Maria Björk Marketing
You do excellent work.
Your marketing should sound like it.
A half-day workshop for independent UK financial planning firms who want their marketing to finally sound like the people behind the advice.
AI-powered. Compliance-aware. Built around your firm.
Marketing that sounds like you.
AI prompts your firm owns outright.
Compliance-aware throughout.
For independent firms who know LinkedIn and their website matter, but never quite get to them.
This workshop is for you if.
- Owner-led, independent UK financial planning firm.
- Chartered or Certified planners with a small team of 1 to 15 people.
- You control your own brand and marketing decisions.
- You know LinkedIn and your website should be doing more for the business.
It's probably not for you if.
- Your brand and messaging are controlled by a large national network.
- You want fully outsourced marketing with no internal involvement.
- You're looking for legal or compliance advice.
You're not short of expertise. You're short of a way to show it.
Most firms I speak to are doing genuinely good work for genuinely good clients. The advice is strong. The relationships are strong. The marketing is the part that never quite gets done.
LinkedIn gets posted to occasionally. The website was rewritten in 2022 and hasn't been touched since. AI tools were supposed to help, but the output sounded like every other firm in the country, so the principal closed the tab and went back to client work.
The result is a firm that does excellent work and is almost invisible online.
Here's how this usually sounds when planners describe it to me.
We hardly post on LinkedIn, and when we do it is a bit hit-and-miss.
Our website could belong to any firm in the country.
Everything ends up back on the principal's desk anyway.
A marketing strategist who understands UK financial planners and compliance.
I've spent the last 8 years working exclusively with UK financial planning firms. Before AI became the conversation, I was building marketing systems for Chartered Financial Planners. I speak suitability reports, client banks, paraplanner workflows, and FCA financial promotion rules. I'm not a generic AI consultant. I'm a marketing strategist with deep niche fluency in your world, who happens to use AI as a multiplier.
- Understands how independent firms actually win trust and business.
- Understands how compliance shapes what can be said and how.
- Understands why generic AI content doesn't work for UK planners.
Chartered firm in the South East ·. IFA firm in Yorkshire ·. Boutique planner in Scotland
Make LinkedIn a place your firm shows up properly, not occasionally.
This workshop focuses on LinkedIn, where most independent planning firms are losing ground because the content sounds like every other firm. The Brand Compass and prompts you walk out with can be reused for website updates, emails, and other client-facing content as you go.
- 1
Sharpen your core message so LinkedIn and your homepage tell the same story.
- 2
Build AI prompts that help draft LinkedIn posts and other client-facing content in the firm's voice.
- 3
Create a 30-day LinkedIn plan aimed at your ideal clients.
- 4
Agree a light review workflow so content moves from draft to live without drama.
The same Brand Compass and prompts can then be reused for emails, website updates, and other client-facing content as you go.
What you get from the Brand Compass Workshop.
Brand Compass
A written summary of your voice, positioning, ideal client, anti-client, tone, and key messages.
3 tailored AI prompts
A LinkedIn and marketing prompt, a plain-English rewrite prompt, and a prospect follow-up email prompt. All built around your firm.
30-day LinkedIn plan
12 post ideas, 4 content pillars, a realistic weekly rhythm your team can actually sustain.
Review workflow
A light, practical process for drafting, reviewing, signing off, and publishing AI-assisted content.
Firm-specific video library
A set of short instruction videos I record for your team, hosted in a private folder, so future team members can be onboarded without me back in the room.
Full handover materials
Brand Compass PDF, prompt files, plan sheet, review log template, workshop recording.
What both sides need to show up with.
The Brand Compass Workshop works because both sides show up properly. I'm specific about who I take on and what I need from the firm. That's how the work actually delivers.
What I need from you.
- An hour with the principal before we start. The Brand Compass is rooted in the principal's voice, conviction, and view of the firm. I can't extract that from a paraplanner or a marketing assistant alone. The person who founded or leads the firm needs to be in the room.
