From $0 to $250,000 Annual Revenue in Just 13 Months

With Patrick Brewer, CFA

November 19, 2025

Featuring

Patrick Brewer, CFA

SurePath Wealth Management

What does it really take to start and grow a successful financial planning firm—from zero to something real? On this episode of XYPN Radio (now Behind The Advisor), I’m sitting down with someone who’s walked that path at full sprint.

My guest today is Patrick Brewer, founder of SurePath Wealth Management, a fee-only firm based in Austin, Texas, that grew from $0 to over $250,000 in revenue in just 13 months. Patrick didn’t stop there; he also launched a niche arm, SurePath Physician Services, and runs Brewer Consulting, where he helps fiduciary advisors scale their businesses with intention.

Patrick and I dive into what pushed him to launch his own firm, the biggest lessons he learned in that first wild year, and why adopting a team mindset is non-negotiable for growth. We also explore why advisors need to treat marketing and business-building as core duties, not side quests, and how that shift changes everything for your success.

Tune in to hear Patrick’s story, his strategies, and what they mean for you as an advisor building the firm you want.

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Listen to the Full Interview:

Watch the Full Interview:

What You'll Learn from This Episode:

The key to growing your firm faster.
Why Advisors Should Have a Team Mindset.
How to get potential clients to see the value of financial planning services.
The problem with typical marketing funnels.
Where to start with building an audience.
What will increase engagement levels when you market?
Which platforms actually produce a return on marketing spend?
The first thing you should think about once you’ve decided on a niche.
What most advisors should focus on if they’re under $100 million.
Patrick's best advice for someone starting a financial planning firm.

Featured on the Show:

This Episode Is Sponsored By:

Read the Transcript Below:

welcome to xypn radio where your host Alan Moore brings you into a community of the only financial planners who want to profitably and successfully serve Gen X and geny clients if you're ready to get the knowledge you need from leaders in your field learn from Forward Thinking advisors and take action on your own goals xypn radio is the show for you here's your host hello and welcome to this episode of xypn radio I am your host Alan Moore and today I'm thrilled to have Brian face on the show

the owner of face-to-face Financial a fee only Raa in Michigan Brian's career started in the wirehouse literally cold calling to try to get enough business to keep his job after a couple years of that he took a break to work for his dad's business before deciding he wanted to do what he felt was real financial planning he ended up starting a Farm Bureau Insurance firm because he felt like there were a lot of people that needed help with insurance and that was a way to do so he didn't really know

that comprehensive financial planning was even an option he ultimately left that company to join a fee-based raia to do comprehensive financial planning but found what he really wanted was to work for himself he was able to take all but one client with him when he launched his new Raa and you'll hear how he was able to make that transition so successfully the short of it is don't overthink it you can find any of the additional resources that we mentioned during the episode at XY planning network.com

185 in addition to the typical resources you'll find a link to our recently launched book co-authored by kitus and myself titled the monthly retainer model what it is why it works and how to implement it in your firm this month's podcasts are brought to you by life insurance innovator Haven life Haven life insurance agency offers the first non-commission term life insurance that your clients can buy entirely online the prices are affordable the application process is simple and the policies are

fully backed by massachus Mutual Life Insurance Company plus some qualified healthy applicants can even be approved for coverage without the need for medical exam this is life insurance the Modern Way visit Haven life.com advisors to learn more about how Haven life is partnering with fee only financial advisers please note that the opinions expressed by participants on the podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Haven life visit Haven life.com advisors also be sure to

go to XY planning network.com to join our private group just for xyp and radio listeners you can interact with other listeners ask us questions and more hey Brian welcome to the show man thanks so much for being on hey Al thanks for having me so I'm excited for anybody who is not already in the VIP group if you've listened to any podcast you know I'm constantly pushing the VIP group but the reason is and a really good example of why I push it so hard is this interview actually because it came

out of a question that one listener posed around how to transition clients that were paying a 12 B1 fee to to being fee only and and you were able to jump in there and help answer some questions which prompted me to bring you on So for anybody out there that has not joined the VIP group just do it go to xplay network.com viip it's free you get to interact with other listeners and other experts that you know have expertise that I don't have that kitus doesn't have so you sort of get to see a full

range of expertise but enough of the self-promotion Brian thank you for for taking the time to be on as usual we'll sort of start at the beginning so how did you initially get into sort of the career of financial planning I guess I'm a second generation planner my father was an adviser pretty much my whole wife growing up he started selling life insurance for a number of years and then he became into Financial Planning and and more into retirement planning so growing up being 10 15 years old he

would take me to factories where he would do their 401k and do their presentations and just became really interested and I always been good at numbers always been good at math but I was really interested in seeing that he was helping regular people being able to help regular people and still have a you know a good job doing it this is something he he left the industry oh I don't know probably in 98 99 where he went and worked for ernston young and did worked on their E Trade thing with them and did some other kind

of financial education stuff so now he's out of the business so I just kind of grew up wanting to be a planner I think my in my mind what a financial planner was wasn't exactly what it ended up being when I first worked at my first wirehouse which was uh Wells Fargo advisers it started as a ag Edwards and and wovi securities and then eventually got bought by Wells Fargo adviser so I was in I started in the business during the the exciting time of the downturn sure so what year did you start

well originally I started at ' 07 I'm someone who was in the business for about two and a half years and then left and decided it wasn't for me I went to Western Michigan University I had got a degree the main focus was Finance they didn't have the cfp program at the time which they do now which I'm very jealous about about because I'm not someone who has a cfp I am going to get that but it's something that I would have loved to have because you know the truth is if you got a degree in finance before it

was really just about numbers and it wasn't really about helping it wasn't personal finance it was more I guess I'd call it was Corporate Finance not personal that's right yeah so for me that's not what I was really interested in the other thing is when you go work at a wirehouse you know and they're right in that business at that time it was a lot of commission it also was the Feebas was kind of new you know Feebas really didn't start until the 2000s but it was becoming more popular in the late 2000s

but you know you needed to work with people that had money because that's just the model they had and if you didn't you know you still got to eat and I remember a guy it was actually my manager said you know you got to take care of yourself before you can take care of maybe people their are middle class because you know that's just the way the business is so basically saying you had to work with rich people so you could get paid because yeah you know the way that the way you got paid at Wells

