Gerry Scott has a $40 million pipeline of business expected to come in over the next one to two months.
And this is not a “maybe someday” prospect list.
As Gerry explains, “When you talk about a $40 million pipeline, what that means is it’s not $40 million with the prospects, it’s $40 million of signed business that comes in over the next one or two months. I would add that it’s been a consistent $40 million pipeline — always full. With our COI marketing system, the pipeline continues to be replenished with incoming assets.”
That kind of result gets attention. But the more interesting part of this financial advisor’s success story is how he built it.
His strategy was not built around asking accountants for referrals, chasing attorneys for introductions, or making every piece of content about his own firm, planning process, or investment philosophy.
Gerry built a platform that helps his Centers of Influence market themselves.
Then the referrals followed.
The Strategy Started With a Give-First Mindset
Gerry grew up in a small town in Canada, where one phrase stayed with him long before he fully understood what it meant.
“Come to the table with more than just your appetite.”
Over the years, that idea became more than a childhood saying. It became the foundation for how Gerry thinks about relationships, marketing, and business development.
He explains it the way you might think about showing up for dinner. Most people ask the host, “What can I bring?” The host says, “Nothing.” And most people show up with exactly that.
Gerry’s point is that you still bring something.
“Even if you show up with a plant,” he laughs, “you’d show up with something. And that’s what we’ve done with this Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker podcast and apps.”
That mindset matters because a lot of advisors want stronger relationships with accountants and attorneys. But too often, the relationship starts with the advisor hoping the COI will send business their way.
Gerry flipped that script.
Instead of approaching Centers of Influence with an appetite for referrals, he came with something useful. He created tools. He built an audience. He gave experts a platform. He helped them tell their stories. And he referred people to them first.
Gerry did not ask, “Who can you introduce me to?”
He built something that made COIs want to be part of his ecosystem.
Step #1: Choose a Niche With Real Complexity
Gerry’s niche is cross-border planning, especially for Canadian snowbirds, Canadians returning home, and Americans moving to Canada.
This is not a casual planning topic. Canadian snowbirds have to monitor how many days they spend in the United States because those days can affect their tax status and filing requirements. Cross-border families may also face immigration questions, healthcare concerns, estate planning complications, and investment account issues. Canadians returning home may have IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and other U.S.-based assets that need specialized attention.
In other words, Gerry’s audience is not looking for general financial tips. They have real questions with real consequences.
That is one reason his strategy works. He is not trying to create demand where no demand exists. He identified a group of people with urgent, specific, confusing problems, then built a marketing ecosystem around helping them find the right answers.
Step #2: Build a Tool That Helps People
Gerry’s platform began with a problem he understood personally and professionally: Canadian snowbirds needed a better way to track their days in the United States.
At first, he admits, he was like many Canadians who were spending time south of the border without fully understanding the rules. He described himself as “a blind snowbird flying down south,” realizing over time that Canadians had to navigate both immigration rules and IRS tax concerns.
The problem was not that people did not care. The problem was that the rules were confusing.
Canadians were asking each other questions around the campfire, in RV parks, and throughout snowbird communities, Gerry explained, but the answers were often incomplete or wrong. That confusion created the opportunity.
So he created the Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker.
The app helps Canadians monitor their time in the U.S., which matters because spending too many days south of the border can trigger tax residency concerns and additional filing requirements.
But the app became much more than a utility. It became the foundation of an audience.
The Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker has seen nearly 2 million trip days logged, more than 110,000 trips, and about 11,000 users. When podcast episodes are promoted to the app audience, emails go out to more than 9,000 people, with a reported 66% open rate.
Those numbers are important because they show why Gerry’s COI strategy has leverage. He is not inviting accountants and attorneys onto a podcast and hoping someone listens. He has built a focused audience of people who need cross-border expertise.
Step #3: Expand the Ecosystem
The Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker was not the only tool Gerry built.
He also created the Canada Physical Presence Tracker, an app designed for people tracking the physical presence requirements tied to Canadian permanent residency and citizenship. As Gerry explained, Americans moving to Canada may need to track 1,095 days of physical presence before they can move from permanent residency toward citizenship eligibility.
Together, the apps gave Gerry a way to serve both sides of the cross-border conversation: Canadians going south, Canadians coming home, Americans moving north, and families navigating assets, taxes, residency, and retirement across two countries.
This created a larger ecosystem, not just a one-off lead magnet.
Each tool solved a practical problem. Each tool attracted the right audience. Each tool gave Gerry another way to connect people with the professionals they needed.
Step #4: Make COIs the Hero
The apps built the audience. The podcast gave Gerry a way to serve that audience while building deeper relationships with COIs.
On the podcast, Gerry interviews cross-border accountants, attorneys, tax experts, immigration specialists, and other professionals who can help answer the questions snowbirds and cross-border families are already asking.
But the podcast is not positioned as a sales platform for Gerry. It is positioned as an educational resource under the Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker brand.
The content is not “come learn why Gerry is great.” It is “come learn from this expert who can help you solve a specific problem.”
That makes the podcast valuable to the audience and valuable to the guest.
For many accountants and attorneys, marketing is not their strength. They may be excellent at their technical work, but they do not always have a polished way to explain their expertise, package their ideas, or get in front of a highly relevant audience.
