We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Cody Garrett, CFP®, founder of Measure Twice Financial—an advice-only firm based in Houston, TX. After 10 years in the music industry, Cody jumped into a career in financial planning. As Cody learned about financial planning, he shared blogs to teach others at the same time. His generosity changed the trajectory of his career. Cody lasted two and a half years at an RIA before the floodgates opened. Dozens of clients started reaching out wanting planning advic...
Sep 21, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we talk to XYPN member Ethan Miller, CFP®, founder of Planning for Progress—a fee-only firm based in Washington D.C. Ethan started his career in labor and union organizing which gave him the passion for working with individuals one-on-one to empower them to make the world a better place. Financial planning seemed to be the perfect way to help clients lead socially responsible lives while building financial stability. He launched Planning for Progress in 2016 part-time to build slowly (and...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member, Rachael Burns, CFP®, CDFA®, founder of True Worth Financial Planning, on the show today. Rachael’s start in financial services and life experience have allowed her to build a practice based on empathy and education. The day after learning she was pregnant with twins, her family faced the news that no one should have to hear: her husband had a brain tumor. Shortly after the birth of their twins, the COVID pandemic hit. The next year was challenging—to say the...
Aug 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome Colton Etherton CFP®, XYPN Member, and owner of Out of the Office Planning to the show today. On this episode, Colton talks us through his professional background, which includes starting his career in the banking side of financial services, transitioning to Merrill Edge, Schwab, then an independent RIA, all before launching his fee-only firm with a tattoo artist niche. Colton shares the impact of his unexpected unemployment in the launch of his firm in January of 2021 a...
Aug 10, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Sharon Weaver, CFP®, the founder of Mission Financial Planning, on the show today. Sharon has been a CFP® for over 25 years but had never actually done a financial plan until she launched her firm 11 years ago. Some early dentist clients from a center of influence referral eventually led her to go all in on working with dentists. She's been growing her network of dentistry practice consultants, bankers, and insurance folks who work with dentists and is also n...
Jul 27, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Chad Holmes, founder of Formula Wealth, on the show today. Chad always knew he would be an entrepreneur and discovered financial planning in high school when his grandparents invited him to sit in on a meeting with their financial advisor. He started his career in public accounting as an auditor, thinking it would help prepare him to be an advisor because accounting and finance were basically the same things, right? Not really, and Chad is glad to be on a dif...
Jul 13, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Ryan Greiser, founder of the Pennsylvania-based financial planning firm Opulus, to the show. Ryan started his professional career as an athletic trainer before a client recruited him into a financial planning firm, where “financial planning” was actually just cold calling and selling insurance. Ryan lasted three years before moving to a broker-dealer, and while he was able to do more planning there, he was still expected to sell insurance—and a lot of it at t...
Jun 29, 2022•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Patrick Clark to the show today. Patrick is the founder of Neshaminy Creek Advisors, a fee-only firm specializing in volunteer firefighting companies and their firefighters in Bucks County, PA. Patrick has been in the industry for almost 30 years, starting out on the investment side of the business before getting introduced to financial planning through a friend and eventual business partner. He launched his own firm four years ago with just one volunteer fir...
Jun 15, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Reese Harper to the show today. Reese is the founder of Dentist Advisors, a virtual firm based in Salt Lake City, UT., focused on serving (you guessed it) dentists. Reese started his firm in 2007 after working at Northwestern Mutual, and he had one dentist client as part of a book of business that he left with. After experiencing 2008 and his first year of running his firm, he decided to go all-in and focus exclusively on dentists—and this is at a time when h...
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome XYPN member Danielle Harrison MBA, CFP®, CFT-I™, the founder of Harrison Financial Planning, a fee-only firm based in Columbia, Missouri, on the show today. Danielle was destined to be a financial planner, starting all the way back in middle school as a kid fascinated by finance. The only problem? Her perception of financial planning as product pushing and sales-based—until she learned about fee-only firms. She entered financial services as a bank teller at age 16 and ev...