Fargo was not a model that worked for Middle income yeah and I still think the model today is not good it's still saying us as Financial people that do the right things with our money we basically have to starve for a while to be able to help people you know there's not really a good model per se to say hey you're going to start on making a good salary or decent salary in this industry because you know there's just you know there's very few big Ras that bring people in it's mostly that's just

not the world we live in it's growing but that's not the world we live in yeah I hope in 10 years we can you know we'll we'll have all these XY Planning Network advisers and all these other advisory firms out there that are hiring young Talent you know and giving them I'll say the right path I would love for us to have some brand names as big as Wells Fargo that gets to go into the finance departments and poach anybody they want because they've got a brand name but you know they bring folks in like yourself

and sort of turn them out I mean it's not you don't hear a lot of folks are like oh you know what I went to a wirehouse my first two years and just loved it like it was just this amazing experience I'm so glad I did it no because I was now I was still in the world of cold calling that was still kind of and that was on the edge you know you got a list and no that wasn't fun so it was on the edge but they but the thing is the training was still about cold calling so you know when you

got in the industry you either had to go sell insurance which I didn't want to do they didn't pay you salary they didn't you know you had to sell stuff you didn't believe in which I believe in insurance but I believe in term insurance so I said I don't want to do that so I went and worked at a the wirehouse the funny thing about the wirehouse is I almost worked in the wire when I started I I think I was like 28 but I almost got a job right out of college at 23 the same and this is why I

believe relationships are so important the same guy that hired me at 28 was the guy that well wanted to hire me at 23 but the corporate was for leg Mason which they were a pretty well-known Boutique for in Sarasota Florida I would have had it made cuz I was going to work underneath another guy as a junior advisor and eventually take over his business they just thought I was too young so they told me to come back but that's why I believe relationships you don't ever know who you're going to meet

and how it's going to change in the future no it's so true and it's one of the things that I encourage young planners that are sitting inside of you know a firm if your boss is not all that supportive of you getting out of the office I encourage you to find ways to do it get to national conferences go to Regional events even if it's virtual stuff like get out there and meet people and I'm not talking about just like randomly connect with folks on LinkedIn you know even if it's getting on Twitter

so that you can actually have conversations back and forth because you know most listeners know that's where I met kitus was on Twitter it's amazing the relationships you can build even if it is online ideally though you can get out get in person and start to meet folks because you never know when you're going to need to make that phone call to say like hey you know looking for a new opportunity or hey have this situation and I don't know how to handle it any advice and you need that roll a deck of

people because you just never know when they're going to pop up and you're you're going to have a need for them and more importantly when they're also going to have a need for you and be able to call in a favor which is always nice as well so okay so you graduated college you had your degree in finance you had originally talked to this firm in with leg Mason down in Sarasota they told you to come back so is that when you started at Wells Fargo no so I I got out of the the two things I always liked in my life

are finance and car so I just kind of was discouraged you know so I went into mortgage this is what I did I got a job in mortgage so I worked in mortgage just for a couple years and then I got into back into the car business to highend exotic cars I was in Florida so there's a lot of but I ended up working for Tampa Bay Bentley rolls what is it Bentley Rolls-Royce and Lotus now they have a bunch of other things but and I was a wholesaler before that in between so that was just something I like that

wasn't my passion that was just kind of like okay well I need to make money and I did make good money doing and I enjoyed it but because I was discouraged and then I finally said about 27 I said you know what I got to try this let me see if I'm going to you know I felt like this is what I needed to do so I went worked at the wirehouse for about two and a half years and it just wasn't working for me you know I I just didn't feel like I was helping the people I wanted to be able to help I didn't feel

like I was I guess at the end of for most of us we do this because of the meaning that we feel that we're here to help people in their personal finances and help them become better next year than they were this year and 20 years from down the road hopefully it's even better so I just kind of I didn't really see another opportunity so I just kind of gave up and said okay I'm going to do something else because this isn't it that's kind of my transition I work my father was having some health issues so

I went and worked with him he he owned a leadership development company so we coached we coached managers on how to manage their employees you know employee happiness things see what she still has the business now so I helped him for a number of years and then I moved back to Michigan so I was in Florida for 10 years after college so that's kind of my progression then when I came back to Michigan and I said well what am I going to do next and I just still didn't see an opportunity for financial planning so

