John Howrey
Design Leader


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Watson Talent Admin
Prospecting Hub
Watson for Education

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Prospecting Hub



We learned that financial advisors care less about finding new clients than getting to the golf course. The more we understood that user, the better our experience got.




A one-day design session with Offering Management and Design. We gathered in Boston and started looking at market needs and developed some user needs. Over the following week, collaboration continued as a scenario and accompanying illustrative screens were developed. 

A financial advisor is only as good as the leads he or she can bring in. And since it’s not easy to get people to call you, you need to find a way to make it easier for them.

The best way to do this is with an effective lead generation strategy. This is a multi-faceted approach that starts with finding the right people and ends with converting those leads into clients.

We spent a ton of time talking about data and leads. We spun around on our axes for a long time—a little stuck. Product leader was too focused on features and functions and we couldn’t shake their pre-conceived notions about the experience.


So, I started asking, “Why?”



In the end, we learned the most incredible fact about financial advisors. In the end, they have no interest in working. They are more focused on getting to the golf course than fishing through leads. Makes sense, and actually set us on a better path. Rather than trying to facilitate their process, we decided to just do their process for them.


We learned the ways you can generate better leads:

  1. Personalize your message: Personality matching between advisors and prospects has been shown to increase conversations by 32%. Personalizing your message helps prospects feel more comfortable getting in touch with you, which makes the sales process easier.
  2. Make it easy to find your contact info: Having your email address on every page of your website is an obvious one — but don’t forget about social media either! People who know where they can reach out will be more likely to do so, leading to more conversations and better conversions over time.
  3. Use social data for prospecting: LinkedIn allows financial advisors access to millions of potential clients through its advanced search tools — even if they aren’t currently looking for advice from someone like you!

Our thesis statement became: The Prospecting Hub will be the one-stop to help a financial advisor more efficiently and effectively grow their book of business. 


Let’s look at the part of Leo’s story. He’s our financial advisor and, as mentioned, he wants to get to the golf course, first and foremost. His more work-focused needs are:

  • I need prospects that are a good match for me
  • I need to use social media to get more inbound prospects
  • I need to get prospects that actually need and value financial advice
  • I need to get prospects that have my required investible assets minimum
  • I need to be able to work across my team and firm on a prospect
  • I need to shorten the time it takes to onboard a prospect
  • I need to have more information on referrals
  • I need a better experience when onboarding clients

When he gets to work, he digs into his launch screen.




He notes that, since he closed on those two new clients last week, he’s risen to #2 in the team rankings. 

Moving into his leads, he knows that two of these are keepers, but the lead that went to his school was someone he did not look forward to speaking with.



He accepts the two leads and rejects the third. Before rejecting the lead he notes the reason why he is rejecting it so when it returns to the pool, the next person who picks it up understands why.



Leo decides to check out his other new leads.

The Hub tells him that Neely is similar to one of his existing clients, Helen. Helen is a fantastic client and could certainly use more like her.



He visits Neely’s detail page to learn more about this opportunity.

Immediately he is greeted with a lot of helpful information.



He sees talking points for any communication with her.There’s a similarity in personality and life events to Helen Lawson, one of his favorite clients. That’s been such a fantastic relationship.The Prospecting Hub tells him that Nelly is highly connected to a new group of inventors and investors that he doesn’t know yet.

Leo has had a successful back-and-forth with his client. Along the way, the activity has been logged into Prospecting Hub. He notes that the confidence score has risen. She’s hooked!



Leo is able to officially convert Neely from a prospect to a client. He clicks to change her status to “Converted” and finds himself tied for first place in the team pool!

Neely’s record has been transferred to Leo’s CRM, Salesforce.  Better get started on the next lead. 

Maybe, first, he’ll hit the golf course for lunch…

Design and Product Strategy
Creative Direction
Information Architecture
User Research