May 18, 2022•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s episode is a shift from our typical one. Alan Moore, CEO and Co-Founder of XYPN, joins Maddy for a conversation about some changes that are happening—good ones—with the leadership structure at XYPN, their roles, and this podcast. As you’ll hear, over the past ten months since Alan was on last, XYPN has continued to grow and formalize, which means Alan and Maddy’s roles are shifting. Alan discusses his move back as the host of #XYPNRadio, and Maddy’s shift away from being the host. For ov...
May 04, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we talk to Cynthia Meyer, a CFP®, CFA, and XYPN Member, who is the owner and founder of Real Life Planning—a fee-for-service firm dedicated to supporting real estate investors. Today’s podcast is full of information as Cynthia shares her expertise with real estate, and how she’s been able to create a service model that has allowed her to scale to 50 clients in her first three years. We talk about everything from the real estate bubble to how she is able to leverage her campaign management...
Apr 20, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s interview is with Leo Marte, CFP®, the owner of Abundant Advisors, a virtual fee-only firm that specializes in serving Christian professionals. Leo joined XYPN and launched his firm in 2020 after spending a dozen years at Vanguard, managing a large team, and working with thousands of clients. We talk about what it was like for Leo to leave a meaningful institution and career to chase a different dream of serving clients that better aligned with his personal goals. He discusses what it me...
Apr 06, 2022•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we talk with two advisors who launched their firms in the past six months. This is a different kind of podcast that gives folks an inside perspective on what it’s really like in the first year. Instead of talking to people about how their first year was in hindsight, Elaine King and Scott Alan Turner, fee-only RIA owners from Florida and Texas respectively, share what it’s like to figure things out right now—as they’re doing it. You can find show notes and more information by clicking her...
Mar 23, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to interview XYPN’s very own Director of Advisor Education, Kori Lennon. Kori pulls the strings for all of the educational programming for XYPN members—from our coaching offerings to our webinars. They are the ears and eyes of our community, always learning about what advisors need to stay up to speed. Today, she talks about her team's work to support advisors on their entrepreneurial journey and shares excellent wisdom about what it takes to prepare for and start your own firm suc...
Mar 09, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we’re talking with advisors at a different stage of their business development than those we normally feature: two XYPN members who are in their first six months of launching their firm. Chao Zhang and Stefanie Pickard are in the midst of figuring things out as their firms get off the ground. This podcast is fun—and brutally honest. Despite both Chao and Stefanie having a 10-year financial runaway as they started their firms, the conversation is transparent around imposter syndrome and h...
Feb 23, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today I talk with Cameo Roberson, the owner and founder of Atlas Park Consulting—a consulting firm for RIAs. Cameo isn’t an XYPN member, nor is she an RIA owner, but she’s deeply familiar with the space and the experiences of advisors who are running their firms. Today, we dive into Cameo's expertise; from her comprehensive background in the industry to her current work with advisors. I’m able to ask her questions about what advisors tend to overlook when approaching their launch, what slows the...
Feb 09, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s interview is with XYPN member Heather Townsend, owner and founder of Townsend Financial, a virtual fee-only firm based out of Scottsdale, AZ. Heather is in her fourth year of business and is hitting her stride working with over 40 of her most ideal clients: business owners and professionals with stock compensation. Today’s episode covers a lot—Heather shares her wisdom from, as she describes it, her messy first few years, and she talks about why it was important for her to raise her fees...
Jan 26, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we hear from the three founders and owners of AVID Planning—a fee-only firm out of St. Petersburg, FL, that opened its doors in 2016. Right out of the gate, Jack, David, and Kevin experienced how much fun running a business can be when you do it alongside friends. The three of them met when they were all working at Edward Jones, had a stint at an independent broker-dealer, and eventually broke out on their own to do things differently. Today, Jack, David, and Kevin talk about what the math...
Jan 12, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, Jennipher Lommen, founder of Wildflower Financial, a fee-only firm out of Santa Cruz, California, is on the show. Jennipher is a career changer and entered this industry only a few years before she launched Wildflower four years ago. Jennipher homeschooled all three of her children and explained what it was like to begin looking to enter a new industry in her 40s. With age comes maturity and experience, and quickly Jennipher found financial planning to be a perfect fit. Today she talks ab...