I decided to open a Farm Bureau Insurance Agency which we did Home Auto and life insurance little bit of a switch before we dig into the farm be I'm just curious so you spent two years at the wirehouse yeah as somebody who has never worked in a wirehouse can you just sort of describe for me like what's the working environment there like what do you do on a day-to-day basis is it really just you know because we see the movies right where all you do is pick up the phone all day and yell at people so I don't

think that's actually accurate but like what do you do all day kind of what's your job okay so I think if you're in New York City or something that's probably the more little more mentality I was in St Petersburg Florida so it's a little more laid-back atmosphere so there was 20 some advisers in my office one or two new people so me and I think one other person at the time and most these guys and gals were old I mean we had a lady that was 80 some years old as an advisor yeah so it was you know your

daytoday they have a training program that's two years long that they put you through so you go to St Louis and they do training the problem is the training is outdated you know it's really about cold calling and it's about I mean at the end of the day they are right and I remember them saying this and I believe this now and I talk about this in my Mastermind group with xypn and is you're not going to fail because you don't know the difference between this ETF and that ETF you're going to fail because you

don't have enough clients and that's no different today and so that was their big Focus really is you had to be out there and meeting people and that was true now the other thing that I did why I was there is I kind of met another advisor there there was old not older but he was a I say older but he was probably 60 at the time in the 50s and I worked with him so I'd help him on some things so I worked on my own but I'd help him with some things he didn't want to mess with right maybe he had some old

clients that you know didn't have a certain asset level and so I'd kind of review you know check out what they currently had in their allocation and just do things like that so that's kind of what I was doing I still would go out and network I'd go out and meet people but again you have to look at where you're fishing right well I really enjoyed fishing for people that were in their 30s and 40s well the problem was they're not really going to be my clients at that place yeah it's such an

interesting I guess model and you know we joke about the the broker dealers and the wirehouses and all this being outdated but you know it whenever my understanding is when you truly live it that's when you really see how outdated it is because you're talking about you know you know learning how to cold call and I'm assuming they're going through and teaching you how to handle objections and how to keep people on the phone and get them interested in what you're doing like did you actually sign

up clients like literally by just cold calling like is that a way that you actually were able to get some clients or or were the majority of your clients coming from you know networking events and that sort of thing yeah so the problem was because we're on the edge of the Do Not Call List you know I don't know when the Do Not Call List came out but maybe it came out like 04 or 03 and so many people had signed up for it that everybody that had money was on the Do Not Call list right because they're

smart right it's like I'm gonna get so I couldn't call them so you get lists and you do things like that I mean AG Edwards so the training program I actually went through was with ag Edwards which was bought by white kov Securities but they was their training program there was all about and I think this is good for XY planning members is it was all about opening accounts so if you had to open like 20 accounts in six months okay it it had nothing to do with how much money you could you could have

a $500 account or you could have a $500,000 account it was all about numbers and they were saying create activity so open as many as accounts as you can and that's really was how you were hitting your goals so create activity and I think that's so true in any is you need activity to be able to you know move to the next step well there is some well there's really a lot of research around how people buy and how they engage with vendors and I mean one of the things is that once someone

pays you once they're much more likely to pay you again getting them to pay you the first time getting that first account opened is the hard one beting the second account is much easier the third one is easier and it just gets easier from there so I can absolutely understand the model of you know just get as many people with their foot in the door you know just anything you can get because we can always upsell because it's much easier to upsell to an existing client than to a new one cuz

you know druming up new business is always hard but then it also kind of comes back to are you getting the right kind of business which in the wirehouse model it's sort of there's not a wrong type of client as long as they have money you know you have something to sell them I guess is just sort of the reality but I think the biggest problem with the wreh houses now is so when you're a new adviser there whether it's Edward Jones or if it's at you know maryan or it's wherever your goals are

still based on things they're the same goals they were in 200000 that they are now but the problem is in 2000 I was taking $100,000 now I wasn't because I wasn't in the business in 2000 but you were taking $100,000 you're putting it in an a share and you were getting $5,000 up front right yep well in the fee world even if it's fee based not fee only but fee based now I'm taking 100,000 I'm putting it in at 1% and I'm getting $1,000 divided by 12 or a quarter however you want to build it so they

haven't set it up so it's realistic to actually get someone through it be the industry is changing from the pricing structure which I think is a positive thing but I feel like they haven't figured out how to actually come behind that and figure out how do I bring in new people they've done things like some of the Big White now and you've probably heard I think Marl Lynch is anything under 250,000 you don't get paid on yep now I love this okay this the best thing ever for me I'm thinking

great because there's a lot of accounts under 250,000 I would be happy to help those clients so you know those kind of things I think are positive for us agreed yeah and yet Mar Lynch also came out and said that they're now 100% fiduciary so they're going fiduciary on all their retirement accounts which is also interesting to see you know it's a changing world and it's changing very rapidly I will say that we know the broker dealers and the wirehouses they're always in catch-up mode and it's

just the size of their companies right I mean even large raas are a little bit in catch-up mode as we go forward just because things change very rapidly when you have a big company it's hard to Pivot so I remember when I was doing hour even just hourly planning I talked to an adviser at Wells Fargo and he asked if he could send me some clients that had come to him because they were looking for an hourly advisor and he literally wasn't allowed to Bill hourly like they didn't have the model set up

that he could do anything other than sell them a product and all they needed was a couple hours of advice and he was just like you know I'd rather not do it if I'm not getting paid so you know call Allan you can pay him and he'll do it and I just thought that was so baffling to me that that they were so far behind that they couldn't even do hourly much less some type of retainer subscription model but you know such it's good for us like you said that they're slowly moving

this direction but you know so slowly that we get to stay of the curve but anyway so okay so you spent a couple years at the wirehouse and then you decided you made the move back to Michigan so sort of what was your path then towards know your current place of having launched your own firm well so I opened a farm B Insurance Agency I I still again didn't think I wanted to do something that could help people in their financial side and um what I did like about home and auto insurance is I find a lot of people are underinsured

and nobody really helps them they you know everybody believes you just go online and save $10 and but you might not you might have the right Insurance you know you just might not and so I say with insurance we only need it when we need it when we don't need it it's not a big deal but when we actually need it that's the reason we paid for it so I kind of said okay well maybe this is a way I can still help people build a business the whole time I think I was missing the personal finance side and

there really a few reasons the one reason was numbers wise so when you have a home and auto insurance business you you need thousands of clients you don't really get to build the relationship that maybe you want to because you just it's just a numbers it's numbers you don't have enough time yeah you don't have time you also know clients are going to leave you even though you might really like the clients and they like you I mean you can you can't blame them when they're you know when they can save

