Brian Ouellette

9:07 AM Tuesday. Two advisors. Same message from a top client: “Told a friend about you.” One had an ODP™ link. One did not. 1:18 PM Friday. One closed dream client. The other? Crickets. Why’d one win?👇Click below

"The best clients come from referrals, there is no exception."

Brian Ouellette, a University of Washington graduate, began his career on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) as a runner before returning to Seattle to build his private client practice at PaineWebber. In 2000, he became the Market Commentator for Q13 FOX News This Morning, reporting live daily for over 3 ½ years and making more than 3,000 live TV appearances during one of the most significant boom-and-bust cycles in stock market history.

In 2004, he sold his book of business and founded Shoewallet Active Gear, a product featured on NBC's Today Show, CNN, NY1, and over 250 radio stations, as well as in publications like Shape and Runner's World. Shoewallet produced private label versions for Boeing, the Department of Defense, Skechers, and more across the U.S. and Canada.

In 2010, after reading Sports Illustrated’s "How & Why Athletes Go Broke," Brian recognized the urgent need for athletes to have better advisors. This led him to create Pro Athlete Direct™, an education-based marketing service for advisors to help athletes manage their finances, taxes, legal matters, and real estate needs. His experience helped him develop a system that allowed advisors to build strong connections with sports agents and their athlete clients, guiding them in making strategic financial decisions.

Brian has coached a range of trusted advisors across the U.S. and internationally, including former pro athletes, Barron's Top 100 advisors, Forbes Top Wealth Advisors, and top-producing realtors.

After over 20,000 hours of coaching and R&D, the AskMyAdvisor® referral app was born. This software provides trusted advisors—financial advisors, attorneys, realtors—with a simple way for their top clients to connect them with the people in their lives, making recurring referrals effortless.

“Let’s get straight to the point. After a career as a financial advisor and a coach to the industry’s best, I turned to software for one reason: I discovered how to increase referrals by 800%. The secret? Strip away the complexities that kill referrals. Focus on one thing—a single, exclusive pathway for referrals, accessible only by the top 20% of your client and COI relationships. This approach isn’t just a shift from the old way; it’s revolutionary. And it led directly to the creation of the AskMyAdvisor® Method & OS. Once you see it, you won’t just use it—you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.” – Brian Ouellette

Learn more at tip.askmyadvisor.co/webinar

Founder

After 10 years & +20,000 hours of R&D, we have built the first Q&A app for you (accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, realtors) to share with your top 25 clients to strengthen those relationships & tap into new ones, quickly. 

How does it work? AskMyAdvisor Referral Method Software provides client-facing accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, realtors, venture capitalists, and other trusted advisors with a frictionless method of retaining and growing their best clients. By using the software, they can avoid tech overwhelm, resulting in 5-10 times more referrals on a recurring basis, while working only with clients they love.

It's a simple solution to the problem, "Oh, you've got to call my guy!" Or,  "My financial advisor's great, email her." 

Instead you just share your dedicated URL (format follows: askmyadvisor.app/YOURNAMEOFCHOICE) as a dedicated channel to Q&A where your top clients & the people in their lives can easily ask their questions, get second opinions, etc. 

Members also receive the Phone App (for instant notifications allowing our members to reply to questions within minutes) & get access to The Network. 

This is our private community of our advisor members, who are elite accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, realtors from the US & abroad, to come together. 

This is a private think tank.

Think of it as a Facebook Group  on steroids (BTW, it's our community built from the ground up, so no FB login).

ATTN: Established (3+ yrs) accountants, attorneys, consultants, financial advisors, realtors, and other trusted advisors.

You agree that referrals are king, yes?
(If that is not an emphatic yes, skip this post.)

So why do “good referrals” die?
Not because people are lazy.

Because the handoff process to refer is a mess.
Email intro?
Phone number swap.
Who contacts who?
Advisor taking referrals?
Can non client ask a question?
Endless back and forth...

All of it is confusion wrapped in different ways.
 
Which leads the referral to...
Dead on arrival from one 🤬dirty word: delay.

The good news, we found the fix.
Fix: Have a standard for all referrals.

Have One Direct Path (ODP) for all referrals.
One path to you. One standard.
One link. One controlled flow.
One thing to remember instead of 10.

In an emergency, how many options are there? One.
You call 911. That's a standard.

Referrals should be no different, but they're are.

What happens with one direct path?
One link replaces the steps, questions and confusion that cause delay.

Fixing this one killer, what happens?
More referrals. Faster. Cleaner. No chasing.

Want the full One-Page PDF Blueprint based on this (image)?

