Why "Curation Over Accumulation" Is the New Private Markets Playbook for Advisors

How Financial Advisors Can Build a Private Markets Offering That Actually Differentiates Their Practice

By the time a client asks you about SpaceX, the opportunity that made it interesting is usually already gone.

That's not a knock on the client — it's just how information travels. The investors who got into SpaceX's 2019 funding round, at a valuation in the $50–100 billion range, are now sitting on a stake worth well over a trillion dollars. By the time SpaceX's IPO made headlines and clients started asking their advisors how to get in, the return that mattered had already happened years earlier.

That tension is the center of Episode 151 of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, where Frank Burke, Chief Investment Officer at PPB Capital Partners, joins Mike Langford to talk about why private markets access has become one of the clearest ways for advisors to differentiate their practice — and why most advisors are further behind on this than they realize.

Frank has spent his career inside the private markets, joining PPB Capital Partners in 2017 to help build out the firm's Capital Market Solutions platform. PPB itself has spent almost twenty years helping RIAs across the country access private markets and alternative investments, building custom, white-labeled fund structures that let advisors offer proprietary alts exposure under their own brand.

If you've ever wondered how to talk to clients about private markets without overpromising, how to vet a manager you've never worked with, or how to build something in your practice that actually looks different from the advisor down the street — this episode is your playbook.

Connect with Frank Burke on LinkedIn PPB Capital Partners

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why the SpaceX effect is creating both pull (client-driven) and push (advisor-driven) demand for private markets access

• What "curation over accumulation" means — and why building your own white-labeled fund structure creates real differentiation, not just another product

• The liquidity education gap tripping up advisors and clients in interval funds and private credit

• How legal settlement finance works as a differentiated, low-risk private credit strategy

• Why operational due diligence matters as much as investment strategy when vetting a private markets manager

• Why advisors don't have to be a hero — and how to talk to clients about alt strategies you don't fully understand yourself

• How AI's energy demand is quietly creating a "picks and shovels" opportunity in private credit

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors Right Now

Frank put it plainly on the show: most advisors are in a commoditized business. You sell largely the same stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, charge about the same fees, and offer roughly the same services as the advisor across town. In large part, clients choose you because of you — the relationship, the trust, the way you make them feel understood.

Private markets access changes that equation. It's one of the few places an advisor can hand a client something genuinely unavailable anywhere else — a fund structure with their own name on it, built around their own vision, their own client base, their own specialty.

And the demand is real. With SpaceX's IPO behind us — and Anthropic and OpenAI's expected offerings not far behind — clients are increasingly asking advisors how they get access to opportunities like this. The catch, as Frank explains, is that by the time an investment is generating that kind of attention, the return that mattered has usually already been made.

Curation Over Accumulation: What It Actually Means

This is the phrase from the episode that will stick with you longest.

Most advisors think about alts access as a menu — a list of funds to pick from. Frank's framing is different. When PPB works with an advisor for the first time, the first question isn't "what do you want to allocate to." It's "what are you actually trying to solve, and what's your vision?"

From there, PPB helps the advisor build a custom, white-labeled fund of funds — a proprietary structure built around where that advisor sees value in the private markets. Some advisors want direct investing in sectors where their own client base has real expertise. Some want to run their own real estate fund. Others just want a curated selection of smaller, undiscovered managers they'd never find on their own. Either way, the fund carries the advisor's name, not PPB's.

As Frank explains it, that ownership is the whole point:

"It's that advisor's fund of funds, right? With their name right on it — and it creates a sense of ownership, a sense of pride that they have something out there that their peers don't. And that's what's driving a lot of our growth with these types of structures." — Frank Burke, Chief Investment Officer, PPB Capital Partners

That's curation over accumulation: not gathering as many alt products as possible, but building one differentiated structure that's actually yours.

The Newsweek Indicator: Why Being Early Beats Being Right

Mike shared a story from his time working at Fidelity's corporate headquarters in Boston, home to the company's famous "chart room" — a kind of museum of market history where the walls are lined with charts and old Newsweek covers marking key moments. The lesson passed down on the tour: by the time an investment hits the cover of Newsweek, it's over. That's the signal for smart money to get out — and for the general public's money to start piling in.

It's a useful mental model for private markets. Investors who got into SpaceX at that $50–100 billion valuation made roughly 50x their money by the time the company went public north of a trillion dollars. Clients hearing about SpaceX for the first time today, after the IPO, are hearing about it at the Newsweek moment — not the early one.

That gap, between when an opportunity is genuinely early and when it becomes common knowledge, is exactly where Frank sees the biggest opportunity for advisors who can get clients access sooner.

Legal Settlement Finance: The Alt Asset Hiding in Plain Sight

One of the most concrete examples Frank shared is a strategy most advisors have never heard of: legal settlement finance.

Here's how it works. When a legal case settles, the cash is often sitting in escrow — guaranteed to be paid, but not immediately available. Law firms still have to pay attorneys, clerks, and private investigators in the meantime, and traditional litigation finance — lending against cases that haven't settled yet — can cost a law firm north of 25% in effective cost of capital, since it's really a venture-style bet on whether the case wins at all.

Legal settlement finance is different. It only lends against cases that have already settled, where the money is real and simply waiting to move through escrow. That structure lets investors earn mid-teens returns with no case risk — the underwriting risk is limited to which plaintiffs may ultimately not be eligible for a distribution, not whether the case itself succeeds.

It's the kind of strategy most advisors would never think to ask about — and exactly the kind of thing PPB's curated platform exists to surface.

How PPB Vets Managers So Advisors Don't Have To

Private markets come with a structural challenge public markets don't have: there's no standardized reporting, no uniform way to verify what a manager is telling you. Frank says the biggest risk here is operational, not strategic — many first-time fund managers are excellent at picking investments but have never actually run a business before. Controls, processes, cybersecurity, the back-office fundamentals — that's where inexperienced managers most often stumble.

PPB partners with a third-party operational due diligence firm to vet managers before they go on the platform, and advisors building a custom fund with PPB can lean on those same relationships even when they bring their own manager to the table. As Frank put it, it comes down to a "sleep at night factor" — advisors can tell clients the operational vetting has already been done, not just the investment thesis.

You Don't Have to Be a Hero

This might be the most reassuring moment in the episode for advisors who feel behind on alts.

Frank's advice: you don't have to master every strategy to offer private markets access. Some structures are genuinely simple to explain — a real estate fund is just buying properties. Others, like AI-driven quantitative strategies, are close to a black box even for sophisticated investors. The advisor's job isn't to understand every mechanism. It's to trust the manager's track record and talk to clients about what they're personally comfortable explaining.

"You don't have to decide you're all of a sudden going to be an expert in all this AI tech that's going on. If that feels over your head, guess what — you don't have to invest in those, and you don't have to bring those to your clients." — Mike Langford, host, Modern Financial Advisor Podcast

The same logic extends to AI's ripple effects across the private markets. Frank pointed to a growing theme on PPB's platform: energy infrastructure. As AI data centers drive up electricity demand, smaller power companies are seeing what Frank called "an AI bump" — private credit opportunities tied to real, quantifiable infrastructure rather than the AI technology itself. It's the modern version of picks and shovels: you don't have to bet on the miners to profit from the gold rush.

Frank's 10-Year Outlook for Private Markets

Asked to look ten years out, Frank pointed to two forces that will reshape advisor access to alts: tax efficiency and democratization. He expects more advisors to place alternatives inside IRAs specifically for tax reasons — strategies like legal settlement finance are taxed as ordinary income, so tax-advantaged accounts make a real difference. And he expects registered offerings and interval funds to keep expanding access for smaller clients, driven in part by continued high-profile IPO activity from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.

The throughline for advisors: the liquidity education Frank described earlier in the episode is only going to matter more as access widens.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• PPB Capital Partners — Frank Burke's firm, building custom private fund structures for RIAs

• PPB's Insights page — webinars and thought leadership from the PPB team, available at ppbcapitalpartners.com

• Investing in Private Credit for AI Infrastructure Companies - Mike mentioned an episode of the 6 × 6lock Podcast where Stanton Ray from Columbia Threadneedle shared how there are some really interesting private credit investment happening for power plants that are generating the electricity for the data centers that power AI.

Related Episodes Worth Your Time

• "How Much Have You Got?" — Bob Veres on the Awkward Present and Bold Future of Financial Planning — Bob's argument that the AUM model is on borrowed time and that "inertia" is quietly putting comfortable firms at risk pairs well with Frank's differentiation angle. Both episodes are essentially making the same case from different directions: standing still is the actual risk, not trying something new.

• Why Serving Business Owners Is the Secret Sauce, with Jason Early of RISR — Jason's "riches in niches" framing connects nicely to Frank's point about lower-middle-market private equity and "mom and pop" businesses being some of PPB's most successful current plays — different side of the same private-business-value coin.

• Michael Kitces on Creating Gravity to Attract Clients — Kitces's whole thesis is that differentiation through focus (not doing more, but doing something distinct) is what actually attracts clients. That's the marketing-side version of what Frank is describing on the product side with curation over accumulation.