$300 somewhere else y they price shop they price shop right so Geico and Progressive have made it very price sensitive so I think it was that was probably two and a half years ago where I I actually called you Allan and I I don't know again I have no CL clue how I even learned about XY Planning Network at that time something I saw something it might have been a podcast it might have been I can't remember at the time but you know at the time you had like 30 members you know now you have over 350

members and I thought what you were doing was awesome but I just said I don't have any clients is this the best thing to do I was about to get married and I had other situations in my life and so I had an opportunity to join another advisor who was a cfp but he wasn't fee only he was mostly fee based still did some commission but not much really only commission if it was like a small account and just you know again it would be a small account he never you know not because he didn't want to talk to him

but he just didn't have time to talk to somebody who had $5,000 you know he had a decent sized business very nice guy so I joined his firm and was there for almost two years probably a year into it I was just thinking this do stuff was happening and I just just was like where do I see myself in the future so as you guys you and Michael have talked in the number of time about teams I kind of there was another guy involved there was three of us and it just didn't end up working out the way everybody thought it was going

to work out and so it was just better for me and the guy to kind of go our own way so either I was going to stay with the wirehouse not the wirehouse it was an independent it was Cambridge which they were a great independent firm if I was going to have an independent firm I thought they were great they were out of Iowa but the do just told me I don't need a wirehouse why would I pay a wirehouse when I don't need one and because I'm doing fee only anyway so I had to look and see where I thought the

industry was going the next 20 years next 30 Years so I'm curious when you did the research there and I'm familiar with Cambridge I hear great things about them do you know what their fee model is like how much would you have had to pay Cambridge if you had opened your firm with them well you wouldn't have to pay them per se anything to open it but it it'd be like this right for instance I mean even my Eno was double the price I'm paying here or actually over double the price but there's just a lot of

little fees that you get tacked on and then they also take depending on who you're with you know even an independent's going to take you know 15% of your pay so so 15% of gross or more yes plus your paying fees so I added up the numbers and it just you know I could join XY Planning Network and pay less money and I'm not getting any of my pay taken away from TD TR so you know that's that's a big difference yeah I mean trust me when I look at Revenue models and I think like you know how much

better of a business would XY Planning Network be if I got 25% of all of our members gross revenue that's a pretty heck of a business model but we do I me know the same way that you said you're looking 10 or 20 years out and saying where do you want to be we're looking at that too and thinking you know one in 10 20 years do we really think that would be a model and two I always wanted to design xypn to be something I would have joined when I was starting a business and the same way you looked at it it's

like 15% of Revenue plus a bunch of fees and now I've seen some of the independent broker dealers are starting to charge monthly platform fees in addition to the percentages and and you know random fees just depending on what it is it adds up really fast and and I think that's why they're struggling honestly to to stay afat because whenever you sort of evaluate the options now it's not the it doesn't look very good yeah and I think I don't know how the regular wire houses now a few of

them have been smart like Raymond James and even Wells Fargo advisers where they have an independent platform now so you can you know now you you only pay them you know whatever 10 basis points five b depending on your Revenue you might pay them 10 or five and instead of the giant I mean in a big firm you know you can be a million-dollar producer and you still might get 50% or you still might get 50 or 40 or 50% of your pay taken out now obviously you have to run the numers as a business owner and see what all the

other things cost you but now I think for your guys's model obviously when you went into raia Worlds people technically can have an RA and not pay anything but they have to pay other things but what you did is kind of like ra in a box I feel like is you've done that but you put a community to it and you know that there for a lot of people that probably part of xypn including me has been more of the value than the other things right yeah I used to joke that people come for the discounts and they stay for the

community because ultimately while we can basically uh save people money in terms of our fees with the services that we're offering which is obviously what we want to do what makes us so much fun what makes xypn just so much fun to be around is really the people that you get to hang out with and so it's good to hear from it's always good to hear from members that they're seeing that as well to you know because obviously that that has been a central piece of our goal okay so just to take a step back you've

worked at and you were doing PNC with Farmers did you take take any clients with you to the raia whenever you made the switch over all about one you took all of your clients with you from Farmers wait are you talking about oh I'm sorry let's see so from Farmers to Cambridge did you take any clients with you whenever you got started at that raia uh to Cambridge you're talking about when I went from Farm to Cambridge well I didn't have any investment clients but yes I took one client was my

best it was technically ended up being one of my best clients for oh nice and they moved over with me again what I liked about it was I really only told a couple people that I was leaving and let them know what I was doing because I wanted to choose who I wanted as clients and not that I didn't like other people but it just in my mind I thought this one client in particular was somebody that was close to retirement and she was a client I really liked and I said hey I hope she she's somebody that I'd want to