Dec 29, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re joined today by XYPN member and founder of SJK Financial Planning, Wes Shannon. Wes has been running his Fort Worth, TX firm for six years and, despite feeling admittedly swamped, has reached the point where he feels like he’s built his ideal firm. In this episode, Wes discusses the numerous business plans he wrote before starting his own fee-only firm and how to handle transitioning clients. Wes reflects on how hard the first three years were and how, at 64 clients, he’s benefiting from h...
Dec 15, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast XYPN has conducted an Annual Benchmarking Study for the past four years. The comprehensive annual survey gathers core performance indicators of member participant firms and ultimately draws data-backed conclusions about the success of different business models, fee structures, and niches. Today, Alan Moore and Michael Kitces, XYPN Co-Founders, discuss the study’s fifth annual results. As you’ll see, with our maturing network and member firms, the 2021 study shows a much clearer understanding of ...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to interview Kathleen Boyd, a CFP®, former financial planner, and now, XYPN’s Financial Planning & Process Coach. Kathleen is joining us for a second time, as she was on Episode 131 with Alan Moore four years ago talking about Diversity and Inclusion. Today, Kathleen discusses the challenges advisors face when building their processes, how they can get overcome with analysis paralysis as they try to systematize, and she offers sage advice on how to avoid these pitfalls. She gives a...
Nov 17, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited for today’s episode with Ashley Foster, a Latino advisor and owner of Nxt:Gen Financial, a fee-only firm out of Houston, TX. Ashley started his career in the captive insurance space, learning how to sell and acquire clients. As many of our guests have experienced, Ashley started to feel drawn to the fee-only space and serving the community he wanted to and had a discussion with his former employer about changing his career trajectory to being a business owner. Three years into it, ...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, we’re excited to interview River Nice, XYPN member and founder of Be Intentional Financial, a fee-only firm focused on serving LGBTQ community members. River, whose pronouns are they/them, started their firm just over two years ago and has effectively served over 100 clients since opening. River serves clients how they want to be served: through education and short-term relationships. River brings up a number of compelling points throughout the interview—questions of whether gender is a n...
Oct 20, 2021•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast #XYPNRadio’s very own host, Maddy Roche, is interviewed on the podcast today. Maddy is XYPN’s Senior Director of Member Success, a role in which she’s entirely dedicated to helping XYPN members be successful. As the first employee, Maddy has been part of XYPN since the very beginning, and today, she shares her experience navigating change and the growth that comes along with it. She discusses how she inspires an “embrace change” mentality within her own team and offers advice on fostering a posi...
Oct 06, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to talk with Danika Waddell today, owner of Xena Financial Planning, a long-time follower of XYPN, and a relatively new entrepreneur. As you’ll hear, Danika has experienced rapid growth in her newly-launched firm and now serves over 60 clients just 13 months in. So, what’s her secret? As we explore today, you’ll hear that it comes down to knowing your strengths and weaknesses and creating a dream team to help you stay sane and serve your clients. Danika discusses how she relies on ...
Sep 22, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome Tom Lo, XYPN Member and founder of Vested Financial Planning, on the show today. As his firm name alludes to, Tom works with Silicon Valley tech professionals and has a particular focus on helping clients through a liquidity event at their company. Tom shares that he, too, went through a liquidity event at a tech startup and found it to be so complicated of an experience that it became one of his motivations to change careers and help others with his expertise. As Tom di...
Sep 08, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today we’re excited to have Jerry Kauffman, a Certified EOS Implementer on the show. EOS is the Entrepreneurial Operating System—a system designed to help entrepreneurs get more of what they want out of their businesses. XYPN integrated the EOS model into our organization just about three years ago, with the help of Jerry, and today we’ll discuss the core components of the system and how it can level up your business. Jerry talks through the major components of the EOS model—from setting rocks, ...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast We’re excited to welcome Daniel Kopp to the show today. Daniel is the owner and founder of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning—a two-year-old, 100% virtual fee-only firm that serves over 25 widows and military personnel. Today, Daniel talks about what it was like starting his firm while navigating some difficult personal circumstances. While he waited for approval to start his firm, he conducted 100 informational interviews, prepared for his CFP®, and got clear on who he wanted to serve and how....
Aug 11, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast