Most advisors were trained to sell, not to market. So growth ends up riding on referrals, cold calls, or whatever leads a broker-dealer or IMO happens to hand down. That works, until it doesn't. Referrals dry up. Leads go cold. And the advisors who wait for business to find them get passed by the ones who went and built a system to find it first.
Here's the part most advisors never fix: even the ones who do run ads or host a webinar usually stop at "get the lead." Nobody stays on to build the follow-up, the nurture, and the booking system that turns a lead into a client. The campaign gets launched and never gets finished.