work with for the next 20 or 30 years you know that's that's the person I'd want to work with so she came but everybody else I don't think I've had anybody move over from Farm buau now from Cambridge I had a little different setup there yeah so talk me through how you were did you have your own clients at at your raia that was with Cambridge yeah so we were dual registered so we were ra and we had a you know through Cambridge what I did with the deal there was I got paid a salary for and

basically I signed a contract for like a year salary any client I brought in we split Revenue but the client was m but then he had what we'll call CN clients so clients under $100,000 that I helped service so that was kind of the thing and I will tell you if when you look at that old business model some of these advisors have clients that are paying them $10 a year because they have you know a old a share with a 12 B1 fee that's got $3,000 and that's not a good model that's just

not a good model for them and it's not a good model for the client because they don't ever talk to the client but the clients obviously if that's the model they want they should just go on their own and go down to TD Mar trade and open up their own account you know it doesn't help anybody so that was a situation so I didn't sign a non-compete I signed an agreement basically stating that any of his clients were his and any of the clients I brought in were mine and so agreement ended up being great because

at Wells Fargo advisor I signed not compete for two years where I couldn't touch anybody for two years afterwards but I was out of the business for a long two years so yeah and it's it's a very very common question that we get for folks that are working especially inside of broker dealers just because they tend to have better controls around things like you know having folks sign non-competes raas just aren't as prevalent but they certainly do exist that you know what do I do if I have

this non-compete and you just have to look at it and you've got to talk with an attorney that lives in your state that specializes in your state because every state is different when it comes to non- competes for instance and this is not legal advice so my lawyer doesn't freak out in California for instance I've been told you know non-competes are almost impossible to enforce just California doesn't really uphold the you can't you know work but non-solicitation of clients is different so you have the

I'm not going to you know non-compete says well you can't go out and be a financial planner within 20 miles of our office non-solicit says you can't actually solicit any of the clients that are with the firm if you choose to leave and a lot of times you have non-compete nons solicits so so it sounds like you had a pretty it was done better than just a non-compete that it was simply uh you know that the clients that you brought on you could then take with you but the clients that were already there

with the ra you could not take with you is that accurate yeah I mean yeah and it was just a you know this is a one guy thing so he kind of just I don't even know where he got the document you know but it was it was a pretty basic document and that was just the agreement that we set up when I joined his group I interviewed like 10 advisers so I was looking for an ad to join with to maybe take take over their business that was kind of my goal because I also said well that's going to be the easiest way and

the most productive way to building a business and you know if you get in that situation it's not a bad situation to be in at all if it works out for you I just also saw that this guy he was going to retire later than I thought and you'll find this a lot I mean these guys worked really hard to build their business and they think they want to retire an X year then it goes back some goes back and and I don't blame them they're not sure and it's a business you can be in until you're 80 I mean you see advisers in

there until they're 80 so I mean well we still have more cfps over 70 than under 30 in the US so that'll tell you about the the how long you can be an adviser and you know I'll put it more bluntly and I don't mean to put this on your boss or your prior boss uh so I'll just say in general many of us are getting very tired of this unsigned succession promise that that keeps happening you know because a lot of young Talent gets brought into firms under under this guise of hey you know take over for me

right it's it's the like the dream and yet it so rarely works out because like I said whenever you really start to run the numbers it doesn't make sense from a seller's perspective like why would I sell I might as well just sort of keep it and keep milking it it's like the world's greatest annuity it just keeps spitting off income until the day you die and you lose a few clients here and there but you know you don't have to do any business development you just get to

meet with the clients you love and kind of go into the sunset which is fine there's nothing wrong with that but you got to be upfront about it and not bring in young people and promise them that you're going to give them the firm basically and then not but that aside so you were working with his CND clients were you finding I guess did did you start to develop sort of lead planning relationships at that point with those clients that that gave you the ability to work with them more going forward

yeah so that was kind of the goal and we did do some of that and we uncovered some assets so that was the main goal you know when you have a decline in particular they might have assets other places but you you might not have worked with them too much so financial planning that's one of the great things about this firm is why I was there towards the beginning why I was there we started using money guide Pro and we started really implementing financial planning that was part of what we were doing that

was one of our you know one of our basically you know propositions that we were saying a lot of advisers they call themselves planners but they don't do financial planning they do investment advice so that was of our things to kind of say hey this is the fee we charge but we're doing things other people aren't doing so and and that's true there a lot of those older advisers do not want to do planning it's not exactly something they don't want to learn it so yes I mean it's like asking an auto mechanic

that's been working on gas engines their whole career to suddenly start working on Tesla's you know all electric engines like not going to happen and they don't need to right like they don't they don't have to in order to sort of do what they're going to do but you being a young adviser you can't just adopt that old model I would not want to get into the business of trying to start you know no one's trying to start a new wirehouse or a new independent broker dealer these days

it's just not the business model of the future which is obviously sort of the the opinion you had because it's the direction you've gone with your ra so all right so talk to me about the transition then from working at this firm you made the decision to go out on your own and then launching the ra sort of what did that process look like for you so I've been thinking about it for a while and unfortunately I missed the boat by about two weeks from your new compliance fee and I heard like you guys had like an

overwhelming it was like a it was like a push to join or something like people were like oh I got to join before because we had people in our M my Mastermind group that join just because of this you know compliance oh funny but I had a conversation with him it was like August 1 or 2nd and we just kind of said hey this isn't working you know we just realized it wasn't working for both of us and you know he was a great guy and we kind of took a month to figure out what we were going to do whether I

