XYPN Speaker Guide

Niches can revolutionize your financial planning practice. As you've probably heard, and the statistics back it up, honing in on a specific target market allows you to charge higher fees, operate more efficiently, and focus on serving those you want to help in your own unique way. 

In this session, we'll dive into the process of assessing your current client base to strategically narrow your focus. By doing so, you'll not only enhance your enjoyment of the work you do but also boost your revenue and overall business efficiency, ultimately leading to increased profitability. This session will explore how to identify and capitalize on the right niche that aligns with your passions and expertise, ensuring you thrive in your financial planning journey.

Don’t worry; no trust falls or blindfolds in this session. Learn the secrets of creating a welcoming corporate culture and nurturing your teammates to strengthen your business, reduce turnover, and create an efficient and resilient team. We’ll cover communication, team structure, and professional development with some team-building ideas for good measure. 

Arlene Moss shares considerations and strategies for moving from commissions into the fee-for-service world of financial planning. We’ll explore fee structure options, how to map them to your current revenue, and messaging for your clients. You’ll leave this session understanding what steps you need to take as well as what works and what to watch out for as you begin your transition to fee-for-service planning. 

Arlene excels at facilitating lively, honest conversations sure to deliver insights and takeaways that move the needle.  Although she moderates all panel discussions in a highly entertaining and engaging way, some favorite topics include:

• Finding and Maximizing Your Niche 
• Fee Structure
• Marketing
• Self-care/Mental Health in Financial Planning
• Client Service Styles and Scheduling
• Women & Diversity

Staying caught up and proactively managing a compliance program as CCO (and for many, also as the lead advisor and principal of the firm) can feel like a substantial burden when building and running a business. Much of this stems from the need to interpret vague or complex regulations and figure out how it applies to your firm. 

In this session, Travis explains how to think about compliance from the start so you can develop an efficient and effective compliance program that requires minimal maintenance as your firm grows. For established advisors, this session will also discuss how to go about reviewing and refining your compliance program to get and stay caught up while simplifying the process moving forward.

A discussion of how to effectively stay up-to-date and informed on the regulations that govern your firm.

TL;DR? Not anymore! It’s no secret that most advisors are never too excited about reading the latest rule proposals, model rules, or final regulations from NASAA, the SEC, or the various states. New regulations are often as long as many books and are much less engaging to read — let alone understand its potential impact on your firm without spending a substantial amount of time on it or engaging with a compliance expert. In this session, Travis explains how to stay informed on the regulatory landscape, review key components of regulation, guidance, or model rules that may impact your firm, and where to seek out reputable summaries of regulation coming down the line and what the expectations of advisors are in these areas.

Whether you embrace the technical side of marketing with both arms or at arm's length, the fact remains: leveraging it in your RIA marketing plan will bring you long-term gains. So how does a fee-only financial advisor (who probably prefers financial planning to marketing) go about creating and implementing higher-impact RIA marketing strategies? (Hint: it has three letters) You guessed it—Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the undeniable winner when it comes to connecting you with your niche in the most relevant way.

In this session, Sam McCue explains how SEO applies to RIA owners and offers practical, applicable ways to SEO financial planning businesses—including the boxes that need to be checked to make sure Google doesn’t leave financial advisors in the dark!