How XYPN Has Evolved with Its Growing Membership

Over the past year and a half, XYPN’s Member Experience Team has spoken with 90% of the Network's 980+ members in a one-on-one capacity.

Our team’s mission is to enthusiastically and meaningfully support members throughout their membership experience, while also learning about their journeys, challenges, and what they find most valuable about membership.

With this feedback, we follow the story of the advisors in our Network, understand where and when the pain points hit, and craft a membership package that fits the needs of XYPN's unique members.  

The past 18 months have brought significant growth to XYPN, and we’ve responded to the trends in our evolving membership base by revamping several existing programs and adding new ones, which we’ll explore below.

Addressing our Advancing Membership Population

When XYPN first launched in 2014, the Network comprised 30 founding members, the majority of whom had just started, or were just beginning, their own financial planning firms.

By the end of 2014, our member count had grown to 50, most of whom were still in their first year of business.

When we began offering in-house initial registration compliance services in 2016, our membership numbers began to grow rapidly, tipping the scales even more towards new firm owners, who continued to comprise the majority of the Network.

However, our recent data show our members are getting older and more experienced. Over the past two years, experienced members have become the majority. Today, XYPN members in their first year of membership represent 37% of our network, whereas advisors past year one represent 63%.

Additionally, more than 10% of XYPN’s members are either advisors in or owners of multi-advisor firms or manage employees. As XYPN's members continue to grow and evolve, and as more XYPN advisors partner up or hire employees, it becomes increasingly important that we respond to the needs of our growing majority: our experienced members.  

Just last quarter, XYPN’s Advisor Success Team hosted XYPN PAUSE, an exclusive business strategy retreat designed for experienced members. This program was available only to members who had reached $150,000 in annual revenue.

XYPN partnered with Human Scale Business, a business strategy consulting group, to help participants address their individual challenges and create a revamped strategic plan.

Our 2018 experienced member retreat, XYPN Xcelerate, was specifically designed for advisors considering hiring and for members in multi-advisor firms.

Opportunities like Xcelerate and PAUSE provide powerful coaching and networking opportunities for XYPN's advancing members.

As XYPN advisors' firms grow and evolve, so do their compliance needs. XYPN’s Senior Compliance Consultant, Scott Gill, is currently working one-on-one with 25 of XYPN’s advanced members through our Beta Compliance Coaching Program.  

This unique, individually tailored service helps advisors identify and address gaps in their compliance programs, revamp their documents and procedures as they scale their firms, and prepare for regulatory audits.

Former state regulator Kingston Hollman and compliance expert Shelby Brown recently joined our Compliance Team and, like Scott, have been working to address the complex compliance needs of XYPN's advancing member population.

Addressing Evolving Member Struggles

“What is the hardest part of running your RIA?”

This is a question our Member Experience Team often asks XYPN members—the responses tell the impressive story of the average XYPN entrepreneur and shed light on how we can better support members.

Let’s explore some of the ways we can help below.

The First 12 Months

What do members struggle with in the first 12 months? Two words: time management.

There’s clearly a lot that goes into launching an RIA (is that the understatement of the century or what?). There will be times when it feels like you have an endless number of to-dos, things to consider, and decisions to make.

Some members still have another job when they join XYPN, or their side hustle takes up too much time. Others feel chronically underwater. The reality is that when you launch a business, it’s a full-time, all-in endeavor, and you will never feel like you have enough time to find all the answers.  

(If you feel overwhelmed by first-year to-dos, use our free All-in-One Checklist, which clearly lays out all the items you should consider before joining XYPN. It will keep you organized and focused on the major to-dos before you start the process of launching your firm.) 

Once you join XYPN and begin launching your firm, things won’t get any less busy, but they will get more organized. Thanks to our Member Experience Program, you won’t be left on your own to navigate membership; every XYPN member has an XYPN team member dedicated to personalizing their membership experience and addressing their specific needs.

XYPN’s Member Experience Specialists encourage new members to attend our four-week Start My Firm Program (initiated after an ADV is submitted to the regulators but before approval), during which members work with XYPN's Financial Planning & Process Coach, Emily Purdon, Coaching Program Manager, Arlene Moss, and Director of Compliance, Travis Johnson.

Over the four weeks of weekly group meetings, members of a small cohort work through the many nuances of starting their firms, from creating an onboarding process to establishing a compliance program.

By the time a member launches their firm, they are typically engaged in XYPN’s Mastermind Program, an accountability study group of four to six similarly situated advisors. Committed attendance at these weekly group meetings helps members stay on track and address the very thing that often leaves them feeling most overwhelmed: time management. (Believe it or not, an extra meeting on the calendar can actually help with that.)

The Mastermind Program is designed so members share in their goals and early wins, and in doing so, are able to overcome the heavy burden of loneliness that often comes with entrepreneurship.  

After Year One

While time management is a big struggle for advisors in their first 12 months of firm ownership, after year one, a new struggle rears its ugly head: marketing.

It’s no surprise that once members overcome that initial year of chaos, they self-report marketing as their biggest struggle. In years one through four, marketing is a non-negotiable, and there’s always more that can be done. Until members reach capacity, marketing is a required and oh-so-challenging struggle.

That’s why XYPN has created a variety of marketing programs and resources that allow members to embrace the challenge and become self-sufficient marketing experts.

Members have access to dozens of marketing and lead-generation coaching courses through XYPN Academy. These courses teach members marketing basics, like how to run an A/B test or how to best spend their marketing dollars.

