Griffin Capital is a private real estate investment firm founded in 1995.The firm invests $25 billion in capital. Griffin specializes in tax-advantaged real estate strategies - including Delaware Statutory Trusts (DSTs), Opportunity Zone investments, and a Roth conversion fund - distributed to financial advisors across RIAs, broker-dealers, and wirehouses. The firm is a top 1% sponsor in the Opportunity Zone space.

For Griffin, education is a core differentiator. The firm's strategy specialists don't just pitch products; they teach advisors how tax-advantaged real estate can solve real planning needs for their clients. But delivering that level of engagement at scale requires a distribution engine built on clean, current, and actionable data.

That is where AdvizorPro comes in.

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The Challenge: Data Maintenance Was Getting in the Way of Selling

Before AdvizorPro, Griffin relied on a combination of third-party data providers and internal lists. The issue wasn't a lack of data. It was the cost of keeping it usable, reliable, and insightful.

"The biggest challenge was the manual maintenance," says Chad Partlow, SVP of Distribution Strategy and Sales Enablement at Griffin Capital. "Keeping advisor and firm data updated in our CRM was a constant effort, and even then, it was often incomplete or outdated."

The downstream effects were familiar to many asset managers running a distribution team:

• Limited visibility into team structures and key decision-makers
• Inconsistent coverage across RIAs
• Lower confidence in outbound activity
• More time spent maintaining data than selling

"We had missed opportunities inside firms we were already engaging," Chad notes. "Confidence in the data really shapes how your team shows up in the market."

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The Shift: From Data Source to Sales Infrastructure

When Chad joined Griffin, one of his mandates was to engrain up-to-date, comprehensive wealth channel data in their CRM further and make AdvizorPro the backbone of how the distribution team operates.

"I want everything available to the team inside Salesforce, so they're not worried about managing a separate portal or a separate resource," Chad explains. "If you do it correctly, AdvizorPro becomes part of your sales infrastructure, not just a data source."

That philosophy has driven a series of high-impact changes:

• Automated advisor status tracking. Griffin replaced a static "inactive" checkbox with a dynamic workflow. When an advisor hasn't been registered for more than a week, they're automatically moved out of their current firm account and into a "no longer registered" status. As soon as AdvizorPro data shows them registered at a new firm, they're recoded and pulled back into coverage.
• Richer contact and email coverage. With AdvizorPro continuously refreshing the data, email accuracy and firm mapping have improved across the board, raising confidence for both the sales and marketing teams.
• Teams and parent-child account structure. Griffin is building out its wealth teams architecture in Salesforce, giving strategy specialists a clear view of who works with whom inside firms like Morgan Stanley and LPL - and enabling them to rank those teams as targets, partners, or not-a-fit.

"Before, the visibility was confined," Chad says. "Now we've opened it up quite a bit, and that integration is doing real work for us."

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Turning Intelligence Into Advisor Relationships

For Griffin's six-person strategy specialist team, AdvizorPro isn't just a list source. It's how they find the right conversation, at the right firm, at the right moment.

One example: using AdvizorPro's keyword signal search, a strategy specialist identified an advisor inside a smaller RIA whose profile suggested alignment with Griffin's tax-advantaged strategies.

"Somebody identified a lead from an AdvizorPro search that led to a high-quality meeting after some professional persistence," Chad says. "That advisor became a really solid producer, and we're forming a strong partnership - adding real value to his clients through our strategies."

The platform's map view has driven similar wins in the field. External reps use it to find nearby advisors who match a specific profile between meetings, whether that's a target AUM threshold, a specific custodian, or experience with alternative investments.

"I've heard success stories where somebody used the tool to do a drop-in that led to a future meeting and ultimately a new working relationship," Chad says. "That's one of the great benefits of the portal itself."

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A True Partnership, Not Just a Vendor

For Chad, one of the defining attributes of AdvizorPro isn't the platform at all. It's the team behind it. When Griffin identifies gaps, the AdvizorPro team steps in to close them.

That responsiveness has also shown up in how AdvizorPro is investing in the platform itself, including the push into AI-powered capabilities and the AdvizorPro Claude, ChatGPT connector.

"One thing that's encouraging about working with AdvizorPro is we see the investment and the recent influxes with enhancements there," Chad says. "You're not just relying on what you currently have. You're continuing to advance the platform."

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The Result: A Smarter, More Confident Distribution Team

With AdvizorPro embedded into Salesforce, Griffin's distribution team is operating with more confidence and less friction:

• Outbound email campaigns go out with verified, current addresses
• Advisors are automatically recoded as they move between firms, so producers don't fall out of coverage
• Teams are ranked and tracked, giving leadership clear visibility into where Griffin has traction and where to push next
• Strategy specialists spend less time cleaning data and more time educating advisors on DSTs, 1031 exchanges, and Opportunity Zones

Asked what he'd tell a peer considering AdvizorPro, Chad's answer is direct.

"It's definitely a good investment," he says. "Make sure it's integrated into your CRM so it aligns with how your team sells. If you do it, it becomes part of your sales infrastructure, not just a data source."

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About Griffin Capital

Griffin Capital is a private real estate investment firm founded in 1995. The firm invests $25 billion in capital. Griffin specializes in tax-advantaged real estate strategies, including Delaware Statutory Trusts, Opportunity Zone investments, and a Roth conversion fund, and is a top 1% sponsor in the Opportunity Zone space. Griffin serves financial advisors across RIAs, broker-dealers, and wirehouses.

About AdvizorPro

AdvizorPro is the advisor intelligence platform built for asset managers, ETF issuers, wealthtechs, and distribution teams that need to identify, prioritize, and engage financial advisors. With verified data across 750,000+ RIAs, family offices, and broker-dealers, combined with AI-powered lead scoring, TrafficIQ website visitor intelligence, native CRM integrations, and now direct connectivity to Claude and ChatGPT, AdvizorPro powers the go-to-market strategies of leading firms across the wealth management ecosystem.

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