XY Planning Network Welcomes Its 1,000th Advisor Member As Alternative Fee Models Gain Momentum

BOZEMAN, Mont., Aug. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- XY Planning Network (XYPN), the leading financial planning platform for fee-for-service financial advisors who want to get paid to give financial planning advice to Gen X and Gen Y clients without the need to sell products or gather assets, welcomed its 1,000^th member, Luis Rosa, to its rapidly growing community of advisors.

Rosa, who was recently featured on the cover of InvestmentNews' 2019 40 Under 40, is the founder of Build a Better Financial Future, a firm name that could not be more appropriate. Rosa immigrated to the US from the Dominican Republic in 1991 along with his parents, five siblings, and two grandparents; together, they shared a one-bedroom apartment. His parents taught him the value of hard work, but knew nothing about personal finance. Fast forward to today, when Rosa has successfully built a better financial future for himself, and hopes to do the same for his clients. 

Rosa has been in the financial services industry since 2001 but is now taking on a new role as the owner of a fee-only financial planning firm. Of the transition, Rosa says, "It's scary making that leap. I'm now in a position where I have to be the rainmaker. That's why I am very happy to have the community that is XYPN. I know several other advisors in the Network who have successfully done what I'm trying to do, which gives me a lot of comfort. They're all XYPN, fee-only firm owners and they're successful at getting paid for giving financial planning advice, so I know it can be done. I'm not reinventing the wheel."

Reflecting on this next stage in his journey as a financial advisor, Rosa adds, "I'm super excited to finally be able to offer a monthly subscription model and ongoing planning, and not have to require any asset minimums to work with clients. I think that's going to open up new doors for my business."

Indeed, offering a monthly subscription model and comprehensive, advice-centric financial planning does open new doors for financial advisors, just as XYPN co-founders Alan Moore and Michael Kitces predicted it would when they first launched XY Planning Network in 2014.

However, despite their belief in the power of the monthly subscription model to expand the reach of financial planning, when Moore and Kitces first conceptualized a turnkey financial planning platform to support advisors who work with Gen X and Gen Y clients (and literally wrote the book on the monthly subscription model to serve those next generation clients), they never imagined the Network would grow to 1,000 advisors—and most certainly not in just five short years.

At the time of XYPN's launch, few thought the business would be viable in the face of competition from robo-advisors serving next-generation clients. Now, however, XYPN is an RIA support platform with the advisor headcount of a top-30 broker-dealer and continues to add more than 30 new advisors per month. The monthly subscription business model that was once widely scoffed at is now being emulated by major firms like Charles Schwab as it becomes increasingly clear there really is a demand among younger clients to pay for financial advice…and that there are advisors eager to build businesses to serve those next-generation clients.

Today, the 1,000 members in the Network, with a median age of just 39, comprise more than 5% of all state-registered RIAs delivering financial planning services across the country. And while the industry has historically struggled with 70% of new financial advisors not surviving their first three years, XYPN's new advisor failure rate is less than 6% in the first year (and decreases further in subsequent years as their businesses grow).

"While the early pioneers to the independent RIA channel were ready to build their advisory firms from scratch, the reality today is that a lot of advisors may want to be independent, but they don't want to be alone," says Michael Kitces, co-founder of XY Planning Network. "Our turnkey financial planning platform now provides more than 1,000 advisors the support they need to start, run, and grow their own advisory firms, from the technology tools to the compliance support needed to do real financial planning for their clients, with a real community of fellow fiduciary financial planners, while allowing them to maintain real independence…with a focus that allows us to charge a fraction of what broker-dealers cost to provide similar services."

Reaching the 1,000-member threshold marks more than XYPN's rapid growth; it also marks a significant impact to the younger consumers who have historically been ignored by the financial services industry. XYPN believes every advisor has the capacity to serve 100 ongoing financial planning clients, a notion the organization calls its "100x impact."  This means the 1,000 advisors in the Network have the ability to collectively serve 100,000 Gen X and Gen Y clients who would not have access to standalone financial planning advice under a traditional product sales or minimum-managed-assets service model.

This underscores XYPN's mission, which at its core is about helping people—both advisors and their clients—live their great lives. 

"When we started XYPN, it was to help the handful of advisors who wanted to work with underserved next generation clients, with a new monthly subscription business model we knew could reach them," says XYPN co-founder Alan Moore. "It has been an honor to help so many advisors now serve Gen X and Gen Y clients, and allow us to fulfill our mission of helping people live their great lives."

Disclosure: Luis Rosa is an Investment Advisor Representative of Retirement Wealth Advisors, Inc. (RWA), an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Build a Better Financial Future, LLC, XY Planning Network, and RWA are not affiliated. 

About XY Planning Network
XY Planning Network is the leading financial planning platform for fee-for-service financial advisors who want to serve Gen X and Gen Y clients, providing comprehensive financial planning services for a monthly subscription fee and without product sales or asset minimums. The Network offers a virtual community for new and established financial advisors who want to serve a younger clientele, and provides its members compliance support services, marketing support, business tools and templates, and a wide range of technology solutions.

SOURCE XY Planning Network

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