Stop Being a Source. Start Being a Resource: Featuring Ben Lewis from The Financial Planning Association

How Financial Advisors Can Build a Media Profile That Drives Real Business in the Age of AI

Financial advisors are facing a paradox. AI is flooding every journalist's inbox with generated press releases, mass-blasted pitches, and "thought leadership" content that reads like it was assembled by a committee of robots. And yet, the advisors who understand what's actually happening right now have a bigger media opportunity than at any point in the last two decades.

That's the core argument Ben Lewis makes in Episode 150 of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast — and he's one of the few people in the financial services industry uniquely qualified to make it.

Ben is the Chief Communications and Development Officer at the Financial Planning Association (FPA), the architect of FPA MediaSource, and the author of Perfecting The Pitch: Creating Publicity Through Media Rapport. He's spent nearly 25 years at the crossroads of financial services and media — running his own PR firm, training CFP® professionals how to communicate with journalists, and building a platform that has now received over 10,000 journalist inquiries with a 64.5% repeat journalist rate.

If you've ever wondered how to get quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger, CNBC, or USA Today — this episode is your roadmap.

Connect with Ben Lewis on LinkedIn

Download Ben's whitepaper: The Human Edge: Why Relationship-Driven PR Still Wins in the Age of AI

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why the explosion of AI-generated content is actually the best opportunity for authentic financial advisors to stand out

• The critical difference between being a source and being a resource — and how to move from one to the other

• How to use your client question notebook to build a steady pipeline of media pitches

• How to recognize when a single question becomes a trend — and why that changes everything for journalists

• How FPA MediaSource works and what advisors who use it well are actually doing differently

• Why compliance culture is training advisors to say nothing worth quoting

• The handwritten thank-you note almost no one sends anymore — and why it works

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors Right Now

Here's a question worth sitting with: if a prospective client Googled your name today — or typed it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — what would they find?

For most financial advisors, the honest answer is: not much. Maybe a bio page on their firm's website. A LinkedIn profile. If they're lucky, a few social posts.

Now imagine what they'd find if you'd been quoted in a New York Times personal finance story. Or featured in a Kiplinger piece on retirement planning. Or cited in a CNBC segment about market volatility.

That's the difference between being someone a prospect hears about and being someone a prospect trusts before they've ever met you.

Ben Lewis has a phrase for this: earned media vs. advertising. When a journalist quotes you, they're vouching for you. An independent professional with no financial relationship to you, no obligation to do you any favors, looked at what you had to say and decided it was worth sharing with their audience. As Ben puts it: "That stands out way more than spending a whole bunch of money on advertising."

The challenge most advisors face isn't that they lack expertise. It's that they've never been shown how the media relationship actually works. And in 2025, with AI generating a sea of sameness in every journalist's inbox, the advisors who show up as genuine, knowledgeable humans have a window of opportunity that won't stay open forever.

The Source vs. Resource Distinction That Changes Everything

This is the concept from the episode that will stick with you longest.

A source is someone a reporter calls when they're already working on a story and need a quote to fill a gap. You're useful in that moment. Then they move on. You may not hear from that journalist again for years — if ever.

A resource is someone a journalist contacts before they even know what story they're writing, because they trust that person to surface something worth exploring. A resource is proactive. A resource is hard to replace.

The path from source to resource runs entirely through relationship. And as Ben explains, building a relationship with a journalist isn't mysterious or complex — it's the same set of behaviors that makes any relationship work. You show up consistently. You deliver what you promise. You focus on what they need, not just what you want. You make their job easier. Over time, they start to think of you first.

The 64.5% repeat journalist rate on FPA MediaSource isn't magic. It's what happens when financial professionals treat media interactions as the beginning of something rather than a transaction.

The Client Notebook: Your Pitch Pipeline Is Already Full

One of the most immediately actionable ideas in this episode comes from Ben's guidance on how to start generating media pitches — and it requires nothing more than a notebook.

Keep it by your phone or your computer. Every time a client calls or emails with a question, write it down. What was the question? What was the situation they were facing?

At the end of the week, review the list. Identify one question that you don't think the media is covering well. Jot down three quick bullet points: here's my opinion on this, here's why it matters, here's what clients need to know. Find a journalist who's been writing about related topics. Send them a short note — 30 seconds to read, no longer.

That's a pitch. And here's the thing that most advisors miss:

One client question is a story. Three, four, or five of the same question in a week is a trend. And trends are what the media actually wants. If multiple clients are suddenly asking you about the same topic — whether that's sequence of return risk, Social Security timing strategy, or what happens to their portfolio if X happens — that's a data point that a journalist will find genuinely valuable. You're sitting on this material every single day.

"The moment a journalist sniffs any desire on your part to be self-promotional — that this is about you, the planner, and not the story you have — say goodbye. It's not gonna happen. Go into every media interaction genuinely wanting to inform, educate, and enlighten. Through that, you can be positioned as the expert." — Ben Lewis, Chief Communications and Development Officer, Financial Planning Association

FPA MediaSource: The Tool Most FPA Members Aren't Using Fully

If you're a CFP® professional and an FPA member, you have access to one of the most underutilized business development tools in the industry.

FPA MediaSource is a platform that connects journalists — from CNBC and The New York Times to Kiplinger and USA Today — directly with FPA members who can serve as expert sources. Journalists submit a query describing the story they're working on and their deadline. That query goes out to participating FPA members. Members respond with their perspective. The journalist gets usable content from credentialed professionals, and the advisor gets a media credit.

Since launching, MediaSource has sent out over 10,300 queries and generated more than 69,000 CFP® professional responses. The 64.5% repeat journalist rate means reporters keep coming back — not because they have to, but because the quality of responses they're getting from FPA members is genuinely useful.

Ben shared the story of one member who had been participating in MediaSource for just four months. He had appeared in 50 different news stories in that time. His website now carries logos from every major outlet — the kind of social proof that builds instant credibility with prospective clients.

The advisors who use MediaSource most effectively follow a simple set of principles:

• Lead with your opinion, not your data

• Keep responses original and brief

• Don't use AI to write your response — journalists can tell, and they will stop calling

The Human Edge: Why Authenticity Is the Competitive Advantage

Ben's whitepaper, The Human Edge: Why Relationship-Driven PR Still Wins in the Age of AI, opens with a line from 2009: advisors were asking him how to separate themselves from the blowback of the financial crisis, of Madoff, of the assumption that anyone who touched money must be doing something wrong.

Sixteen years later, the question is different but the answer is the same.

Today's noise isn't Madoff. It's AI-generated content. It's the 26-year-old in their basement with a ring light and a strong opinion about Bitcoin. It's mass-blasted pitch emails with the reporter's name auto-inserted in the subject line. It's "thought leadership" content that sounds professional but has no voice, no perspective, and no soul behind it.

And here's the paradox Ben argues: when everyone else is generating, showing up like a human being is a competitive advantage.

Smaller newsrooms don't mean fewer opportunities for advisors — they mean journalists rely more heavily on trusted sources they've already vetted. When a reporter is on a two-hour deadline and needs an expert quote, they're not cold-searching for someone new. They're calling the person who responded promptly last month and gave them something genuinely useful.

That's the human edge. And as Ben puts it near the close of the episode: "Nobody hands you that trust. It's up to you, the individual, to earn it. And you earn it by bringing your own innate humanness to the relationship."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• The Human Edge: Why Relationship-Driven PR Still Wins in the Age of AI — Ben Lewis's whitepaper, available at FPA MediaSource

• FPA MediaSource — The platform connecting CFP® professionals with journalists across major national publications

• Perfecting The Pitch: Creating Publicity Through Media Rapport — Ben Lewis's book on media relations for financial professionals (Larstan, 2007)

• Never Eat Alone — Keith Ferrazzi's book on relationship-building, cited by Ben as foundational to his thinking on source vs. resource

• FPA Live — Ben's interview series featuring media professionals and communications experts relevant to financial planners

Related Episodes Worth Your Time

• Getting Your Financial Business Featured in the Media with Allie Zendrian of AtoZ Communications — Allie brings the rarest possible perspective to this conversation: she spent years on the other side of the pitch email as a reporter at Forbes, Institutional Investor, and TheStreet — deciding what was worth covering and what went in the trash. Now she helps advisors and FinTech companies get their stories told. Her episode pairs directly with Ben's: if Ben gives you the mindset and the framework, Allie gives you the journalist's-eye view of exactly what lands and what doesn't.

• How AI Will Power a New Era of Hyper-Growth for Financial Advisors and Wealth Management Firms — Ian Karnell, CEO of VastAdvisor, makes the case that AI isn't just a productivity tool for advisors — it's a growth engine. This episode is the natural counterpart to Ben's argument: Ben explains why human authenticity is the competitive advantage in the age of AI, and Ian explains how to use AI strategically to amplify that advantage rather than replace it. Together, they form a complete picture of how the smartest advisors are thinking about technology right now.

• Love Your Customer or Quit — The 4 Pillars of Client Experience That Actually Matter — The through-line between this episode and Ben's is easy to miss but worth making explicit: the same qualities that make a journalist want to call you back — responsiveness, genuine helpfulness, showing up consistently, making their job easier — are the exact same qualities that make clients stay, refer, and trust. This episode builds the client-side case for the human edge Ben is describing.