Comment PDF and I will send it.
Just had coffee with Nate Short about this exact topic (I'll send PDF your way!)


P.S. Per this post, who is the first person who comes to mind? 
Using the toolbar to share makes it easy to send their way. 
Worse case, you let them know you're thinking of them. 
Better case, you help them remove this referral killer.

Founder, The AskMyAdvisor® OS. 🔐SOC 2 compliant software. Advisor built for Advisors. “Referrals are king. Delay is the killer. One link removes delay. That is all.”

𝐈𝐟 911 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫* 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐬, people would die. Seriously.

𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬:
You have an emergency.

But instead of dialing 911, you have to:

→ Dig through contacts
→ Guess which number to call
→ Wonder who reaches out to who
→ Leave a voicemail
→ Hope someone responds

Absurd, right?

911 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝.

One number.
No thinking.
No delay.
Lives saved.

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐬.
Client polls show 90% say they would refer their advisor.
But only 10% actually do.

That missing 80%?
They do not forget you.
They get stuck.

Confusion = delay.

𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐬.

No clear process.
No single path.
Too many options.
Too much friction.

𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 "𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫" 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫.

It is worse.

Two paths split attention 50%.

Ten paths kill it completely.

We found the fix.

𝐖𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐃𝐏™

It is one standard.
One clear referral path.
Not two. Not ten. One.

𝐓𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮:
Clients and advisor friends share one link.
Zip their lips.
That's it.

No confusion. No delay.

Standards create action.

Clarity converts.

𝐅𝐮𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭
Referral are King.
Advisors spend over $50B/yr. on sales and marketing.
Yet, still miss the king killer: Delay.

Remove delay with one direct path the game changes.

Not in weeks or months.

In about 10 minutes.

𝐓𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐭, 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐎𝐃𝐏™
DM me or comment below: "one link"


P.S. While reading this, who is that one advisor friend who came to mind?
Before sharing it, here’s what happens when you ping them...
𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞: you show you're thinking of them.
𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞: you help them.
𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬: you’re the one who put the AskMyAdvisor® Method on their radar first.
Either way, it’s worth a ping.

*𝘈𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺𝘴, 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴.

No alternative text description for this image

Most SaaS companies need days or weeks of work to earn one sales call.

Ads. Posts. DMs. Emails. Webinars.
Then the call.
Then maybe a customer.

We flipped that.

None of the above. 

Instead it’s one self serve path in 90 seconds.

First value lands at 37 seconds.

Steve Gordon  Bill Cates, Unlocking Exponential Growth  Pierre Herubel Wes Bush … a few simplifiers who understand this. 

We release in less than 72 hours.
Message me, or comment VIP to get on the early list.


P.S. Reserve your private AdvisorOneLink🔑 when you get on the list. Format is:
askmyadvisor.app/your-name
One link. No delay. More referrals.

The avg. COI (per person) is now 600+. This is a combo of Facebook, x, Instagram, LinkedIn, Substack;)

So think about this…
10 clients, advisors, friends of yours have a reach of 6,000
25 a reach of 15,000+

That’s there size of an arena!Birds of a feather flock together.

Moral of the story… if you want to replicate your top 10 client and advisor relationships? Get more intros/referrals from them.

Easiest path to do this. Standardize how referrals get to you. 

Like 911 is the standard for emergencies. Have one standard path all referrals reach you. 

Not two. Not 10. Just one. We call it one direct path.

Open article: Brian Ouellette (@askmyadvisor) by substack.com

If you've been building with n8n for a few months and you're hitting walls... 

Downloading templates that don't work, stuck figuring out how to tie everything together... 

Whether you're trying to automate your own business or land clients, the problem is the same. 

Nobody taught you diagnosis.

I've generated $25M+ in client revenue over 8 years building automations for e-commerce brands and service businesses.

Here's what I learned: 

The people who win don't have better technical skills. 

They have better diagnosis skills.

They can walk into any business, spot the highest-leverage automation opportunity in 15 minutes, and explain why it matters in language the owner understands. 

Commodity technicians charge $500 per project. 

AI Operators charge $5K-$50K because they diagnose problems other consultants can't even see.

In 90 days, I turn you into an AI Operator. 

Not just someone who follows tutorials. 

Someone who can diagnose what actually needs automating, design solutions that work, implement them with confidence, and charge premium rates. 

Whether you're automating your own business or building a profitable agency.

Kevin (63, never coded): 
Eliminated 20 hours of manual work per week. Took content workflows from 7 days to 7 minutes.

Tim (former agency owner): 
Booked 8 demos his first month. Now closing $5K-$10K deals with eight-figure ecom brands.

