaha has a deep connection to monetary companies, wealth administration, fintech, and advisor platforms, and it offers us a powerful presence in a market with distinctive {industry} expertise.
Our mission is to assist monetary companies companies develop with extra readability, intention, and impression. To do this nicely, we have to keep near the companies, advisors, platforms, and folks shaping the way forward for the {industry}. Omaha offers us one other heart of gravity for that work, situated in the midst of all over the place.
It additionally displays a perception I’ve all the time held: innovation in monetary companies will not be restricted to the coasts. Among the most necessary firms, platforms, and advisor communities in our area have been constructed proper right here. Having a hub that’s centrally situated permits us to deepen relationships, increase our staff, and help shoppers from a spot that understands the advisor ecosystem.
You demoed at FinovateSpring in Could of this 12 months. How was the expertise?
Steuter: FinovateSpring was an amazing expertise as a result of it gave us the chance to point out Advisor Model Builder in motion to a completely new nook of the {industry}. The convention introduced collectively companies in accounting, banking, credit score unions, non-public capital, insurance coverage tech, and different sectors exterior our regular realm of publicity (wealth administration). Branding can really feel summary when described conceptually, however the demo allowed us to stroll the viewers by means of the precise expertise: guided discovery, AI-assisted model growth, messaging, visible id, model property, and web site route.
The format was particularly invaluable as a result of ABB is designed to resolve a really particular stress available in the market. We have been capable of reveal that there’s a higher path—one that gives pace with out shedding substance.
The demo additionally helped us inform the broader Intention.ly story. We’re a branding and advertising and marketing progress engine design agency with a long time of economic companies expertise, and ABB represents how we’re turning that experience into scalable know-how.
The conversations after the demo have been energizing. The suggestions bolstered what we already believed: advisor differentiation is an actual downside, enterprises want scalable methods to help it, and the market is prepared for options that mix AI with human experience.
What are your objectives for Intention.ly?
Steuter: Our purpose is to grow to be the main advertising and marketing and progress accomplice for the {industry}’s prime 100 firms. We need to assist bold companies construct stronger manufacturers, clearer methods, higher advertising and marketing programs, and more practical paths to sustainable progress.
For Advisor Model Builder, our purpose is to vary the equation round advisor model growth. We imagine advisors shouldn’t have to decide on between an extended, costly branding engagement and a generic template that makes them look and sound like everybody else. ABB offers them another choice: a guided, AI-backed, human-refined course of that creates a differentiated model basis in weeks.
On the enterprise stage, our purpose is to make differentiated branding scalable—fairly a contradiction historically. Massive wealth administration organizations want methods to help many advisors effectively, however with out stripping away individuality. ABB offers enterprises a framework for serving to advisors present up with extra readability, consistency, and authenticity.
Extra broadly, Intention.ly is targeted on serving to monetary companies companies spend much less time caught in id, messaging, and execution challenges, and extra time incomes new enterprise. Stronger manufacturers create extra confidence. Extra confidence creates higher progress conversations. And higher progress conversations create stronger companies and better-served shoppers.
That’s the work we need to preserve main.
Photograph by Aditya Siva on Unsplash
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