Answers
How do I keep track of my competitors as a financial advisor, CPA or law firm?
Keep a current picture of every choice your clients have besides you, and use it to shape your firm's strategy before you spend on marketing. That means the other firms and advisors your best clients compare you with, the cheaper and do-it-yourself options that take the simpler work, and the names an AI assistant gives when someone asks for a firm like yours. A list you make once goes stale. The version that helps is kept current and tied to the decisions you are making about your firm.
By Jeff Murnane. .
Who am I actually competing with?
More than the firms across town. If you run a financial advisory practice, an accounting or tax firm, a law firm or an insurance agency, your clients can also choose a national firm with a familiar name, an online service that handles the simpler work for less, software that lets them do it themselves, or a relative who “knows about this stuff.” Each of those wins some of the clients you want.
Most new clients at a professional firm come through referrals, so you rarely see the firms you lose to. The prospect who never called you still went somewhere.
What should I be watching?
What your competitors change, and what changes around them. A firm adds a service, changes its fees, hires someone with a following, or starts showing up when people ask an AI assistant for a recommendation.
Around all of you, the market moves: tax rules, interest rates, regulation, and what clients are asking about this year. Those signals tell you where clients are heading before your referrals show it.
Why isn't a list of competitors enough?
Because the list only helps once it shapes your decisions. Which clients should you be winning? Which services should you lead with? What can you charge for, and what will clients shop on price? Those are business strategy questions. Your marketing strategy should follow from the answers, not come first.
Branding work repurposed as strategy doesn't get a firm what it ultimately needs. A new logo, a new website or a new tagline built on the same guess about your clients and competitors still rests on that guess.
How does Roadies help a professional firm?
Roadies learns your market and your firm first: who your clients are, who else they consider, and what is moving in your field. The strategy for your firm is built on that read, and your marketing strategy is built on the business strategy. Competitor moves and market signals shape both. You get one comprehensive view of your firm, your clients, your competitors and your market, not a stack of separate projects.
You set the direction. Your Roadies team does the work. The people behind it are named, Brian Schwanebeck and Jeff Murnane, and they bring decades of real business experience, including in financial services. They set up your team and make sure it delivers what you ask for.
Is this a one-time look?
No. Your Roadies team keeps the read current and tells you when something changes, so you hear about a competitor's new service or a shift in your market while you can still act on it, not a year later.
See who gets named instead of your firm
The free Roadies Opening Act shows you which firms come back when your clients search or ask AI for what you offer, what's keeping AI from recommending you, and a score out of 100. It needs nothing but your website and never asks for access to an account.