Stephen (video editor, zero background): 
Landed a client in Week 3.

AJ Vaynerchuk (co-built VaynerMedia to $130M): 
Joined to become "dangerous enough to lead automation strategy."

The program is limited to 20 people per cohort. 

Direct access to me, not support tickets. 

Get your first automation deployed in 30 days or full refund.

Become an AI Operator and join my n8n Mentorship here: 
https://learnn8nautomation.com/mentorship

Tom Crawshaw

Claude Code + Firecrawl /agent is going to be disgusting.

Imagine: "Research all competitors in this space and build me a comparison spreadsheet."

And it just... does it. 

Searches the web, scrapes the data, exports it.

Here's what's happening:

Firecrawl just released /agent - and it's unlike any scraping tool I've used before.

You don't give it URLs. 

You don't write selectors. 

You don't maintain brittle scripts that break every time a site updates.

You just describe what data you want in plain English and it figures out the rest.

Under the hood, /agent searches the web for relevant sources, navigates to the right pages, clicks through multi-step flows, handles pagination, and returns clean structured JSON.

One prompt. That's it.

I tested it with: "Find YC W24 dev tool companies, get their founders, contact emails, and employee count."

It searched YC companies, filtered for dev tools, visited each site, pulled founder info and headcount. 

It returned structured data ready for a CRM. 

---

The use cases for automation builders are huge - lead generation, competitive intel, dataset curation, product research.

And here's where it gets really interesting: n8n and Claude MCP integrations are coming soon.

Imagine an n8n workflow where a prompt goes in, /agent runs, and structured data pipes straight into your CRM or Google Sheet. 

Weeks of scraping work replaced by one node.

With Claude MCP support, you'll be able to say "Research the top 10 competitors, scrape their pricing pages, and build me a comparison doc" - and Claude will search, Firecrawl will scrape, Claude will synthesize. 

All from one conversation.

This is what agentic AI is supposed to look like.

/agent is live now in research preview with API access, Python/Node SDKs, and a playground to test immediately.

If you build automations, this is worth watching closely.

I Turn Non-Technical CEOs & Agency Owners Into AI Operators in 90 Days | n8n Mentorship | Generated $25M+ for Clients

I never thought I'd say this, but...

An open source model just matched Claude Opus 4.5 at 8x lower cost! 

Kimi K2.5 dropped from Moonshot AI and I had to double check the pricing.

$0.60 per million input tokens vs $5 for Opus 4.5.

$3 output vs $25.

It's topping DesignArena overall, beating Opus 4.5 and Gemini 3 Pro on benchmarks. 

76.8% on SWE-bench for coding. On agentic tasks, only OpenAI and Anthropic rank higher.

Fully open source, and handles images and video.

I've heard whispers about the gap between open and closed source was shrinking fast, just didn't expect it to close this quickly.

If you're running automations at scale and still paying frontier prices, you should probably test this. 

The weights are sitting there on Huggingface. You can self-host it. Fine-tune it and own it.

Yes, there's more technical setup, but you can literally get Claude to walk you though the entire setup.

Or just grab an API key and use it in CLI tools like Opencode or Blackbox. 

Anthropic and OpenAI still have edges in some areas. But the pricing moat? 

That's gone.

I hit 'auto-fix', made coffee, came back to a working agent.
And I’m not even joking, I’ve got video evidence.

Building AI agents is 20 minutes of fun.
Debugging is 4 hours of hell.

Vellum flips that.

Describe what you want in plain English.
It builds the workflow.
Something breaks? Hit auto-fix.
It loops until everything works.

No JSON.
No node configs.
No Googling error messages at 11pm.

I tested it on a conference speaker research agent.

It scrapes speakers from any event URL.
Researches their LinkedIn, Twitter, content.
Gives you personalized conversation starters.

Start to finish: 20 minutes.

Same build in n8n would've taken me half a day.

Want the exact prompt and full video walkthrough?

1 - Connect with me 
2 - Like + comment "FIX" and I'll send the link to your inbox.

For the last two years, n8n has been my main automation tool.  This is everything I know...

Last year I posted "The Last n8n Guide You'll Ever Need."

95,000 impressions. 2,500 comments.

I just rewrote the whole thing for 2026.

But first, let me address something.

Claude Code is everywhere right now. 

And it's a great tool, I use it myself.

But there's a key difference most people miss.

Claude Code is powerful. 

But you're staring at a terminal, trusting the code works.

n8n shows you everything. 

Data flows node to node. 

You see exactly what's happening.

For most people, that visual feedback is what makes automation finally click.

