Behind The Advisor

Today I'm excited to have XYPN member Deb Meyer on the show. The founder of both WorthyNest and SV CPA Services, Deb started her career on the tax side of the business before eventually finding her way into financial planning. After working for a large family office firm, she realized that her passion wasn't in working with super wealthy families and decided to switch gears. Deb launched WorthyNes...

Steve Crawford is a financial advisor, a coach to other financial advisors, and the founder of both Experience Wealth and XY Adviser in Australia. After working in the industry and realizing he wasn't serving the client base he wanted to focus on, Steve started his own financial planning firm at what was probably the worst possible time to start a firm: 2008. Despite the timing—and despite committ...

Today I'm excited to have XYPN Member Eric Gabor on the show! Eric has spent his entire career as a financial advisor, but he realized early on that he wanted to work with a different client base than the one most firms serve. After making the decision to leave a high-paying job to follow that desire, he ultimately launched his own firm, Eagle Grove Advisors, in 2016. In this episode, he shares th...

The financial planning industry has mostly targeted the higher earners and often been less accessible for those that really need financial planning and advising services. Michael Anderson joins us to talk about how he is working on providing options for the lower income clients. He also discusses the importance of having a relationship with his clients and why he works so hard on communicating eff...

Breanna Reish is the founder of Wealth of Confidence, a women's wealth firm that aims to transform the financial planning experience for women. After starting her career on the tax side of the business (and having to plan pregnancies around tax season), Breanna decided to leave and work for an RIA doing financial planning. Still finding herself unsettled, she ended up meeting a coach who helped he...

What does it really take to bet on yourself, and grow faster than you ever imagined? On this episode of  Behind the Advisor (previously known as XYPN Radio), I'm sitting down with Kyle Moore, founder of the fee-only financial planning firm Quarry Hill Advisors. Kyle has led his firm through some of the most explosive growth we've ever heard about on the podcast, and his path into the industry is j...

Today's guest is a thought leader in the financial industry who has been published in Black Enterprise, CNBC, Financial Advisor, ThinkAdvisor, MarketWatch, US News & World Report, Women's Health, and many more. Rianka Dorsainvil is the founder of Your Greatest Contribution, as well as the creator and host of the 2050 Trailblazers podcast, which directly addresses the lack of diversity in the finan...

Brad Sherman is the founder of Sherman Wealth Management, an independent fee-only financial planning and wealth management firm with $38 million in AUM. While Brad started his career on the mortgage side of the business and went through several job changes, he slowly made his way over to financial planning and ultimately made the decision to launch his own practice—while his wife was 36 weeks preg...

Many listeners have requested that we bring back some of the interviews and see where their businesses are after a year. Today we get the chance to catch up with Ryan Frailich who has now been in business for about 18 months. He opens up about the changes, challenges and successes that he and his business has gone through over the past year since we last got a chance to chat. You can find show not...

When it comes to interesting stories, Chris Jackson certainly has one of those. He also has some great advice on how to use theatre skills to serve your clients better and have confidence in your meetings. Chris shares the crazy story about how he got into financial planning with almost no experience and why he stuck with it. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here:  https://...

Dealing with clients who are grieving or going through a great loss requires a great deal of courage, compassion and wisdom. Chris Dale is an advisor and planner who has gone through significant loss and channeled that into a practice of his own that caters specifically to people going through a hard time. He has some extremely valuable advice and information for us that will shed some light on ho...

Many people are in search of a career that supports their lifestyle and feeds their passions. Debbie Gallant has done just that and is here on the show to share her journey with entrepreneurship and the various careers that brought her to the sweet spot where she is today. She offers some valuable advice on how to get started in financial planning, who to reach out to, where she would have done th...

There's no right way to structure a partnership and this can make things confusing when building a business relationship between partners. Jirayr Kembikian and Ryan Cole have successfully navigated a 50/50 partnership and they're here to share how they did it. This episode will be all about how they are building their growing business and how they use their different skills to benefit each other....

You might know Stephanie Sammons as the founder of Wired Advisors, but as of last year, she's also the founder of Sammons Wealth Management, a fee-only firm handling $7.5 million in assets. Now focused on high net worth clients in the LGBTQ community, Stephanie has overcome more than her fair share of struggles in the industry. In this episode, she opens up about the difficulties she faced being a...

Today's guest is XYPN member and founder of Mellen Money Management, Scott Snider. After starting his career on the sales side, briefly working at a bank, and finding his way to a wealth management firm, Scott ultimately decided to start his own firm—and did so while also dealing with moving across the country, his wife starting a new job, and having his first child. Though this path certainly isn...

Have you ever wondered about or considered teaming up with another advisor? If so, this episode is for you. Both Gabe Anderson and Scott Bell started their own practices and ended up merging their financial planning and investment businesses to create a business that provides a quality experience for all clients. They discuss the process of merging and where they want to go with their partnership....

Today I'm excited to have siblings and XYPN members Courtney and Morgan Randstrom on the show! Co-founders of Trailhead Planners, the two have an interesting niche in working with clients who have a passion for their environmental footprint and want to build carbon-neutral portfolios. With complimenting skill sets—Morgan is more of the big-picture idea person and Courtney is the realist who focuse...

Kyle Mast joins us on the show to talk about his career journey that started in a family business through a succession plan and ended up with him owning his own RIA. He discusses the details of his business and the strategies he has used to build it successfully. Kyle talks about how he has hit a place he's happy with and ready to pull back and spend more time with family. You can find show notes...

Most people know there are risks and sacrifices involved with entrepreneurship. Raquel Hinman shares her journey through different finance jobs and how she ended up starting her own successful business and having to deal with the downside to business ownership. She gets real with us and talks about what went wrong, what went right and how she would or wouldn't have done things differently along th...

My guest today is a great example of why having a niche is so powerful. XYPN member Ryan Inman is the founder of Physician Wealth Services, a firm that specializes in working with (you guessed it) physicians. In fact, one hundred percent of his clients are doctors. Completely focused on his niche, Ryan provides tons of awesome content for physicians through his blog, podcast, different Facebook gr...

Julia Lorenz-Olsen and Philip Olsen join us on the show to share some golden nuggets about their unique careers and the unexpected benefits their creative background has brought on. They discuss how they got started and how they settled on the business model they're currently in. Philip and Julia both lay out the difficulties involved in their careers and how they navigated the various hurdles pre...

Today I'm excited to have XYPN member Xavier Maldonado on the show. The founder of Global Vantage Wealth Management in San Diego, Xavier specializes in working with dual-citizen clients with assets in multiple countries, with his primary focus on clients that are citizens of the United States and Mexico. At one point, he came to the surprising realization that he was the only Spanish-speaking CFP...

Today XYPN members Taylor and Kailie join the podcast to share the non-traditional paths into financial planning that led to them buying their father's practice. Sisters—and now business partners—Taylor and Kailie are going through a ton of change and evolution at the firm, and we've caught up with them to hear all about how they're figuring out what they want the business to be as it matures. You...

From books to planning practices, the financial planning world can tend to be a bit boring and stale. Catie Hogan realized this early on and channeled her humor and fun-loving nature into her book as well as her practice. She has successfully found a way to get people interested in financial planning by using storytelling and finding creative ways to catch peoples' attention. You can find show not...

Life gets messy and whether it's a new tax law or a looming divorce settlement, the value of a financial planner who has expertise in these areas is truly valuable. Diana Bacon joins us on the show today to discuss her career from working with multiple different firms to eventually moving to the fee-only model and starting her own firm. She discusses the struggles and issues she faced and shares s...