These on-demand webinars let members explore areas of marketing they may not have considered before and learn at their own pace in the privacy of their offices. 

If members are interested in working with an expert on a personal level to address their marketing needs, they’re in luck. XYPN’s in-house Marketing Coach, Carolyn Dalle-Molle, hosts monthly webinars, facilitates one-on-one marketing coaching, and facilitates our recently launched Content Strategy Workshop. Of the workshop, one member remarked, “I hate having my time wasted, and every minute of class has been valuable.”

Additionally, XYPN has received an impressive number of media requests from reputable industry publications, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Industry reporters routinely rely on XYPN's fee-only members for quotes in their articles.

Our one-of-a-kind and recently revamped Find an Advisor search portal also helps XYPN advisors market their services and find potential clients. The portal, which is searchable by niche, connects hundreds of consumers with their financial advisors every year and receives nearly 30,000 unique views per month. XYPN members often cite the Find an Advisor portal as a predominant lead generator. 

The Importance of Networking at Every Stage of Firm Ownership

Marketing is undoubtedly critical to the success of any advisor, but it’s not the only key. Networking also plays a crucial role.

27% of XYPN members in their first 12 months have reported finding clients through their friends and family, and 20% have reported finding clients through their centers of influence (COI). Moreover, after year one, 31% of members cite friends and family as their main client sources, and 20% cite client referrals (because they actually have clients by that time!). And between years two and four, 27% of members say clients come from their client referrals. It’s not until year five that inbound marketing accounts for the majority of clients. (Inbound marketing is a long-play and it will take time to see the fruits of your labor.)

What does this tell us? Members who foster a community and invest time in it can effectively leverage it to find new clients during their hardest and leanest years. That absolutely does not mean advisors shouldn’t be working on their inbound marketing—you should, and you will at XYPN, but the most important thing you can do right out of the gate is form and foster relationships with your friends, family, COIs, and each and every one of your clients.

Year Five

Once advisors reach year five, the struggle again shifts. This time operations takes center stage as the main struggle keeping year five advisors up at night.

At this point, members struggle to run their growing businesses. They struggle with how to hire, when to hire, how to scale, how to offer employee benefits, how to outsource administrative work, how to handle investment management for 70+ clients, and many other facets of successfully operating a growing business.  

How does XYPN support these advisors with their operational needs? A few ways.

We offer Executive Business Coaching to help members understand what’s working, what’s not, and how to align their operations with their goals. Arlene Moss, XYPN’s Coaching Program Manager, is well-versed in the challenges of advancing advisors and works with members to sort through the mental clutter of business ownership and tackle their biggest to-dos. Emily Purdon, XYPN’s Financial Planning & Process Coach, facilitates group coaching sessions and creates process templates and resources for members of all levels. 

Advisors can also find help with operations (and so much more!) at our annual conference, #XYPNLIVE. We loaded our #XYPNLIVE schedule with sessions that address the operational pain points associated with growth. Sessions range from onboarding new employees to preparing for the third decade in business.  

And, for the first time this year, advisors who have been members of XYPN for more than 4 years or are firm owners are invited to our Advanced Member Mixer at #XYPNLIVE. Here, advisors will be able to essentially “speed date” with other advisors, learn what’s worked for them, and walk away with a new network of advisors working through similar struggles.

It’s connections like these that we most frequently hear advisors describe as priceless.

The Power of Community

Which leads us to our final stat: across the board, no matter what year in business, the thing XYPN members value most about membership is the community. In fact, nearly 40% of XYPN's 5+ year members cite the community as the most valuable part of the membership.  

How do we continue to foster that sense of community as XYPN grows?

Just this year, we began sponsoring local-area meet-ups. We’ve had over 10 meet-ups across the country and plan to hold dozens more over the coming months.

Meet-ups are opportunities for XYPN members and those interested in learning more about XYPN to connect and network. Having a community breaks down the barrier of loneliness and helps advisors stay sane, focused, and advance towards their goals.

We also foster a strong sense of community through our Member-Only Forums. Last quarter, XYPN rolled out a new platform that allows our 980+ advisors to connect with one another and ask questions, give feedback, find and offer advice, and more. With enhanced search functionality, members can find answers to their most pressing questions.

The interactions within the forums are incredibly meaningful and valuable. Through the Member Forums, members have found clients from referrals, been empowered to raise their fees, and found solutions to problems that have pained them for days, weeks, months, or sometimes even years. We’ve even had members merge their firms. And we’ve had many members become lifelong friends. 

It’s the relationships that are formed within the physical walls of #XYPNLIVE and the virtual walls of our Network that mean the most to members. The more members “colleagues” you can have on your side, the more supported you'll feel as you celebrate your wins, lament—and overcome—your losses, and continue on your entrepreneurial journey.

As XYPN approaches its 1000-member mark, it’s even more important than ever that we foster a healthy community and remain responsive to our membership. With every quarter that passes, we’re looking for ways to better support XYPN advisors and ensure we provide a safe and supportive environment for all who join.

About the Author

Maddy Roche is the Director of Member Services at XYPN, and has been making moves and getting sh!t done since she joined the team in May of 2014 when the Network was made up of our first 30 founding members. Since then, Maddy has worked with and welcomed each of the Network’s members, and helps all of them take advantage of XYPN membership. Maddy is responsible for member benefits and services, including management of vendor partnerships and member rollouts and initiatives. She manages the XYPN Member Experience Program.