- Honest answers, not polished ones. The work depends on hearing what the firm actually sounds like in client meetings, not what the website says. If you've ever told a client "we're not the right fit, here's who is," I want to know about that conversation.
- Time held for the workshop. Half a day, properly cleared. If the principal will dip in and out for client emergencies, the work suffers. The 4 hours together generate the entire system. They can't be spread across 3 weeks.
- A team member who'll actually use the prompts. Usually a paraplanner or whoever drafts client-facing content. They need to be in the room for Session 3 when we build the prompts together. Otherwise the prompts get handed over and quietly forgotten.
- Compliance kept central. Whether that's an internal compliance officer or an external consultant, your firm's sign-off process stays untouched. Nothing I build replaces firm review.
What you get from me.
- 8 years of niche specialism. I've spent the last 8 years working exclusively with UK financial planning firms. I know what a suitability summary looks like on a Wednesday afternoon. I know the difference between a Chartered firm and an investment-led IFA. You won't spend the workshop explaining your world to me.
- A system built around your firm, not a template. Every Brand Compass and every prompt is built live with you, using your voice, your clients, your language. Nothing is recycled from another firm.
- Compliance-aware throughout. I'm not a solicitor, but I'm fluent in FCA financial promotion rules, Consumer Duty, and where the Mills Review is heading. Everything we build assumes adviser review and firm sign-off as central, not as an afterthought.
- A workshop you can actually use on Monday. Not a course. Not an inspiration session. A practical system the firm walks out using.
- Honest pushback. If the firm wants to do something I think won't work, I'll tell you. If a prompt is producing content I think is too generic, we rewrite it in the room. You're paying for an outside perspective. I owe you my actual opinion.
Who I don't work with.
I'm specific about this because the wrong firm wastes both of our time.
Not large national networks where brand and messaging are controlled at head office.
Not restricted advice businesses where marketing decisions sit outside the firm.
Not firms where the principal won't be in the room for the workshop.
Not firms looking for legal or compliance advice. That sits with your compliance officer or solicitor.
If any of those describe the firm, I'll say so on the Clarity Call. No hard feelings either way.
What changes after the workshop.
- You stop starting from zero every time you write something.
- Your content starts sounding more like your firm.
- LinkedIn and your website are easier to keep fresh.
- AI becomes useful, not awkward.
- Your firm builds capability in-house instead of relying on an agency.
What this is worth in real money.
Most independent planning firms I work with see, after the workshop, around 6 to 10 hours a month freed up across the team. Drafting LinkedIn posts gets faster. Email follow-ups get faster. Plain-English rewrites of technical content get faster.
If your blended internal rate is around £100 to £200 an hour across principal, advisers and paraplanners, that's roughly £600 to £2,000 of time value every month. Across a year, that's £7,000 to £24,000 of internal capacity created.
That's before counting the value of even 2 to 4 extra right-fit first meetings in a year, or the lifetime value of 1 or 2 new ideal clients who might not have found you, or recognised you, without clearer marketing.
This workshop doesn't promise overnight leads. It gives you something more valuable. A system that makes better marketing more likely to happen every single week.
Simple process.
Book a Clarity Call.
Complete the Brand Compass Audit.
Complete the short workshop pre-work.
Attend the half-day workshop, online or in person.
Implement the system using the handover materials.
No hard sell. If this isn't right for your firm, I'll say so.
Maria Björk is a marketing strategist who has spent the last 8 years working exclusively with UK financial planning firms. She helps Chartered and Certified planners build marketing systems that sound like them, attract right-fit clients, and use AI in a way that's practical, calm, and compliance-aware. She is based in Sweden, works with UK firms, and clusters London travel for in-person engagements.
Maria Björk, strategist
The next step.
If you want a clearer message, stronger LinkedIn and website presence, and a practical internal system for creating content with AI, the next step is a Clarity Call.
- Where your marketing is currently stuck.
- What your firm needs most.
- Whether the Brand Compass Workshop is the right next step.
No hard sell. If it isn't a good fit, we'll say so.