Fix This Before You Buy Another AI Tool: Kristefor Lysne on the Data Infrastructure Every Wealth Management Firm Needs

What if the biggest obstacle to your firm's AI strategy isn't the AI — it's your data?

In this episode of The Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, Mike Langford sits down with Kristefor Lysne, President of Terrapin Technologies, for a conversation about the messy data problem quietly working against wealth management firms — and why a clean, governed data foundation is the single most important prerequisite for everything coming next with AI.

Kristefor has spent more than 30 years helping wealth management firms aggregate, normalize, and automate the data behind advisor compensation, reporting, and compliance. He's also a competitive curler at the St. Paul Curling Club — and as you're about to discover, the sport gives him the perfect analogy for what bad data really looks like inside your firm.

The bottom line: What does competitive curling have to do with your firm's data infrastructure? More than you'd think. In this episode, Kristefor Lysne, President of Terrapin Technologies, uses his 30+ years of experience helping wealth management firms clean up their data — and his hobby as a competitive curler — to deliver one of the most memorable analogies for hidden data problems we've ever heard on the show. If your firm is thinking about AI, this is the episode to listen to first.

Connect with Kristefor Lysne on LinkedIn

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• "I Know Where All the Bad Rocks Are" — and So Does Your Ice Maker In competitive curling, "bad rocks" are stones that behave unpredictably — they cut when they should curl, or don't draw as expected. Serious teams keep detailed rock books cataloging every stone's quirks so they can plan around them. The ice maker at Kristefor's club takes a different approach: he quietly moves the bad rocks around between sheets so no single team knows where the problem stones are. Wealth management firms commonly suffer from the same dynamic — hidden data problems embedded in their compensation, reporting, and compliance processes that nobody fully understands. These discrepancies don't cause visible failures day to day, but the moment a firm tries to scale, switch platforms, or build analytics on top of its data, the bad rocks surface all at once.

• The Brittle Spreadsheet Trap A brittle spreadsheet system is one built by a single person, for a single purpose, with no documentation and no flexibility — and it is one of the most common data infrastructure problems in mid-size wealth management firms. The spreadsheet works until the comp model changes, a new data source is added, or the person who built it leaves the firm. At that point, it breaks in ways nobody can easily diagnose or fix. Kristefor describes this as a load-bearing wall nobody has blueprints for. The cost isn't just time — it's the errors that go undetected for months or years before anyone realizes the calculations have been wrong. This problem is not unique to wealth management. In a recent episode of the 6 x 6lock Podcast, Oliver Freigang, CEO of qashqade, revealed how private equity firms' reliance on spreadsheets for waterfall calculations is causing multi-million-dollar distribution errors. The root cause is the same across both industries: manual, fragile systems built for a specific moment that can't keep pace with the firm's complexity.

• Tech-Enabled Service vs. SaaS: Why the Difference Matters A SaaS (Software as a Service) company sells access to a platform — the firm configures it, runs it, and manages it with support from the vendor's help desk. A tech-enabled service provider, by contrast, combines proprietary software with hands-on expert implementation — the vendor's team actively manages and maintains the system alongside the client. Terrapin Technologies operates as a tech-enabled service, not a SaaS company. That means when a firm onboards with Terrapin, they aren't handed a platform and told to figure it out. They work with people who understand the nuances of their specific clearing firm data, their comp structures, and their reporting requirements — and who have seen the same problems dozens of times across similar firms. For wealth management firms with 25 to 250 advisors that don't have a dedicated internal data team, this distinction determines whether an implementation succeeds or fails.

• AI Doesn't Fix Messy Data — It Amplifies It AI tools do not clean, organize, or govern data. They process whatever data they are given. If a firm's data is siloed across disconnected systems, inconsistently labeled, or governed by undocumented manual processes, AI will produce outputs that reflect those problems — faster and at greater scale than any human process could. The correct principle here is a familiar one: garbage in, garbage out. Before layering any AI tool onto your firm's workflows, the underlying data must be accurate, consistent, and accessible. This is a theme that connects directly to a recent episode featuring Dan Zitting, CEO of Nitrogen Wealth, who described AI as a co-pilot for advisors capable of automating meeting prep, surfacing portfolio insights, and generating client-ready reports. That vision is achievable — but only for firms whose data is already in order.

• Clean Data Is the Prerequisite for AI Adoption Clean data, in this context, means data that is normalized to a consistent schema, reconciled across all source systems (clearing firms, CRMs, advisory platforms, direct business), and organized in a way that is both human-readable and machine-readable. For most mid-size advisory firms, achieving that state requires outside expertise — because building and maintaining that infrastructure internally requires the kind of dedicated technical staff most firms don't have. Firms that invest in getting their data foundation right before adopting AI tools will extract significantly more value from those tools than firms that adopt AI first and hope the data problems sort themselves out.

• AEO: What's Replacing SEO AEO — Agent Engine Optimization — is the practice of structuring digital content so that AI agents can easily read, extract, and cite it when answering user queries. Where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about getting found by Google, AEO is about getting cited by AI. As Kristefor notes in this episode, web traffic is already declining as more people turn to AI agents instead of search engines to find answers. Wealth management firms and fintech companies that don't adapt their content and data architecture to be AI-legible risk becoming invisible — not because their content doesn't exist, but because AI agents can't parse it. For a deeper look at what the AI-driven future means for financial advisors' business models, don't miss our episode with Steve Lockshin, Founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla, who makes a compelling case for why advisors who embrace AI and new business models today will be the last ones standing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Agent Engine Optimization (AEO)? Agent Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so that AI agents — tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's AI overviews — can easily read, extract, and cite it when responding to user queries. Where SEO helps content rank in search engine results, AEO helps content get surfaced and cited by AI. As more users turn to AI agents instead of search engines, AEO is becoming an essential component of any digital content strategy.

Why can't AI fix messy data? AI tools process the data they are given — they do not clean, reconcile, or organize it. If a firm's data is inconsistent, siloed across multiple unconnected systems, or governed by undocumented manual processes, AI will amplify those problems rather than solve them. The principle is simple: garbage in, garbage out. Clean, governed data must come first.

What is a tech-enabled service in wealth management? A tech-enabled service combines proprietary software with hands-on expert implementation and ongoing management. Unlike a SaaS product — where the client configures and runs the platform themselves — a tech-enabled service provider actively works alongside the client to implement, maintain, and improve the system. For wealth management firms without a dedicated internal data team, this model provides enterprise-level capability without the overhead of building an internal infrastructure team.

What should a wealth management firm do before adopting AI? Before adopting AI tools, a wealth management firm should ensure its data is normalized across all source systems, reconciled and accurate, and organized in a way that is both human-readable and machine-readable. Firms should also audit their existing processes for brittle manual workarounds — spreadsheet-based comp systems, manual data re-entry between platforms, undocumented calculation logic — and replace them with governed, automated infrastructure. Clean data is the prerequisite; AI comes after.

What is the ideal firm size for Terrapin Technologies? Terrapin Technologies is best suited for wealth management firms with 25 to 250 advisors, particularly those with a broker-dealer component that generates complexity in compensation, reporting, and compliance workflows. These firms typically have enough operational complexity to benefit from automated data infrastructure but not enough internal technical staff to build and maintain it on their own.

Final Takeaway

The wealth management industry is moving fast on AI. Firms are buying tools, running pilots, and asking their tech partners what's next. But as Kristefor Lysne makes clear in this episode, the firms that will get the most out of AI aren't necessarily the ones who move first. They're the ones who build the right foundation first.

As Kristefor put it: "You need to have your data organized in a way that's accessible and understandable by humans and computers. That's the long-term driving thing people should be thinking about."

Whether you're running a 25-person hybrid RIA or overseeing a multi-BD network, this episode is a practical wake-up call — and a clear roadmap for what to prioritize before the next wave of AI tools arrives.

Building Industry Cred by Saying Yes to Every Opportunity with Domenick D’Andrea

There’s a version of industry visibility that most financial advisors quietly avoid: saying yes before they feel ready. They wait for the invitation that feels earned, the stage that matches their comfort level, the interview where they already know all the answers. Domenick D’Andrea, co-founder of DanDarah Wealth Management, doesn’t wait.

This episode is proof. It almost didn’t happen — it was recorded on the fly after Domenick introduced himself between sessions at the Nitrogen Fearless Investing Summit in Denver, saw an open slot in the podcast schedule, and said yes on the spot.

In this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, Mike Langford sits down with Domenick D’Andrea — co-founder of DanDarah Wealth Management — to talk about what happens when an advisor says yes to every stage, every podcast, and every webinar he’s offered, and how that accumulated visibility built him enough industry credibility that clients now arrive presold. They also get into why AI search is already sending him new business, how he makes sure both spouses in a couple feel like his client, and the moment his own advice got run through ChatGPT by a skeptical prospect.

“Every spouse in the room is my client — not just the one who does the talking.”