was going to kind of work there and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do and I was you know just looking at the different options and kind of went back to XY planning which i' been listening to in the podcast for a while and I'd been thinking about you know if this isn't going to work and that's probably the direction I'm going is to just start if I'm going to stay in this business again I'm going to start my own raia that's what I'm to do and so

that's kind of how how I ended up doing it I started my I left there in October which again they weren't like a regular wirehouse I told them I was leaving and they're like oh when do you want to leave usually get escorted to the door so it's nice that they gave that's right so that's what I thought was gonna happen so he's like no would you want me to put the date like two weeks out or our osj was he actually was in our office too and he was a nice guy you know so he was it was a totally

different situation they were completely you know they let the clients kind of let the clients they were pretty fair about everything they did and so I I started in October with xyp and knowing I was going to leave you know I started working with you guys I think I signed up like October first and then I learned some things along the way that I try to give advice for people when I see on the form like get your LLC before you even sign up because you're going to need it and it's going to take you a week to get

it so you know I mean because time is money for me for some people that's not in the situation they're in but for me every day that I waited TDM Merit trade took almost a month for me to get going oh my goodness yeah so that was the other thing yeah I mean it just takes time and if you're in a rush like you know and I understand from TD mer trace's perspective they've got to go through and do what they've got to do but you know whenever you're in a rush that can be a real challenge I can't

knock TD marit because one I feel blessed that I can be on the network because I don't have 15 million under management so I I think that's another benefit XY ipn that made me kind of make a decision because I wanted to go that route I was using persing before which you guys had some platforms that still use Persian which actually might have made it easier for me to transition over but it really wasn't that hard you had to get the clients to do the paperwork the biggest thing was the time I didn't

think about the time you know so it took me you guys were great and I think Travis is drinking from a fire house I don't know when the guy sleeps cuz he email me and I was like 7 at night so Travis is our compliance to associate that handles all of the initial registrations and he is really good so I only hear great things about him yeah he did a great job and I know he's got a lot I know he's not just doing one or two at a time let's just say that no he's not so you know those were that

process actually moved quicker than I expected which made the other TD thing move slower than I expected so I didn't really even have my clients moved over until probably end of December is when they actually took me about a month to move them so tell me about the process process for moving clients so you had these agreements in place that you know clients that you had already brought on were yours to keep so one were you able to take any clients that you have been working with that were your boss's

clients or those CD clients did you get to keep any of those no and I didn't call any of them I just and that was fine with me because they had a relationship with him and I'm sure some of them he would have been he might have been okay you know but I think he uh it just it wasn't in a situation I had all clients I had were really the D so there was another guy involved and he had a lot of the C clients he had his own business too and that's the other thing it got a little more muddle because

there was three people involved rather than just two so that definitely gets more muddled but yeah I just brought my own clients and and every client but one moved over with me and the truth is the one that moved over with me it probably wasn't we weren't right fit anyways but it happened to be a friend of mine so you know and he actually he was I was I grandfathered some people in so what I mean by that is some people are below my I don't have minimums but I have minimums for what you have to pay

me right so right a minimum fee not a minimum asset level that's right so he technically would have been paying me less than so my model has if you have over 100,000 invested with me and you're paying me 1% to manage your money you don't pay the other stuff so financial planning is included in that so that this guy in particular had less than that he wouldn't have wanted to pay the extra thing I would have grandfathered him in but he wasn't a good client because friends can be tough and they

some people just are scared of the stock market you know and yeah you can't please everybody some people just they they don't want to be in the stock market but then they like their friends that are getting returns at 15% in the last quarter and you know you just can't please everybody and you just have to find out that that's okay so what was your fee structure at Cambridge where like what I guess how were most of those clients paying you when they were there most of my clients were Feebas and we

started out we changed it a couple times but it was around 1.25 we were we weren't really too we were on the lower end I would say for the Lower Side of the money side so what I said about 1.25 I think up to 250 and then we were like 1.1 up to like 500 then it was like a 1% up to a million or something like so that's pretty close and then were there any commissions whenever you put people in certain Investments or 12 b1s or anything like that the 12 b1s have pretty much went away if like for

instance Cambridge did not allowed 12 b1s in retirement accounts so if they got if if the fund you put them in kicked off a 12 B1 it went back to the client so they credited it back gotcha they changed that that was their thing they now they changed it before I got there but some not that that wasn't like that with everybody now if it was in cash account or a brokerage account then you could still get the 12 B1 which I didn't have any of those but so yeah so but we offered annuities we offered life

insurance we we really just did term life insurance that's it annuities we did do some annuities not a lot of annuities but you know annuities are a funny thing and obviously now I do no annuities but you know annuities I don't think they're the best things for any client but some clients you know they just can't sleep at night sure they'd rather pay somebody to guarantee them something even though they're paying them way too much money you know that's why I tell clients you're paying you're

buying Insurance around mutual funds is that what you want to do you want to pay somebody Insurance around around mutual funds because it's just going to eat into your principle and some people they think annuities are the best thing ever you know and so anyways we went through behavioral side right like financial planning is an art and a science and sometimes we approach it from the science part that just is just mindboggling that you know anybody would buy an annuity because it just from a financial number standpoint

doesn't make sense but there are folks out there that behaviorally need that security the where we run into issues is just the compensation model has been put in place that encourages is the selling of certain types of annuities like deferred variable annuities to really old people that you know absolutely should not be buying that product right that it's really the distance it's it's aligning the incentives that has been the issue that annuities are not bad they are simply a tool they can be used

