About Us
influentialadvisor.com
Why We Built This
I didn't start here. When I began working with financial advisors in 2016, I was helping them generate leads and appointments on LinkedIn. I thought if we got someone on the calendar, we had done our job. For a while, I believed that.
What I kept seeing told a different story. The appointments would get booked and then fall apart. People would show up curious but not convinced. The conversion rates were dismal. And the reason, once I finally saw it clearly, was simple: there was no trust. Someone responds to an ad, schedules a call, and now they're being sold to by a stranger about the most important financial decisions of their life. Of course they don't move forward.
That's when everything shifted. I stopped thinking about leads and started thinking about trust. About what it actually takes to get a prospect to show up to a first meeting already believing in you. Already wanting to work with you. Already asking whether you have room for them.
The answer, in almost every case, was a book. A financial advisor with a genuine niche, a decade of excellent client work, and real results was still losing prospects to someone else. Not because the other advisor was better. Because they had a book. Because they had been on a podcast. Because their CPA referred them. Because they seemed more credible before anyone had spoken a word.
That gap — between how good an advisor actually is and how trustworthy they appear to a stranger before the first meeting — is the problem we solve. We've been solving it for financial advisors and founder-CEOs since 2016.
Founder & CEO
Paul G. McManus
Influential Advisor Media
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I'm the founder and CEO of Influential Advisor Media. I've helped 500+ financial advisors, CPAs, life insurance producers, and business advisors turn their expertise into books, media, and authority assets that build trust, generate referrals, and grow their firm.
I host The Influential Advisor Podcast and am the author of five books, including The Short Book Formula (Second Edition) and Book Marketing for Financial Advisors. I'm based in San Diego, California and live with my wife Atsuko and our two Boston Terriers, Potato Chips and Nacho.
When I got invited to appear on Michael Kitces's Financial Advisor Success Podcast in late 2024, my brother Gabe and I worked together every day for two weeks preparing. That episode generated more than 200 appointments with ideal clients in 2025 and contributed close to $1M in revenue. More than a year later it is still generating inbound.
That is when I formalized the framework behind my own success into the Authority Operating System (AOS). See what this looked like for Anton Anderson, who tripled his revenue in the year after publishing his book →
Publisher & Lead Coach
Gabe McManus
Influential Advisor Media
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Gabe McManus is my older brother, Publisher and Lead Coach at Influential Advisor Media, author of Sharpen Your Message: Guest Podcast Preparation for Financial Advisors, and host of Starting Over at 50.
His path to this work is unlike anyone else in the industry. Gabe spent years as a theater director in Los Angeles. After long rehearsal days, he would hike Fryman Canyon listening to personal finance and investment books — thirty books a year. He understood from years of directing what moves an audience and what loses them.
When he started working with financial advisors preparing for podcast appearances, he discovered something nobody had named clearly: the moment most advisors sit down in front of a microphone, they stop being themselves. He calls it podcast mode — technical, careful, lifeless. Gabe's work is getting them back.
The clearest proof is what happened before the Kitces podcast. When I got that invitation, I called Gabe the same day. We worked together every single day for two weeks. The result was an episode that doubled my business. Not luck. Two weeks of preparation with someone who knows what it takes to deliver when it counts.
Today he lives in Ballwin, Missouri with his three teenage daughters, and finds tremendous fulfillment in helping advisors find their voice and reach more people who need their help.
By the Numbers
0+
financial advisors, CPAs, life insurance producers, and business advisors helped
$0M+
in revenue generated by clients through their books
2016
the year we started helping financial advisors and founder-CEOs build authority
What We Believe
The advisors we work with are not struggling because they lack expertise. They are struggling because expertise is invisible until someone trusts you enough to experience it. And trust takes time to build the old way. Meeting after meeting. Referral after referral. Year after year.
A book changes the timeline. So does a podcast appearance done right. So does a presence online that makes the right people find you before they have ever heard your name.
The best advisors in this profession deserve to be the easiest ones to trust. We are here to make that happen.
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Work With Us
Ready to become the most trusted advisor in the room? Let's talk about what that looks like for you.
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