Here's what's inside the 2026 edition:

→ The only 12 nodes you need (out of 400+)
→ The questions to answer BEFORE you open n8n
→ How to use Claude to draft your workflows automatically
→ Hidden features that save hours of debugging
→ 5 mistakes that waste weeks for beginners
→ A week-by-week path to building real automations
→ My AI debug method that solves 90% of errors in minutes

8 years of building automations. $25M in client revenue.

Condensed into one guide. 

No paywall. No course. No catch.

1 - Connect with me 

2 - Comment "n8n" and I'll send the doc to your DM's.

Deploy n8n in 5 minutes for $6/month.

Unlimited workflows.
Unlimited executions.
No Docker knowledge needed.

Self-hosting used to be a nightmare.

Configuring servers. Wrestling with Docker. Spending an entire weekend on setup.

That's why most people avoided it.

But one-click installers changed everything.

Now you can go from zero to a live n8n instance in under 5 minutes.

Here's what you get:
- Unlimited executions (no caps)
- Full control over your data
- 70% cheaper than Cloud pricing
- One-click upgrades if you scale

I put together a step-by-step guide that walks you through the complete setup.

Want it?

1 - Connect with me
2-  Comment "HOST" and I'll DM it to you (free, no email bs).

I cancelled my ChatGPT subscription after 3 years.

$20/month for a tab I'd open, get disappointed by, and close again.

I've been using Claude for all my actual work. 

Code. Copy. Building n8n workflows for clients. 

Anything that matters.

But I kept paying. 

Because what if they fixed it? 

What if the next update was the one?

It never was.

Every few weeks I'd test it again. 

Ask it to write something.

Get back the same lifeless, corporate, "certainly I'd be happy to help you with that" energy. 

The kind of copy that sounds like it was written by someone who's never had a real conversation in their life.

Meanwhile the internet keeps telling me ChatGPT is the best. OpenAI keeps shipping updates. Sam Altman keeps posting.

So I thought - let me actually test this properly. 

Same prompts. Same use cases. Head to head.

Images. Code. Copy. Voice input.

I wanted to be wrong. 

I wanted the $240/year I'd been paying to make sense.

It didn't.

One of these companies is sprinting to ship features. 

The other is focused on making the product actually work.

I recorded the whole comparison - exact prompts, side-by-side outputs, and what I'd tell anyone still paying for ChatGPT in 2025.

Full video link in the first comment below. 
👇

Add these 5 AI skills and you'll do the work of entire teams in 2026.

Skill 1 turns 3-hour research into 5-minute tasks.

Skills 3 & 5 are the most ignored and the most valuable.

Learning tools like Claude Code and n8n is cool and all...

But tools alone won't make you valuable.

What makes you valuable is knowing how to plug them into your actual workflow.

Knowing what's worth automating in the first place.

And knowing how to build something that doesn't fall apart the second real data hits it.

That last part is where most people get stuck.

They build a demo that works perfectly with 5 test leads.

Then 500 real leads come through and the whole thing breaks.

I've watched this happen over and over again.

The people who don't have this problem all have the same 5 skills.

Not 50. Just 5.

1. AI-Assisted Research
2. Process Diagnosis
3. Workflow Architecture
4. AI Image & Video Creation
5. AI Copywriting

I filmed a full breakdown of each one.

What they are.

Why they matter.

And exactly how I'd learn them if I was starting from zero today.

I also included my 4-step checklist for figuring out what's actually worth automating vs. what's a complete waste of your time.

1 - Connect with me 
2 - Comment "SKILLS" and I'll DM you the video

47 browser tabs open.

Three half-finished projects.

A course you bought in October you haven't touched.

You're not behind. You're scattered.

Wrote an article about this 👇

There's a strange thing happening right now. The people consuming the most AI content are making the least progress. They're watching every tutorial, 

Open article: Why the Fastest Learners Are Losing by Tom Crawshaw • 4 min read

You've watched the tutorials, you've read the docs, but you're still stuck.

I've been building automations for the last 8 years and generated $25M in revenue for my clients.

This is everything I know about n8n:

I've been building automations for 8+ years. $25M in client revenue across Klaviyo, Zapier, GoHighLevel...you name it. For the last two years, n8n has

Open article: The last n8n tutorial you'll ever need (2026 edition)
 by Tom Crawshaw • 11 min read

The last n8n tutorial you'll ever need (2026 edition)

taplio

The Battle

Brian Ouellette

Tom Crawshaw

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreBrian Ouellette's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreTom Crawshaw's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Brian Ouellette

Tom Crawshaw

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Brian Ouellette's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreTom Crawshaw's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreBrian Ouellette's LinkedIn Performance