in a very good way they can be used in very bad ways and unfortunately we've had too many people using them in bad ways so they've gotten a bad WP but that aside so well yeah so there's some fixed index enties that pay up to 18% now we didn't have those and we didn't offer those but I knew people that did bought them at the right time and that's my biggest disappointment in the do is they went after so much of the the aare mutual fund person and really the problem that in our industry is the life

insurance and annuity salese that's not that it's the guy making 8% 10% on pushing you in an annuity or a whole life insurance product and it's not the guy putting you in an aare but the but they're not most of those fixed index annuity people they don't have to be Securities licensed right just Insurance licensed just insurance license so they sell everything they can because that's what they have to offer and so that's I hope that changes in the future I really hope agreed you know yeah I I am by no

means a do expert we could ask kitus about this but I know the do was hamstrung a little bit because one they only had governance over retirement accounts so they you know in thetically a lot of life insurance and annuities are being sold inside of brokerage accounts for tax savings obviously we've all had the IAS that come in with a annuity inside of it and you just wonder how in the world the someone sleeps at night having made that sale but teachs their own okay so sorry annuity salesman

hammering on you a little bit but welcome to the new reality I guess of financial planning okay so you are at Cambridge you have the clients that are mostly you know paying you an asset-based fee you have a few commission things happening and so whenever you made the transition you brought folks over over and you said you charge a monthly fee which I looked on your website earlier so you're charging $100 a month up to $100,000 AUM if they have over 100,000 AUM that monthly fee drops off and then continue on with the

AUM is that accurate yeah so my my upsite website might not be really great when it's explaining that so basically you pay both okay and until you get to the 100 Grand and at that point then the monthly fee falls off if Arlene's listening to this she might give me a hard time because she said well those numbers don't add up the guy's getting a lot better deal that's coming over with 100 Grand than the guy who's got you know 20 grand and he's paying me and it's not about that it also is about

psychologically clients feel a lot easier paying their assets under management than they do having that check come out of their account every month they just do and I can't explain it I'm just that's just the client doesn't it's not a big deal for them when their assets under management so that's kind of why I structured it that way I've now I've granted grandfathered in everybody that I brought over so some of my clients have under 100 Grand I have a number of clients that have 70 80

they're just paying me the assets under management because that's what they were used to so that now the new clients that's not the way it is okay so and that makes sense I mean obviously from a business perspective it's nice if you know all of your clients were also paying you $100 a month that makes the uh launching a firm even easier because you have some immediate Revenue coming in CU like you said that AUM fee you know coming in once a quarter is nice but getting that $100 a month or $200 a

month for every single client well I do it monthly Alan because I want the monthly cash flow okay so you do AUM on a monthly basis upfront monthly even better all right hey and for some clent you know we get caught up a lot talking about like oh is it quarterly in rear Advance clients don't really know that you know they just want to know how much they're paying you and if it's 1.2% divided by 12 so it's basically 10 basis points a month like that's fine they don't you know they they just want to

know how much are they paying you and what's the value that they're getting and if you're doing financial planning it is just too easy to explain the real value of what you're doing for them they're going to pay the fee because like you said there's a lot of folks out there charging 1.25% not doing any Financial Planning and if you go to like Edward Jones or you go to some of the big Banks they charge one and a half 1.75 and they're using mutual funds some of these clients are 3% all in versus I

use ETFs I charge 1% I try to keep the client under 1.25 in sure you know that's the other thing is when people bring money over from let's say a 401k a lot of times they don't think they're paying anything but you look at their mutual funds and they're paying 1.25 so they could have an advisor and pay the same thing or they could you know pay Trans America 1.25 and not talk to anybody but at a call center yeah and sometimes a lot higher than that I mean I think the average mutual fund fee is

1.2% across the board but if that's the average you know Vanguard and black rock and some of these guys are are pulling that average down there are a lot of folks above that 1.2% that are holding it up and just charging 2 3% for God knows what but you know they it's just the world we come from and they're able to get the money and and in 401ks you know there's always this issue of trying to get funds changed out and all of that now some lawsuits are starting to come out around you know being sure that the

plan administrator is being a fiduciary and picking good funds that to make them accessible so again that's a world that's changing rapidly which is what's kind of fun about Cal planning right now is because I feel like everything is sort of in flux all these things that we kind of rant and Rave about and hate on a lot of these things in maybe a couple more years we won't have to be focusing on anymore because it'll sort of be old school it'll be gone we won't be complaining anymore so I don't know it

remains to be seen but so just to close out sort of the transition with your firm how did you sell this to your clients that you were going independent and instead of having a team it was just going to be you like what was your message to them that you know and you're very successful in bringing them with you that that maybe other advisers could help you know or could mimic as they're sort of making this transition well the one client that didn't come with me I tell you the one thing he said was I

don't like that you're just going and you're going to be with you know you're going to be on your own okay my thing was I said well yeah but now you're going to be a TD trade which is an even bigger company that you know the name but then the funny thing was he was okay being at a call center at credential with his old 401K more than he was with me so you know there might have been other reasons so what I did though my largest client and my best client I went and asked them I didn't tell them what I

was going to do because that's the other thing legally you're not supposed to tell the clients if you're at an old firm that you're leaving to go to a new firm it's really a weird situation but kitus Michael he knows more about this anything and I've listened to his advice on some of the stuff so I asked them what is in particular is a lady what did she think I was going to be doing in the future she thought I'd have my own firm eventually she was the Catalyst for me

leaving because I decided Well if my biggest client is willing thinks that I should leave then I'm going to take her situation and that's what I'm going to do because then now I can come back to her and say hey I listened to what you said this is the situation why I decided to do this it was pretty easy for everybody else I mean I have a lot of clients I'm close to whether family or friends or they've just become friends because of overtime and they're there for you I mean they're not you know they

don't really care if you're with you know Jim Bobs or Joe's or they just don't care as long as they feel comfortable now I don't what I did was I I took a book out of Allen Moore and I an office not an office a boardroom a conference room so I have I have a home office and a conference room that is a I eventually I'm not going to be a virtual person so I do have a virtual client my first virtual client actually is in New York City but I am going to have I want to have an office eventually because I

do find that people over 60 they just feel better that there's a place they can go to makes them feel more comfortable so I'd like to have yes definitely a certain clientele that likes to have an office and be able to meet with you in person yeah so anyway so it went smoothly so you know for I think most people if you have a good relationship I really wouldn't worry about it you tell them what you're doing tell them the benefits hey the benefit is we're going to have more technology

you know there's just going to be you know I I kind of talked about the main benefits was technology was one of the things it's going to be easier to work together but the other thing was I didn't go too much into anything except this is what I'm doing I didn't even really ask them do you want to come I said hey this is what we're doing I need you to sign these papers and we're going to move on you know and that's and everybody was like okay let me know when we're doing yeah you make a great point

that sometimes we probably try to over plan the conversation and overcome objections that haven't even been raised yet so trying to say oh don't worry here's the 15 reasons why it's okay and here's the five things that you may be upset about and here's how I'm going to fix them instead of just saying like hey you know this is I think this is what's best for the company and so that I can be able to take care of my clients and there's paperwork you know we have a new

we have a new company name you know and move on so it's interesting that how each person has a different approach to it I did also once I told them I was leaving I also asked some of them for feedback on things from my logo to my is I wanted to get them part of the business I wanted them to buy in right yeah got got Buy in from them that's awesome how did that go were they actually helpful in terms of sort of Designing the logo and the name of the firm and things like that yeah and you know even on my website I had in

particular I asked some of them about pictures and things like that where I wanted to get their view you know hopefully they don't say something that's totally off guard and then I use the opposite thing but it luckily that didn't happen so worked out good and I feel like they feel like they're part of it and that you know once you do that that's just about creating a raving fan or someone who you know really believes in you yeah and hopefully we'll refer friends and family as they meet people

that that'll be a good fit for you so it sounds like you've sort of gone through the transition of getting all your clients moved over so what do 2017 hold for you sort of what's your what's your big plans or I guess your main priorities for this year I used your great spreadsheet that you guys sent planning spreadsheet get it first year or whatever it is that nice oh the first year budget y first year budget so my goal really is not huge I mean it's I want to get one new client a month so 12

new clients I want to you know bring over a minimum of a million dollars in new assets and I really think I can do more than that but I don't want to focus on that I kind of want to just focus on really activity and that's kind of my goal I feel like for me since I brought over some business if I can do what just my goal is it'll put me at the end of next year where I feel like I have cash flow that's I'll start next year basically paying everything that I need to pay and it'll it'll put me in a

different level where I feel like I can breathe a little more you know when when you're in the group The Mastermind group you hear people from all sides of things and yes it is tough I'm in the in between stage where I do have Revenue coming in but it's not as much as I want or need right yeah not starting cold but also not starting with 20 million assets and you know feeling relaxed about things so yeah that it's awesome to that you know one new client a month and a million or so with assets is really going to get

you to where you want to be because I I think that that's probably shooting low you know in terms of what you could do but it's also that you have you sort of know the path that you need to be on so so as we're sort of wrapping things up I'll ask you the question I haven't been asking it as often lately and I got a couple of emails about why I wasn't asking anymore so I'll spring it on you and that is if you could go back to a younger Brian maybe the Brian was thinking about starting your own firm or

even before then at the wirehouse if there was one thing that you wish you had known then that you know now one thing you could go back and tell yourself what do you think that one thing would be well this could be two save more money and don't worry about the money because I believe that you have to follow your thing I didn't say this earlier but I'm married and my wife is fully supportive and my wife has a great job and she so that helps so you either need to have money saved good

amount of money or you need to have a supportive wife or sign ific other if you're a woman you're married either way and you need those things to really be successful I believe you just can't you're not selling products okay you're not getting $110,000 bonuses this is work hard takes a while but you'll get there if you keep doing what you're doing I love it and you make a good point with save money ultimately not everybody's ready to just go launch a business there's always more opportunity

than there is cash to pursue those opportunities so while it is not overly expensive to start a business business it does hit the income side right even if it it doesn't cost a lot to outlay the money it takes a little while to get that revenue flowing so well Brian thank you so much for taking the time to to be on the show today I really do appreciate it thanks Alan for having me this month's podcasts are brought to you by life insurance innovator Haven life Haven life insurance agency offers

the first non-commission term life insurance that your clients can buy entirely online the prices are affordable the application process is simple and the policies are fully backed by Mass Mutual Life Insurance Company plus some qualified healthy applicants can even be approved for coverage without the need for medical exam this is life insurance the Modern Way visit Haven life.com advisors to learn more about how Haven life is partnering with fee only financial advisers please note that the opinions expressed by participants on

the podcast are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Haven life visit havenlife /vp to hang out with other xyp and radio listeners ask questions for future mailbag episodes with myself and kitus and to finally find a community of like-minded financial advisers thanks so much for joining me today you're not alone and you're not crazy it's scary starting building and growing your own financial planning firm and that's why we put together a free private Community

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