~ Domenick D’Andrea, Co-Founder, DanDarah Wealth Management

Connect with Domenick D’Andrea on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why saying yes to every podcast, webinar, and conference stage — before you feel fully ready — builds instant credibility with prospects who’ve never met you

• How AI search results like “best financial advisor near me” are already sending him new clients, and the specific Google reviews strategy behind it

• Why he treats every spouse in a couple as an equal client, and the divorce-rate data that convinced him it mattered

• How clients now run his advice through ChatGPT before saying yes — including the $10M Roth conversion story that turned a skeptic into a client

• His niche — pre-retirees and retirees — and the “sleep-at-night” factor that keeps them there

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors

There’s an uncomfortable truth about visibility that most financial advisors don’t want to hear: waiting until you feel ready is itself the strategy that keeps you invisible. The stage, the podcast, the webinar invite arrives once, and the advisors who say yes before they feel qualified are the ones who end up building a reputation, while the ones waiting for confidence to show up first are still waiting.

Domenick’s career is a case study in reordering that sequence. He didn’t build credibility first and then start showing up — he showed up, on stages, on podcasts, on webinars, again and again, and let the credibility accumulate as a byproduct. By the time a prospect finds him, they’ve often already seen him somewhere else, which means the conversation starts from trust instead of skepticism.

That same discipline shows up in how he thinks about technology. Rather than chasing every new tool that promises efficiency, he picks the ones that integrate cleanly with what he already uses — a small decision that compounds into a simpler, more reliable practice over time. It’s the same instinct behind something most advisors haven’t caught onto yet: AI-powered search results are already surfacing his name when prospects type in “best financial advisor near me,” and a deliberate approach to Google reviews is part of why.

AI hasn’t just changed how advisors find prospects — it’s changed how prospects vet advisors. Domenick has had clients run his recommendations through ChatGPT before agreeing to move forward, including one skeptical prospect weighing a $10 million Roth conversion. Rather than treating that as a threat, he leaned into it, and it became the moment that turned a skeptic into a client.

None of that matters if the relationship itself is built on shaky ground, which is why Domenick insists on treating every spouse in a couple as an equal client — not just the one who does the talking in meetings. With roughly half of marriages ending in divorce, a plan built around only one partner’s understanding and buy-in is a plan with an expiration date; treating both as equal clients is a small habit with an outsized effect on retention.

That same focus shows up in his choice of niche. Domenick works almost exclusively with pre-retirees and retirees, a group whose central question is rarely about maximizing returns and almost always about whether they can sleep at night. Specializing in that “sleep-at-night” factor, rather than trying to serve everyone, is one more example of the same pattern that runs through everything else he does: say yes to the right thing, then go deep.

Resources Mentioned:

• DanDarah Wealth Management — Domenick’s advisory firm, co-founded to help clients feel confident about their financial future

• ChatGPT — Referenced as the tool clients now use to vet advisor recommendations, including the $10M Roth conversion story

• Nitrogen Fearless Investing Summit — Where this episode was recorded live in Denver, Colorado

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• Getting Your Financial Business Featured in the Media with Allie Zendrian of AtoZ Communications featuring Allie Zendrian, Founder of AtoZ Communications. Allie spent years pitching stories from the media side before starting her own PR firm for financial advisors and fintech companies — the same instinct for what makes a story worth telling that runs through Domenick’s approach to saying yes to every opportunity. 🎧 Listen to the Allie Zendrian / AtoZ Communications episode

• How AI Will Power a New Era of Hyper Growth for Financial Advisors and Wealth Management Firms featuring Ian Karnell, Co-Founder and CEO of VastAdvisor. Ian built VastAdvisor to help RIAs run AI-powered, compliant ad campaigns that put advisors in front of the right prospects instead of waiting for referrals. It’s a different route to the same destination Domenick has found through organic AI search visibility: showing up where prospects are already looking, before the first conversation ever happens. 🎧 Listen to the Ian Karnell / VastAdvisor episode

• What If Financial Advisors Have Been Using the Wrong Methodology for Retirement Planning? featuring Steve Vecchione and Scott Schuebel, Co-Founders of Statera Advisors. Steve and Scott built their retirement planning methodology around addressing longevity, inflation, and sequence-of-return risk individually, rather than leaning on portfolio performance alone. It’s the same instinct for building a repeatable process around what actually keeps clients up at night that shows up in Domenick’s own focus on the sleep-at-night factor for his pre-retiree and retiree clients. 🎧 Listen to the Statera Advisors episode

Getting Your Financial Business Featured in the Media with Allie Zendrian of AtoZ Communications

There is a version of PR that almost every financial advisory firm and fintech company has tried at least once. It starts with a junior employee — or a well-meaning founder — sitting down to write a press release. They run it through an AI tool to clean it up. They paste it into an email, pull a list of journalist contacts from a database, and hit send. A week later, nothing. They assume the press didn't care, and they move on.

Here's what they don't know: the reporters on the other end knew exactly what they were looking at. They spotted the AI polish, scanned for the hook that wasn't there, and moved on in about twelve seconds.

In this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, recorded live at the Nitrogen Fearless Investing Summit in Denver, Colorado, Mike Langford sits down with Allie Zendrian — founder of AtoZ Communications and a former financial reporter who covered wealth management and fintech for Forbes, Institutional Investor, and TheStreet. Allie brings the rarest possible credential to the communications space: she spent years on the other side of the pitch email, deciding what was worth covering. Now she helps advisors and fintech companies get their stories told.

"Doing your own PR is penny wise and pound foolish."

~ Allie Zendrian, Founder, AtoZ Communications

Connect with Allie Zendrian on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why AI-generated press releases are quietly killing your credibility — and what reporters actually think the moment they land in their inbox

• The single most important question to ask before you pitch any story, any reporter, or any media outlet — and why it has nothing to do with your product features or your latest announcement

• Why advisors and fintech companies doing their own PR is "penny wise and pound foolish" — and what a more realistic, cost-effective approach actually looks like

• How Allie built one of the most connected networks in the wealth management and fintech space in under two years — starting from her days covering the industry at Forbes

• What it was like going from the Forbes newsroom to the "dark side" of PR — and why she has no regrets about making the switch

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors

There is an uncomfortable truth about the way most financial advisory firms and fintech companies approach their public presence: they either do nothing, or they do something that actively works against them.

The "do nothing" camp is easy to understand. Media outreach feels unpredictable, the payoff is hard to measure, and advisors already have more things competing for their attention than they can handle. So PR becomes the thing that gets pushed to next quarter, and then the quarter after that, until eventually it becomes the thing the firm just doesn't do.

The "do something badly" camp is trickier, because it often involves genuine effort. The press release gets written. The media list gets assembled. The emails go out. But the result is the same as doing nothing — or sometimes worse, because now there's a reporter out there who has mentally filed your firm under "people who don't know what makes a story." That association is hard to undo.

Allie Zendrian is one of the few people in the financial services PR space who can speak to both sides of this equation from direct personal experience. As a reporter at Forbes, Institutional Investor, and TheStreet, she received hundreds of pitches a week. She developed very fast, very accurate instincts for what was genuinely interesting and what was noise dressed up in press-release formatting. And the single fastest way to end up in the latter category, she explains in this conversation, is to send something that was clearly generated by AI and never seriously interrogated for whether it had a reason to exist.

The AI press release problem is more specific than it might sound. It's not just about tone or prose quality — experienced journalists can spot the pattern regardless of how polished the writing is. The real issue is what the AI polish signals: that the company hasn't done the hard work of asking whether their story is actually worth telling. That question — why would a reporter's readers care about this? — is the one most pitches never answer. It's not about your new feature, your funding round, your rebrand, or your award. It's about what changes in the world of the person reading the article. Allie walks through exactly how to think about that question in a way that's genuinely useful rather than just conceptually correct.

The conversation also gets into the economics of communications — specifically, why advisors and fintech founders who try to do their own PR almost always underinvest in it, get disappointing results, conclude that PR doesn't work for them, and move on. Allie calls this penny wise and pound foolish, and she's right. The cost of a meaningful media mention in the right outlet — the kind that builds credibility with exactly the clients or partners you're trying to reach — is difficult to calculate in advance, but it compounds in ways that almost no other marketing investment does. The advisor who gets the right coverage in the right place doesn't just get a short-term traffic bump. They get a permanent reference point that future clients and partners can find years later.

Resources Mentioned:

• AtoZ Communications — Allie's PR and communications firm for financial advisors and fintech companies

• Brand News — Allie's newsletter covering the business of wealth management and fintech

• Nitrogen Fearless Investing Summit — Where this episode was recorded live in Denver, Colorado

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• The AI Paradox: How a Notetaking App Is Making Financial Advisors More Human featuring Matt Halloran, Co-Founder of Zocks Matt Halloran has spent his career helping financial advisors communicate better — first as a coach, now through the Zocks AI platform that frees advisors from note-taking so they can be fully present in client conversations. His perspective on the relationship between technology, authenticity, and advisor communication connects directly to what Allie discusses about how the best stories come from advisors who are genuinely engaged with their clients' lives. 🎧 Listen to the Matt Halloran / Zocks episode

• How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients vs Fighting Time and Scale Constraints featuring Michael Kitces, Co-Founder of XYPN Michael Kitces is one of the most recognized thought leaders in financial planning — a standing he built almost entirely through relentless, consistent content creation and media presence over many years. His conversation about how advisors can create "gravity" to attract clients rather than constantly chasing them is the strategic framework that sits behind everything Allie talks about tactically. If you want to understand why media coverage matters at a business-model level, this is the episode to pair with it. 🎧 Listen to the Michael Kitces / XYPN episode

• "How Much Have You Got?" — Why the AUM Model Is on Borrowed Time featuring Bob Veres, Publisher of Inside Information Bob Veres has been one of the most important media voices in the financial planning industry for decades. His Inside Information newsletter has shaped how advisors think about their profession longer than most advisors have been in business. Listening to Bob talk about where the industry is headed — and the business model pressures that are forcing advisors to rethink everything — gives important context for why advisors who build a public profile now are positioning themselves well for what comes next. 🎧 Listen to the Bob Veres / Inside Information episode

How Financial Advisors Can Win More Business Owner Clients with Cal Parker of BizEquity

Between 40 and 55% of millionaires in the United States are business owners. That's one of the biggest organic growth opportunities in wealth management today — and most advisors are barely scratching the surface of it.

In this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, recorded live and in person at the Fearless Investing Summit in Denver, Colorado, Mike Langford sits down with Cal Parker, Managing Director at BizEquity, to talk about why now is the perfect time for financial advisors to level up their game when it comes to serving business owner clients.

Cal drops some genuinely eye-opening stats and insights — including the fact that 60% of business owners have never even discussed their exit plans with their spouse. If you're not having the business valuation conversation with your clients, someone else eventually will.

"If you're not doing that, why wouldn't they go to an advisor that is?"

— Cal Parker, VP of Sales and Strategy, BizEquity

Connect with Cal Parker on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why advisors have struggled for over a decade to provide meaningful, directional advice to business owner clients — and what BizEquity is doing to close that gap

• How offering a free business valuation can become one of the most powerful client acquisition tools in an advisor's arsenal — and why it's not as hard as most advisors think

• What BizEquity's new Exit Valuation Module does and how it helps advisors move from reactive to proactive in their planning conversations

• What "exit readiness" really means — and why it covers everything from the emotional side of leaving a business to the health of the company's documentation and systems

• How the brand new Private Company Valuation Index, launched in partnership with the American City Business Journals, gives advisors real-time market intelligence they can use to prospect smarter

• Why the Great Wealth Transfer means business owners are about to become the top organic growth driver for advisory firms over the next two to five years

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors

There is a gap that sits at the center of most advisory relationships with business owner clients — and almost nobody talks about it directly.

Advisors know that business owners represent an outsized share of high-net-worth wealth in this country. They actively seek out business owner clients. And yet, when it comes to the business itself — the thing that is almost certainly the client's largest single asset — most advisors have very little to offer beyond plugging a rough number into eMoney or RightCapital and hoping it's in the ballpark.

Cal Parker puts it plainly: that's been a problem for over ten years. And it's a problem with a real cost. If your client's business is worth $10 million but you've been planning around $5 million, the retirement plan you've built together is built on a foundation of sand. And if your client is worth $2 million when they thought they were worth $10 million... that's a conversation you absolutely should be having with them now — not after a buyer walks away from the table.

BizEquity was built to solve exactly this problem. The platform gives advisors the tools to value a client's business accurately, model what that business could be worth at different growth rates over the next five or ten years, and assess how ready that business actually is for an eventual sale or transfer.

That last piece — exit readiness — is one of the most interesting parts of this conversation. Most advisors think about a business valuation as a number. But Cal walks through how BizEquity's upcoming exit readiness module approaches it as a scorecard. Is the business financially sound? Are the books clean and well-documented? Is there a successor identified? How strong is the marketing presence? How systematized are the operations?

A buyer isn't just buying a number. They're buying a business they'll have to run. And every weak area in that scorecard is either a discount on the purchase price or a reason to walk away entirely. The advisors who can help their clients understand and improve that scorecard — years before an exit — are the ones who will earn the deepest trust and the longest-lasting relationships.

The conversation also digs into something that doesn't get nearly enough attention: the emotional dimension of business exit planning. Cal shares a striking statistic — 60% of business owners have never even discussed their exit plans with their spouse. That means the most financially significant decision of a family's life is, in most cases, a conversation that hasn't happened yet. The advisor who opens that door is not just providing a financial service. They're doing something much more meaningful.

And then there's the prospecting angle. The new Private Company Valuation Index that BizEquity launched in partnership with the American City Business Journals is a genuinely fascinating tool — not just for understanding what your current clients' businesses are worth in context, but for identifying opportunities. What does a dental practice in your metro area typically sell for? What are the revenue and EBITDA benchmarks for manufacturing businesses in your state? What industries are seeing valuation compression because of tariffs or economic headwinds right now? That's the kind of intelligence that used to be available only to investment bankers and M&A advisors. BizEquity is putting it in the hands of financial advisors.

The timing, as Cal points out, could not be better. The Great Wealth Transfer is no longer a future event — it's happening now. Advisors who build the skills, the conversations, and the tools to serve business owners today are positioning themselves to capture an enormous share of that wealth as it moves.

Resources Mentioned:

• BizEquity — Business valuation and exit planning platform for financial advisors

• BizEquity Exit Valuation Module — Model future business value and support proactive exit planning conversations

• Private Company Valuation Index — The first real-time index of private company valuations, launched in partnership with the American City Business Journals

• Fearless Investing Summit — Hosted by Nitrogen Wealth

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• Why Serving Business Owners is the Secret Sauce to Building a Vibrant Wealth Management Firm featuring Jason Early, CEO of RISR Jason Early and Cal Parker are singing from the same hymnal on the business owner opportunity. If this episode got you thinking about how to build your practice around business owner clients, Jason's deep dive into the RISR platform and the "riches in niches" strategy for advisors is the perfect next listen. 🎧 Listen to the Jason Early / RISR episode

• Why Financial Advisors Who Embrace New Business Models and Adopt AI Today Will Be the Last Ones Standing featuring Steve Lockshin, Founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla Cal talks about the value of getting ahead of the exit conversation with business owner clients — and Steve Lockshin has been making that same case for estate planning for years. His perspective on why advisors who tackle the big, complex problems win the deepest client relationships connects directly to everything Cal discusses in this episode. 🎧 Listen to the Steve Lockshin / Vanilla episode

• How VRGL Is Turning Prospecting Into a Scalable Growth Engine for Financial Advisors featuring Kyle Zasky, CEO of VRGL Cal's discussion of the Private Company Valuation Index as a prospecting tool pairs naturally with Kyle Zasky's conversation about how advisors can use data and analytics to walk into a prospect meeting with a clear, compelling value proposition. Two different tools, the same fundamental insight: the advisors who show up prepared with meaningful intelligence win more clients. 🎧 Listen to the Kyle Zasky / VRGL episode

Why Your Clients Don't Need a 75-Page Report (And What to Give Them Instead)

What if the most powerful thing you could hand a client after a meeting wasn't a detailed report — but something their spouse could actually pick up off the kitchen counter and understand?

That's the question at the heart of this conversation with Alison Susko, VP of Community at Asset-Map. Recorded live at the Fearless Investing Summit in Denver, this episode is a refreshingly honest look at why simplicity might be the most underrated competitive advantage in financial planning today.

Alison has spent nearly 20 years in the industry — including close to a decade at eMoney Advisor before joining Asset-Map — and she brings a practitioner's perspective to a discussion that every advisor working in a complex, report-heavy environment needs to hear.

"Clients aren't shopping for another advisor because of a rate of return. They're potentially shopping around because they never got to know their spouse's advisor — or they never felt that connection where they really knew what was going on."

— Alison Susko, VP of Community, Asset-Map

Connect with Alison Susko on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why most financial planning reports are essentially useless without the advisor in the room to explain them — and why that's a bigger problem than most advisors realize

• Who the "non-CFO spouse" is, why they matter enormously to your client relationships, and what it looks like when they finally see their finances on one visual page

• How Asset-Map's new integration with eMoney became their fastest-growing integration of all time — and what that says about where the industry is headed

• How JUMP AI can listen to a client meeting and automatically build an Asset-Map report in real time — and what that means for advisor efficiency

• Why clients don't leave advisors over rates of return — and what they actually leave over

• How Relationship Maps are helping advisors keep track of blended families, gray divorces, step-grandchildren, and three-generation households

• The broader industry trend Alison sees clearly: a shift away from complexity and toward relationship-first, visually-driven financial planning

• Why the old "husband, wife, and 2.5 kids" planning model simply doesn't reflect the families advisors are serving today

Why This Matters for Financial Advisors

There is a tension that sits at the center of most advisory relationships that almost nobody talks about directly. Advisors are trained to be thorough. Comprehensive. Detailed. And there's real value in that. Nobody is arguing that deep financial analysis doesn't matter.

But there's a difference between the analysis you do for a client and the communication you share with a client. And for too long, the industry has handed clients the former when what they needed was the latter.

Alison puts it plainly: when clients are confused, they can't make good decisions. And a client who can't make good decisions with you will eventually make them without you.

Asset-Map was built on the insight that a single visual page — showing a household's key people, income sources, assets, liabilities, and insurance — does more for client engagement than a detailed report that requires professional translation. Not because the detail isn't valuable, but because the visual opens the conversation in a way that complexity never can.

One of the most striking moments in this episode comes when Alison describes what advisors tell her they hear from clients who see an Asset-Map report for the first time: "This is the first time I've ever seen my finances in a way I could actually consume it." And then: "This is what I've always wanted. I just didn't know how to ask for it."

That's not a technology story. That's a relationship story. And it points to something bigger happening across the industry right now.

The same open architecture trend that has made broker-dealers more flexible about the tools their advisors use is also changing what clients expect from their planning experience. They want to be engaged — not just informed. They want a financial plan that feels like it belongs to them, not one that requires an expert to decode.

This episode also spends time on a topic that's showing up in more and more conversations on the show: multi-generational planning. The traditional model of serving a primary client couple and maybe flagging their heirs is giving way to something much more complex — blended families, late-in-life divorces, grandparents whose priorities have shifted entirely to grandchildren, and younger clients who are now bringing their parents to the table instead of the other way around.

Asset-Map's new Relationship Maps feature is a direct response to that complexity. It gives advisors a way to visually map the whole family — assign assets, flag relationships, track who belongs to whom — so they can walk into every meeting fully oriented to the household as it actually exists. Not as a tidy nuclear family unit, but as the beautiful, messy, ever-changing human reality it is.

That's what client-centered planning actually looks like in practice. And it's exactly the kind of thinking that keeps clients around for decades.

Resources Mentioned:

• Fearless Investing Summit 2026 — Hosted by Nitrogen Wealth

• Adam Holt’s Podcast Appearance with Mike Langford and John Prendergast of Blueleaf.

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• The AI Paradox: How a Notetaking App Is Making Financial Advisors More Human featuring Matt Halloran, Chief Evangelist at Zocks The JUMP AI integration Alison discusses in this episode has a natural companion in the conversation Mike had with Matt Halloran about AI note-taking for advisors. If you want to go deeper on how AI tools are freeing advisors to focus on relationships rather than administrative tasks, this is the episode to queue up next. 🎧 Listen to the Matt Halloran / Zocks episode

• SUMA Wealth and the Power of Serving a Specific Community featuring Beatriz Acevedo, CEO & Co-Founder of SUMA Wealth When Alison talks about the younger generation bringing their parents to the financial planning table — especially in immigrant families — it points to something Beatriz Acevedo identified long ago at SUMA Wealth. Beatriz's discovery that young clients on the platform manage an average of three accounts for older family members is one of the most important data points about multi-generational planning in the industry. This episode will change how you think about who the gateway client really is. 🎧 Listen to the Beatriz Acevedo / SUMA Wealth episode

• "How Much Have You Got?" — The Awkward Present and Bold Future of Financial Planning featuring Bob Veres, Publisher of Inside Information This one has a special connection — Mike sat down with Bob at the exact same conference, earlier that same day, and Alison actually references the conversation in this episode. Bob has been watching this industry evolve for over 40 years, and his take on the shift away from complexity and toward relationship-first planning runs in the same direction as everything Alison describes. If this episode got you thinking about where the industry is headed, Bob's episode is the next conversation to have. 🎧 Listen to the Bob Veres / Inside Information episode

"How Much Have You Got?" — Bob Veres on the Awkward Present and Bold Future of Financial Planning

Some conversations are comfortable. This is not one of them.

Recorded live at the Fearless Investing Summit in front of a room full of financial professionals, I sat down with Bob Veres — veteran industry journalist, consultant, and publisher of the widely read Inside Information newsletter — for one of the most candid conversations about the financial planning profession I've had in 144 episodes of this show.

Bob has been watching this industry evolve since before most advisors reading this post were in the business. He's seen the transitions, the extinction events, the inertia, and the pockets of genuine progress. And right now, he sees a profession that is stuck in what he calls an "awkward present" — caught between where it came from and where it needs to go.

If you are comfortable with how things are running in your practice, this episode might make you a little uncomfortable. That's probably a good thing.

Connect with Bob Veres on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Bob believes financial planning is not yet a true profession — and what it would take to become one

• The single biggest structural flaw in the AUM model, explained in one devastating sentence

• Why the next generation of clients and advisors will reject the status quo — and what that means for established firms

• How "inertia" is the silent killer of advisory businesses that are otherwise thriving today

• Bob's avalanche theory — why you won't see the disruption coming until it's already arrived

• How AI will help advisors serve twice as many clients without losing the relationship quality that defines great advice

• Bob's vision for a future financial planning ecosystem built around specialization and a "fiduciary superconductor" referral network

Why the Present Is So Awkward

I opened the conversation by asking Bob about a phrase he'd used in a recent interview that stuck with me: "the present is awkward."

His answer cut right to the heart of the identity problem this profession has been wrestling with for decades.

The core issue, Bob argues, is that financial planning calls itself an industry when the people he most respects think of it as a profession. And the two have very different standards. A profession has a common language, a shared ethos, and a clear value proposition that consumers can understand at a glance.

Right now, financial planning has none of those things in a consistent way. You've got the NAPFA people, the FPA people, the broker-dealer folks, the wirehouse advisors — and within each group, sub-tribes with entirely different philosophies about how they charge, what they offer, and who they serve.

The result? Consumers don't really know what a financial advisor does. And that's a problem that goes far deeper than a marketing challenge.

"If you go to a doctor, you're pretty sure you know what a doctor does. If you go to a lawyer, you know what the lawyer does. When you go to a financial planner — well, do you sell insurance? Do you take commissions? Do you take an asset management fee, and how much of that is hidden?"

~ Bob Veres

Resources Mentioned:

• Fearless Investing Summit 2026 — Hosted by Nitrogen Wealth

• Inside Information Newsletter — Bob's monthly newsletter and research publication

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• The RIA Fee-for-Service Revolution with Alan Moore, Co-Founder of XYPN

  Listen to the episode

  Alan makes the case that fee-for-service models don't just serve younger clients better — they unlock an entirely new growth engine for advisors willing to make the shift.

• Why Advisors Who Embrace AI and New Business Models Will Be the Last Ones Standing with Steve Lockshin, Founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla

  Listen to the episode

  Steve and Bob are singing from the same hymnal on the AUM model — here's another bold take on what the future of pricing and technology looks like for advisors who are willing to move first.

• How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients with Michael Kitces

  Listen to the episode

  Bob and Michael Kitces famously disagree on a few things — including whether technology actually makes advisors more productive. Hear Michael's side of the argument here and decide for yourself.

Banks Are Stealing Your Clients. Here’s How to Fight Back.

Guest: Bob Clare, Founder & CEO at Fispoke

What if the big banks are already running a strategy to take your clients — and most advisors have no idea it’s happening?

What if being a true fiduciary means managing your client’s full balance sheet — not just their investment portfolio?

That’s the uncomfortable reality at the center of this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, where host Mike Langford sits down with Bob Clare, Founder and CEO of Fispoke, for a conversation that challenges the way most independent advisors think about their role, their risk, and their opportunity.

Bob spent 25 years inside Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. He watched from the inside as those institutions built highly efficient cross-selling machines, deliberately moving clients from banking relationships into wealth management. He saw it so clearly that when he left to build something of his own, he named his first LLC “Unbroken Wealth” — because he believed, in his core, that the wealth management industry was broken. (He eventually landed on a better name.)

The result is Fispoke: a complete, advisor-branded embedded banking and lending platform that gives independent RIAs and broker-dealer affiliated advisors access to the same banking toolkit that the wirehouses have always had — high-yield savings, mortgages, securities-backed lending, credit cards, advisor financing, and more. All integrated into the advisor’s existing workflow. All with no platform fee.

This is one of those episodes that reframes how you think about your practice. The gap Bob is closing isn’t just a product gap. It’s a fiduciary gap.

Connect with Bob Clare on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why the big banks are your biggest competitive threat right now — Bank of America’s CFO publicly stated that more than two-thirds of Merrill Lynch clients also have a bank relationship with BofA — and the bank’s explicit strategy is to convert retail banking clients into wealth management clients. Bob spent 25 years watching this machine operate. Every time your client walks into a major bank for a mortgage or savings account, your relationship is at risk.

• The offensive AND defensive case for integrating banking — It’s not just about protecting what you have. Advisors who incorporate cash management, lending, and credit solutions gain greater control of the client’s full balance sheet, deepen wallet share, increase client stickiness, and create recurring revenue streams that aren’t correlated to market performance.

• Why calling yourself a fiduciary while ignoring banking is a contradiction — Bob makes a pointed argument: if you’re a fiduciary and you’re not actively managing both sides of your client’s balance sheet, you’re leaving a $4 trillion gap unaddressed. Complete financial advice means assets and liabilities together — not siloed.

• $20.5 million in FDIC insurance: the sleep-at-night conversation advisors can now have — Through Fispoke’s partnership with Bell Bank and ModernFi, advisors can offer clients up to $20.5 million in FDIC-insured coverage — spread automatically across approximately 250 program banks — alongside a 3.56% APY high-yield savings rate. In a period of market volatility, this is a powerful conversation to be able to have.

• From portfolio manager to capital architect — Bob introduces the concept of the “capital architect” — an advisor who manages the full range of capital, banking, and lending solutions for clients, functioning essentially as a complete family office for every client at every wealth level. It’s the next step on the advisor’s evolutionary continuum.

• The 81% problem and what banking has to do with it — According to the Capgemini World Wealth Report, 81% of heirs switch advisors after inheriting wealth. Advisors who build multi-generational banking relationships — engaging clients’ children with high-yield savings accounts, mortgages, and other products — are far better positioned to retain that wealth when it transfers.

• Getting started: no platform fees, no contract negotiation — Fispoke charges advisors no platform fee. Advisors sign a standard agreement, complete onboarding, and are up and running with a fully advisor-branded banking platform integrated with their CRM. Bob’s team provides training materials, marketing collateral, and a dedicated service team. Start at fispoke.com or sales@fispoke.com.

Why It Matters

The financial advisory industry has spent decades talking about “comprehensive financial planning.” But for most of that time, comprehensive has really meant comprehensive on the asset side. Investments. Retirement projections. Tax efficiency. Insurance.

What it has rarely included — because the infrastructure simply didn’t exist for independent advisors — is the other half of the client’s financial life. Cash. Credit. Loans. Mortgages. The stuff that happens at the bank.

Fispoke changes that equation. And the timing couldn’t be more relevant. With market volatility running high, clients are asking harder questions about the safety of their cash. With the great wealth transfer accelerating, advisors face an 81% attrition risk on inherited assets. With the big banks running explicit cross-sell strategies, independent advisors are playing defense without knowing it.

Bob Clare has lived all three of those dynamics from the inside. What he’s built is a direct response to all three — a platform that lets every independent advisor compete with the banking capabilities of the wirehouses, without giving up their independence.

As Mike puts it in the episode, this is a genuine first-mover opportunity. The advisors who integrate banking now will be having conversations that their competitors simply cannot have. That’s a differentiation story that doesn’t require a better pitch deck or a new marketing campaign. It just requires showing up with the right tools.

“If your client is an affluent client and they apply for a mortgage, or if they go to a bank for a savings solution, and the advisor is not part of that conversation — your entire relationship is jeopardized. Flat out. That’s the reality of the market today.”

~ Bob Clare, Founder & CEO, Fispoke

Resources Mentioned:

• •       Fispoke — The complete embedded banking and lending platform for independent financial advisors

  •       Bell Bank — Fispoke’s flagship banking partner; one of the largest privately owned banks in the U.S.

  •       Sage Home Loans — Fispoke’s mortgage partner; rates averaging ~40 bps below national average

  •       ModernFi — The technology that enables Fispoke’s $20.5M FDIC insurance coverage across ~250 program banks

  •       Capgemini World Wealth Report — Source of the 81% heir advisor-switching statistic

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• Why RIAs and Independent Financial Advisors Who Add Banking Services Are Poised for Rapid Growth — Terry Mullen, Fispoke

  Terry Mullen, Chief Revenue Officer of Fispoke, joined Mike for the “coming soon” episode that set the stage for this one. If you haven’t heard it, start there — Terry lays out the vision, the market opportunity, and why the timing is right for embedded banking in the RIA ecosystem.

• How Advisors Can Tap the Hidden Growth Potential in Their Clients’ Communities — Beatriz Acevedo, SUMA Wealth

  Beatriz Acevedo, CEO of SUMA Wealth, explores how financial advisors can engage underserved communities by meeting clients where they are — including through banking relationships. Her insight that younger clients are often the gateway to older generations mirrors Bob’s multi-generational banking strategy almost exactly.

Love Your Customer or Quit: The 4 Pillars of Client Experience That Actually Matter

Guest: Rich Walker, Co-Founder & CEO at Quik!

What if AI could actually make you more human with your clients?

What if the secret to extraordinary client service was simpler—and harder—than you think?

That's the question at the heart of this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, where host Mike Langford sits down with Rich Walker, co-founder and CEO of Quik!, to explore the four essential pillars of creating exceptional client experiences in wealth management.

Rich shares a story that most business owners would never admit: He and his wife shut down a profitable business after just four months. The reason? They didn't love their customers. It was a weight-loss business his wife (a nurse) had built to break-even profitability in record time. But when she realized she fundamentally didn't enjoy working with clients who didn't enjoy solving their own problem, they made the hard call to walk away.

That moment crystallized the first—and most important—pillar of client experience: Love your customer. If you don't, how can you possibly give them the best experience?

This episode isn't about surface-level customer service tactics. It's about the foundational principles that separate advisors who build thriving, sustainable practices from those who burn out trying to serve everyone.

Connect with Rich Walker on LinkedIn

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The 4 pillars of exceptional client experience—and why most advisors get them wrong
  Rich breaks down his framework for building genuine, lasting client relationships: (1) Love your customer, (2) Be your first customer, (3) Be on your customer's team, and (4) Know and enforce your boundaries. These aren't fluffy concepts—they're actionable principles backed by decades of experience.

• Why a 99% customer satisfaction score might actually be a red flag
  Rich's company maintained a 99-100% satisfaction score for three years straight. Sounds perfect, right? Wrong. Rich explains how that score revealed they weren't setting proper boundaries, were training clients to be dependent instead of empowered, and were putting unsustainable stress on their team.

• The Alamo Drafthouse principle: How boundaries create better experiences
  Discover why one of Austin's most beloved businesses succeeds by being willing to kick customers out—and what that teaches advisors about setting clear expectations that make clients feel more secure, not less.

• Why children feel love when they know the boundaries (and so do clients)
  Rich shares wisdom from his mother about parenting that translates directly to client relationships: boundaries don't diminish love—they create the framework for it. Learn how to set professional boundaries that actually strengthen client trust.

• How to treat AI as a colleague instead of a tool
  Rich reveals his breakthrough approach to working with AI: stop prompting it like a robot and start collaborating with it like a human coworker. He shares the story of how he asked ChatGPT why it kept using em-dashes—and the answer completely changed how he uses AI.

• The TurboTax approach to forms that could save advisors months of onboarding time
  Rich unveils Quik!'s revolutionary new product, Formstream, which dynamically generates software from forms on the fly. Instead of spending months building digital account opening workflows that break every time compliance changes, advisors will soon be able to adapt instantly.

• Why only 30% of companies are actually using AI—and why you haven't missed the boat
  Despite all the hype, the vast majority of businesses still aren't doing anything meaningful with AI. Rich explains why we're still in the early days and what that means for advisors who feel overwhelmed by the pace of change.

• The collaborative AI approach that produces better prompts than you could ever write
  Instead of trying to craft the perfect prompt, Rich has a conversation with AI about the problem he's trying to solve, then asks the AI to write the prompt itself. The results? Highly technical, perfectly structured prompts he could never have created on his own.

Why It Matters

The financial advisory industry has spent decades telling advisors to "put the client first" and "deliver exceptional service." But what does that actually mean in practice?

Rich Walker has distilled it down to four concrete, actionable pillars. And here's what makes them so powerful: they're not about doing more. They're about being more intentional.

When you love your customers, you naturally want to serve them better. When you solve your own problems first, you deeply understand what your clients need. When you position yourself as a guide instead of a hero, you create collaborative relationships. And when you set clear boundaries, you create the structure that allows trust to flourish.

These principles apply whether you're a solo RIA with 50 clients or a wirehouse advisor managing 300 relationships. They work in bull markets and bear markets. They're timeless.

As Rich puts it:

"If you don't love your customer, how can you possibly think that you'll give them the best experience? But when you love your customer, you just naturally emote to them. You naturally want to do the things that they need done."

Resources Mentioned:

• Quik! Forms – Automating paperwork for financial advisors for 24 years

1. Formstream (launching soon) – Dynamic software generation from forms

2. The Customer Wins Podcast – Rich's podcast about customer success and experience

3. Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller – The book that inspired Rich's "be on your customer's team" principle

4. Sarah Vogelsanger, United Planners – The client who gave Rich honest feedback about phone response times

5. Thomas Gold Solutions – Retirement planning software that prioritizes answering the phone

6. Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas – The Austin theater that sets boundaries and kicks people out

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• The AI Paradox: How a Notetaking App Is Making Financial Advisors More Human
  Matt Halloran of Zocks shares how AI-powered notetaking is helping advisors be more present with clients by capturing the details they might otherwise miss.

• Michael Kitces Explains How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients
  Michael Kitces breaks down why time-based marketing doesn't scale, the "Tyranny of the Denominator," and how building gravity around a clear niche can multiply your growth—connecting directly to Rich's principle of "be your first customer" and solving problems you deeply understand.