Gerry’s platform gives them that. They get an interview, useful content, visibility, access to a niche audience, and a reason to share their expertise with their own clients and network.
As Gerry put it, “We were fortunate enough because we never made it about us. We made it about the ability to tell their story.”
Step #5: Create More Reach
This is where the strategy becomes repeatable.
The podcast is not recorded and left alone. It becomes part of a larger post-and-promote system.
Each guest can be supported with a full podcast episode, a blog or episode page, email promotion, short video clips, social content, and guest-facing promotional materials. That package makes it easy for the COI to share the content with their own audience.
It also gives Gerry a reason to stay in touch before, during, and after the episode goes live. The relationship does not end when the recording ends. The content creates multiple touchpoints.
That is a very different experience than a traditional COI lunch.
Instead of one nice meeting and a vague promise to “stay in touch,” Gerry gives the COI a useful marketing asset and a reason to keep the relationship active.
Taking it a step further, Gerry then authored two books. The first was published specifically for Snowbirds heading south and features much of the practical wisdom discussed on his podcasts. Canadians Heading South for the Winters! What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You is available on Amazon. The second book speaks to Americans thinking of an expat life in Canada and Canadians who have moved to the U.S. for work, but are heading home. In it, Gerry covers the concerns and advice for people moving north.
Step #6: Spin the Referral Flywheel
The strategy works because Gerry is not just asking COIs for referrals. He is sending referrals to them.
Gerry identifies an issue his audience cares about, invites a COI expert to discuss that issue, and packages the conversation into content the expert can use. Then that content is shared with Gerry’s app and podcast audience. People reach out with questions, and Gerry connects them to the right accountant, lawyer, or specialist.
Over time, those COIs begin to see Gerry as a valuable connector. And when they have a client who needs cross-border wealth management, Gerry is already trusted.
Gerry made an important point during the meeting: the person he refers to the accountant is not always the same person who eventually becomes his client.
The value comes from the ecosystem.
Someone may hear the podcast and ask Gerry for an introduction to a tax expert. Gerry makes the introduction without trying to sell them wealth management services. Later, that accountant may be working with a different client who needs cross-border investment or planning help. Because Gerry has already provided value, he is the natural person to recommend.
That is how the relationship compounds.
In Gerry’s words, “The more you do for others, the more they do for you.”
The Result: New Wealth Management Clients
One of the most interesting parts of Gerry’s strategy is that much of the content is not directly about investing.
The podcast may focus on tax rules, immigration issues, estate planning concerns, residency requirements, healthcare questions, or the complications that come with managing accounts across two countries. But those topics naturally lead to wealth management conversations because the audience’s financial lives are complex.
When Canadians return home with U.S.-based assets, or Americans move to Canada with retirement accounts, the planning questions can become serious quickly. Clients need to understand who can manage the assets, what the tax implications may be, what forms need to be filed, how to stay compliant, and how their investment strategy fits their cross-border reality.
Gerry is not forcing a wealth management conversation into unrelated content.
He is building trust around the problems that often come before the wealth management decision.
By the time a referral comes his way, he is not just another advisor. He is the person connected to the platform, the experts, and the answers.
When asked about the ROI of video, Gerry did not hesitate.
“The ROI has been… I’m going to tell ’em it’s a thousand percent,” he said. “It was just a great way for us to get our story out there and do it in a way that was less intimidating than a big brand.”
That is a key part of why the strategy works. The video content is not just promoting a service. It is helping Gerry, the COIs, and the broader Snowbirds U.S. Day Tracker platform feel more approachable.
It gives people a way to see the humans behind the expertise. And in a niche where the rules can feel overwhelming, that familiarity matters.
What You Can Learn From Gerry’s Strategy
Not every advisor needs to build two apps, launch a podcast, and write books for Canadian snowbirds. In fact, Gerry stresses that the business is tough. “None of us have the holy grail, but if you truly believe in putting your COIs first, it might be the start of something meaningful.”
And every advisor can learn from the underlying strategy.
Gerry picked a niche with real problems. The more specific the problem, the easier it is to create meaningful content. His audience has questions they cannot ignore, which gives his content built-in relevance.
He also built something useful before asking for anything. The apps were not sales brochures. They solved real problems, and that gave Gerry credibility before the wealth management conversation ever began.
Most importantly, Gerry made his COIs look good. Many COI strategies are advisor-centered. Gerry’s is COI-centered. He gives accountants, attorneys, and specialists a way to educate a relevant audience and share their expertise.
The post-and-promote system matters because it turns one interview into a full marketing package. That creates more value for the guest and more reach for the platform.
And through it all, Gerry sends referrals first. He built trust by connecting people with the right professionals, even when there was no immediate business in it for him.
That generosity became part of his reputation.
As Gerry said, “Stop thinking about yourself so much and think about how you can help people.”
That may be the simplest summary of the whole strategy.
The Bigger Lesson
Gerry Scott’s $40 million pipeline did not come from asking COIs for more referrals.
It came from building something they wanted to be part of.
And the same can be said for the Snowbirds team. Gerry points out that Carson, Sandra, Matt, Dean and Adam all make crucial contributions to the firm’s success.
He found a niche with real complexity, created tools to solve real problems, gave experts a platform to educate the market, and became the connector people trusted.
That is the difference between chasing referrals and creating a referral ecosystem.
Gerry came to the table with more than just his appetite.
And the results followed.
