Behind The Advisor

Ryan Galiotto's interest in finance and investing began in a unique way. Today, he joins the show to share how he found his love for finance so early on and his journey into the corporate world. Ryan has some great information and tips on how to transition investment-centric clients to full financial planning, as well as how he is transitioning into taking over the firm .  You can find show notes...

When it comes to starting a firm, there's so much to know about implementation and getting started. After experiencing this firsthand, Arielle Minicozzi found a way to help other advisors with their processes to give them the ability to serve more clients and run their business more successfully. In this episode, she sits down to chat about her career transition, passion for helping millennial hom...

From a Kentucky monastery to paying off over $100,000 in debt by co-driving a truck with his wife, Ben Martinek has had an unusual journey to starting his own financial planning firm. In this episode, he shares how the unconventional nature of his career path, his passion for philosophy, and discovering Dave Ramsey got him started in the financial world. You can find show notes and more informatio...

From tax planning to owning a growing RIA, Shannon Moenkhaus has had an interesting path to finding her place in financial planning. With her firm successfully reaching $360,000 in just 2 years, we can all learn a lot from Shannon's journey through partnerships, transitions, planning, and implementation. In this episode, we dig into how she built her career and the pivotal moments and important pe...

In this episode, you'll get to hear what it's like being the owner of a large RIA firm. Chip Munn of Signature Wealth Strategies joins us to share his journey and transition from teaching to building a fast-growing firm with multiple locations and thousands of clients. He has a lot of great insight when it comes to building a strong structure, developing a solid team, and having a powerful acquisi...

Jeremy Walter had a unique experience breaking into the financial advising world. In this episode, he shares his uncommon career path, including his transition from working at a firm he enjoyed to starting his own firm—and how he cordially navigated the change with his boss. He also gives some great insight into how to grow steadily from the start and the importance of adjusting your vision along...

What happens when you can't find the financial advice you need, so you decide to become the advisor you were looking for? Angela Moore's journey into financial advising began with personal frustration over the lack of accessible, trustworthy financial guidance—even for well-educated professionals. That experience didn't just change her finances—it changed her career path. In this episode, Angela s...

Having a flexible schedule is valuable, especially when you're starting a family and want to spend more time at home. Alyssa Lum shares her journey going from a financial projection team to learning her way around financial planning and eventually starting her own firm at home. She discusses the ups and downs of the experience and lets us in on what she learned throughout the process. You can find...

Making the shift from serving in the Marines to navigating the financial services world is not the easiest transition, but Steven Fox managed it and ended up owning his own successful firm. In this episode, he shares how he initially learned about the financial planning field and decided it was what he really wanted to do, as well as the steps he took to build his career. You can find show notes a...

Malcolm Thomas became XYPN's Director of Advisor Success about six months ago, and he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience. Having had the unique experience of being on both the buy-side and sell-side of mergers, as well as various roles throughout his career, Malcolm has seen almost every corner of the industry. In this episode, he shares his insight on the various business models...

Today's episode is great for all financial planners, but especially those wanting to incorporate more in-depth tax planning—and even tax preparation—into their service model. XYPN member Dave Zaegel is here to share his journey from public accounting to financial planning to starting not one, but two firms of his own. Now a partner at both an accounting firm called CPAs for Hire and a financial pl...

Although he didn't expect to become a financial advisor, Evan Loomis is now a successful owner of a firm that has gained 22 clients in just one year. How did he get there? In this episode, we'll hear about his start in collections, as well as how he excelled in his financial career due to his work ethic and ability to ask the right questions and listen. Evan discusses how he strives to improve peo...

Today I'm excited to have XYPN's Chief Operating Officer, Raul Dominguez, on the show! After spending the first part of his career as a Navy helicopter pilot, Raul decided to transition to civilian life and ultimately joined our team back in 2015. He joins this episode to share what his day-to-day looks like as COO in order to give listeners some insight into what operations-focused team members d...

XYPN co-founder Michael Kitces is back on the show! For the second year now, we have collected data from our member firms to help us better understand their businesses and how they're operating, and Michael joins me today to talk about what we found. We dive into our 2018 Benchmarking Study's primary charts and cover key data points that will help advisors thinking about launching a firm set reali...

XYPN member Michelle Gass has had quite a unique path into the financial planning world. After starting her career as a tax accountant, Michelle transitioned into a family office, and then ended up launching and running a successful hedge fund for over twenty years. It wasn't until after she retired that she decided to get her CFP and launch her own financial planning firm. Now the founder of Para...

Morgen Rochard started out trading but eventually ended up owner her own RIA firm. In this episode we will learn how her trading experience has affected how she does business and actually guided her into financial planning. She shares her journey with us and tips from her experience in breaking into the financial planning world, growing a firm and even advice for women who want to start a firm AND...

Danna Jacobs and Rob Colon are an impressive brother and sister duo that went from launching a firm in 2013 with just one client—who happened to be their grandfather—to running not just one, but  two  successful businesses. The founders of Legacy Care Wealth and Inspired Vision Accounting, Danna and Rob have figured out how to balance their particular strengths and weaknesses to form a strong part...

Todays' guest decided to start his own firm just six months after buying into a partnership to become the succession plan for a retirement-age advisor. Now the founder of Greater Than Financial, Wakefield Hare began his journey to starting his own firm after he learned about XYPN in 2015 and realized that he wanted to serve clients his way. Three years later, Wakefield runs a successful practice s...

My guest today is a great example of how powerful it can be to nail down a niche. David Barson is the founder of Barson Financial Planning, and nearly two years after starting his firm, he has really started focusing on his ideal client profile: Genentech employees. Having started his own career in biotech and worked at the company himself, David is able to connect with current employees in ways m...

When it comes to balancing work and life, Linden Cornett seems to have found a really interesting way to do that. Last time we spoke with her she had promised her family to not work as much by taking on only 5 new clients per year. In this episode we catch up with her to see how this plan has gone and how she is balancing family life, her practice and a part-time job. You can find show notes and m...

Balancing two careers, Police sergeant Mike Bronson brings us some serious motivation and inspiration with his whirlwind life and career. He has some great insight and advice to share on time management, niche marketing, resilience and much more. Mike talks in depth about where he found his passion for finance and noticed an important need for financial help in the field he is so passionate about....

Many people start a business as a side-hustle with the goal to take that full time but Leo Nunez and James Estep of Everest Financial Advisors have two full time jobs. On this episode you'll learn how two firefighters fell into finance and decided to follow their passion for helping firefighters manage money while remaining with their original careers. They have some great insight into managing tw...

Rebecca Connor took the leap and started her own financial planning firm. Her early success is something she credits to having a specific niche from the start and implementing processes that nurtured growth. She discusses the risks she took on, her unique niche in tech and the various experiments she made to figure out the right path for her firm. You can find show notes and more information by cl...

Most people are very careful to keep politics out of their business in order to not offend or alienate potential clients. Zach Teutsch has found that his unapologetic political stance has actually helped his business. He discusses why he thinks his practice has grown due to his political views and why he decided to choose the controversial niche that he did. You can find show notes and more inform...

Entrepreneurs view risk differently and Martin Lundgren is the perfect example of this. We'll chat about his career journey into financial consulting and eventually his own successful business. He talks about the unique challenges and risks involved as an immigrant and shares many tips on what to do (and not to do) when it comes to starting your own firm. You can find show notes and more informati...