A plus sign is a small thing to build a presentation around. But Brett VanBortel, VP of Advisor Growth at Brookstone Capital Management, has a lot riding on that little symbol—and by the time he’s done walking through what it represents, it’s hard to argue the graphic undersells the opportunity.
VanBortel takes the stage at The Wealth Advisor’s 2026 TAMP Growth Summit with a question that cuts straight to the point: “When is the last time someone rethought, re-imagined what a TAMP could actually be?”
It’s the kind of question that sounds simple on the surface but carries a lot of weight in an industry that has spent the better part of a decade layering features onto existing platforms and calling it innovation. VanBortel wasn’t there to announce another tech integration. He was there to make the case that what Brookstone has built, what they call TAMP+, is fundamentally different from what advisors are used to seeing.
The distinction starts with what a TAMP is actually supposed to do. VanBortel frames it this way: Most platforms give you technology and a model marketplace, which matters but stops well short of addressing the real challenge advisors face. “How can we help our advisors seize the tide of the massive wave of retirement wealth of mass affluent assets flowing into our industry each and every day?” VanBortel says. That’s the question Brookstone set out to answer, and the plus sign in TAMP+ is where the answer lives.
The firm has built what VanBortel describes as a third-party strategic partner platform—one that supports not just investment management, but compliance, marketing, lead generation, coaching, and client acquisition. Fourteen billion in AUM and more than 600 active advisors later, the approach appears to be working.
A Media Strategy Built for Scale
Brookstone’s in-house media operation is one of the more distinctive pieces of the TAMP+ model, and VanBortel argues it’s also one of the most underappreciated advantages the platform offers. The strategy runs on two tracks: paid media—buying airtime on programs like 60 Minutes and Meet the Press to reach affluent viewers in their peak wealth accumulation years—and earned media through YouTube, LinkedIn, podcasts, and other platforms where financial consumers are spending increasing amounts of time.
The goal of the earned media side isn’t to turn advisors into influencers. “The goal is to become recognizable and trusted in your field,” VanBortel says. Most prospects today don’t walk into a first meeting cold. They’ve already Googled the advisor, checked LinkedIn, maybe watched a clip or two. Brookstone’s media team is built to make sure that search turns up something worth seeing.
According to Brookstone’s own data, the results back it up: A 72% increase in TV viewership, two-to-three times engagement on social platforms, and an 80% lead conversion rate on social—a number VanBortel calls “absolutely phenomenal.”
Getting People in the Room
Media strategy handles visibility, but converting that visibility into clients is a different problem. That’s where the Retirement Wealth Academy (RWA) comes in—a lead generation and client acquisition program built around educational events held at local colleges and libraries. The model is designed to remove the burden from advisors entirely—no content creation, no DIY ad campaigns. “We’ve got that in-house and it doesn’t cost you a dime to utilize it,” VanBortel says.
The philosophy behind the RWA ties back to something VanBortel believes deeply: Every prospect clears two hurdles before becoming a client. “There’s two hoops every prospect jumps through: likability and capability,” he says. The workshops are designed to clear the first one—building enough trust and comfort that a prospect is willing to schedule a one-on-one. The one-on-one is where the capability conversation happens, and at that point, the advisor is already working from a warmer starting position.
Coaching as a Core Benefit
For 27 years before joining Brookstone, VanBortel worked with advisors on business growth—at conferences, in master classes, in one-on-one sessions. That work, he says, used to cost advisors real money. At Brookstone, it comes with the platform.
The Brookstone Growth Consulting team offers a research-based, advisor-focused coaching program built around the challenges that tend to stall practices: client referrals, COI (center of influence) relationships, top client retention, and growth plateaus. Nothing is off the shelf. There’s also an on-demand video library so advisors can revisit sessions on their own time—and a direct line to the consulting team when they want to go deeper.
“Everything we do is customized,” VanBortel says. “It’s not immediately off the shelf. We want to understand what are your challenges and then give you a prescription on how to get that done.”
Red Carpet Service
The final piece of the TAMP+ model is what Brookstone calls Red Carpet Service—a dedicated concierge team that functions as an extension of the advisor’s office and, more concretely, as a source of new billable AUM. The team proactively reviews advisors’ books for unmanaged and unbilled assets and works to move those into appropriate, billable models. Eight months in, more than $50 million has already moved from unmanaged sleeves to billed ones. “Compliance absolutely blesses it,” VanBortel notes. “It’s for the best of the clients.”
Pull it all together, and what VanBortel is describing isn’t a platform with extra features—it’s a firm that has made advisor growth its actual business. That’s not just his characterization. It’s how one advisor described it: “a partner, not a platform.”
The TAMP+ model also includes Brookstone Insurance Group, a full-service independent marketing organization that gives advisors access to insurance products and, for Brookstone advisors specifically, marketing credits that can be applied toward additional Retirement Wealth Advisors (RWA) programs. “This is one and one equals three,” VanBortel says. The RWA alone has generated hundreds of millions in AUM for advisors on the platform.
It’s a lot to cover in 25 minutes. But the throughline is hard to miss: Most platforms promise to make advisors more efficient. Brookstone is building something that’s supposed to make them more successful—and betting that for a lot of advisors, those aren’t the same thing.
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