• Alan Moore from XYPN Live on Entrepreneurship, Escape Velocity, and the RIA Fee-For-Service Revolution
  Alan Moore, CEO of XYPN, shares how advisors can grow stronger businesses by thinking like entrepreneurs and setting proper boundaries—echoing Rich's framework on knowing and enforcing boundaries to create sustainable client relationships.

The AI Paradox: How a Notetaking App Is Making Financial Advisors More Human

Guest: Matt Halloran, Chief Evangelist at Zocks

What if AI could actually make you more human with your clients?

That's the counterintuitive promise at the heart of this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, where host Mike Langford sits down with Matt Halloran, Chief Evangelist at Zocks, to explore how AI-powered notetaking is transforming the advisor-client relationship.

Matt shares a powerful story that every advisor needs to hear: an advisor who nearly missed a critical health issue his client's spouse mentioned during a meeting—because she got quiet, and he couldn't hear her. But Zocks did. The AI captured what the human ear missed, giving the advisor crucial information that would have otherwise slipped through the cracks.

This episode isn't about replacing advisors with robots. It's about how technology can free advisors from the "tyranny of minutiae" and help them be fully present in the moments that matter most.

Chat with MattGPT Today

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why AI has "no baggage"—and why that makes it the perfect listener
  Matt explains how AI doesn't get distracted by bad days, biases, or personal triggers. It listens with "the purest form of listening," capturing details that even the best advisors might miss.

• The health issue story every advisor should hear
  Discover how one advisor's AI notetaker caught a serious health concern that he physically couldn't hear during a client meeting—and why this moment illustrates the power of AI to make you more human, not less.

• How to reclaim 10+ hours per week
  Based on data from 2 million meetings, Zocks users are saving massive amounts of time on meeting prep, note-taking, and follow-up emails. Learn how advisors are using that time to actually serve clients.

• The follow-up email that's closing more business
  Matt shares how a simple, AI-generated follow-up email—personalized and prompt—helped one advisor win a prospect over three competitors. It's proof that being present and responsive matters more than ever.

• Why 95% of Zocks users use it every single day
  Most software gets bought and forgotten. Zocks has a 95% daily adoption rate. Matt breaks down why this tool has become indispensable for advisors.

• The compliance advantage: transcription vs. recording
  Unlike competitors that record meetings (requiring storage of millions of hours of audio), Zocks uses real-time transcription. No recordings to store. No massive compliance headaches. Just clean, searchable text.

• Why adoption rates are skyrocketing from 10% to 90% in 18 months
  When Matt first started speaking about AI at industry conferences 18 months ago, only 10% of advisors were using it. Now? 90% at top producer conferences like MDRT Edge. The train has left the station—and advisors who don't get on will be left behind.

Why It Matters

The financial advisory industry is at an inflection point.

Clients expect faster, more personalized service. Younger advisors expect modern technology. Compliance requirements are only getting more complex. And the competition for talent and clients is fiercer than ever.

Advisors who embrace AI tools like Zocks aren't just working smarter—they're positioning themselves to thrive in the next decade of this business.

As Matt puts it:

"This isn't the future. This is today. And if you're not on this train, you're going to lose business. You're going to lose clients. Because this is what clients expect now.

Resources Mentioned:

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love these episodes too:

• Michael Kitces Explains How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients vs Fighting Time and Scale Constraints
  Michael Kitces breaks down why time-based marketing doesn't scale, the "Tyranny of the Denominator," and how building gravity around a clear niche can multiply your growth—plus why separating sales from service is essential for scaling firms.

• Steve Lockshin on AI and the Future of Wealth Management
  Steve Lockshin, founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla, discusses how AI and tokenization will transform the industry—and why advisors who don't adapt will be left behind.

• Dan Zitting on Removing Friction from the Advisor Workflow
  Dan Zitting, CEO of Nitrogen, shares how reducing technology friction enables advisors to spend more time with clients and less time fighting their software.

Alan Moore from XYPN Live on Entrepreneurship, Escape Velocity, and the RIA Fee-For-Service Revolution

Alan Moore on Building Advisor Businesses That Scale with Purpose

On this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, I sat down in person with Alan Moore, CEO and Co-Founder of XY Planning Network (XYPN) and AdvicePay, during the XYPN LIVE Conference in Austin, Texas.

If you’ve ever wondered how to grow a financial advisory business that thrives without losing your soul—or your sanity—this conversation with Alan is a must-listen.

Over the last decade, Alan and his co-founder Michael Kitces have built XYPN into a community of more than 2,000 independent advisors who are redefining what it means to deliver financial planning. They’ve done it by empowering advisors to serve clients the way they want to be served—with flexible fee-for-service models, subscription pricing, and a focus on helping younger clients earlier in their financial journey.

Connect with XYPN

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

From Picking Up the Phone to Building a Movement

Alan shared how XYPN began with a simple idea… help advisors like himself who wanted to serve younger clients and build sustainable, fee-only businesses.

Alan credits Jude Boudreaux of The Planning Network, for inspiring him to "be the guy who picks up the phone” because Jude answered Alan’s call and was open to helping him when he was starting out.

When he launched his firm in 2012, few 25-year-old advisors were striking out on their own. But Alan’s willingness to share what he was learning quickly created demand. Within a year, he’d fielded 100 calls from other advisors asking for help.

That insight led to an email exchange with Michael Kitces, and by 2014, the two launched XYPN with a goal of onboarding 20 founding members in four months. They had 31 in the first week.

Today, more than 2,000 member firms later, XYPN continues to expand its impact on the profession.

Learning to Lead at Scale

One of the most powerful parts of our conversation was Alan’s honesty about how much he has had to grow as a leader.

“I learned very early on that I am an awful people manager,” Alan said with a laugh. “So I surrounded myself with people who complement my weaknesses.”

That self-awareness led him to adopt the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) framework, giving his teams clarity and structure as XYPN and AdvicePay scaled to more than 100 employees combined.

Alan also credits the Working Genius framework for helping him and Michael Kitces understand where each of them adds the most value—and where they should delegate.

Treating Advisors as Entrepreneurs

At XYPN LIVE, Alan and Michael took the stage together for a live recording of the Behind the Advisor podcast, walking attendees through the Launching, Building, and Scaling phases of an advisory business.

It’s an entrepreneurial lens rarely applied to financial advisors, but Alan believes it’s essential.

“Running a financial planning firm isn’t a formula—it’s art,” he said. “You get to paint the picture however you want. The key is being intentional about what you’re building and why.”

Alan encourages advisors to think in phases, to expect those early years to be hard, and to make sure they have the financial and emotional runway to persevere until they hit “escape velocity.”

Why Fee-for-Service Models Unlock Growth

A core focus of XYPN and AdvicePay has been helping advisors adopt subscription and fee-for-service models.

Alan explained that most Americans don’t have enough investable assets to fit the traditional AUM model—and that’s a business-model problem, not a client problem.

“Fee-for-service unlocks the other 48% of Americans who make a solid income but don’t have a million dollars to invest yet,” he said. “It allows advisors to profitably serve clients they couldn’t have before.”

That insight led directly to the creation of AdvicePay, the compliant payment platform built by Alan and Michael to make subscription billing and one-time payments easy—and regulator-approved—for advisors.

Building Gravity as a Founder

Toward the end of the episode, Alan and I talked about influence—how leaders like him and Michael Kitces have created “gravity” that attracts advisors, partners, and opportunities to their orbit.

Alan shared that his secret isn’t self-promotion—it’s partnership.

“Michael and I have completely different Working Geniuses,” Alan explained. “He thrives on being out front and connecting with people. I thrive on running the business. Together, we create balance.”

It’s a reminder that building influence in this industry isn’t about being loud—it’s about being authentic and playing to your strengths.

Resources Mentioned:

• XY Planning Network

• AdvicePay

• Behind the Advisor Podcast (XYPN)

• Alan Moore on LinkedIn

• Pam Horack, CFP® — “Your Financial Mom”

• Carl Richards

• Jude Boudreaux, CFP® — The Planning Center

• EOS Framework

• Working Genius

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you’ll love these episodes too:

• Michael Kitces Explains How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients vs. Fighting Time and Scale Constraints

• Financial Advisors Who Embrace New Business Models and Adopt AI Today Will Be the Last Ones Standing — with Steve Lockshin of Vanilla

Michael Kitces Explains How Financial Advisors Can Create Gravity to Attract Clients vs Fighting Time and Scale Constraints

Guest: Michael Kitces

Organizations: XY Planning Network | AdvicePay | Kitces.com

If there’s one person whose work has shaped how financial advisors think about building modern, scalable, and values-driven firms, it’s Michael Kitces.

From the iconic Kitces Blue blog and the Financial Advisor Success podcast to co-founding XY Planning Network and AdvicePay, Michael has spent his career helping advisors professionalize the business of advice.

In this in-person episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, recorded live at XYPN Live 2025 in Austin, Michael joins host Mike Langford to talk about how advisors can build gravity—that powerful pull that attracts your ideal clients and team members—by focusing on a clearly defined market and scalable systems.

Connect with XYPN

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why “time-based” marketing doesn’t scale

  Michael breaks down why prospecting models that rely on your time—networking, referrals, cold outreach—inevitably anti-scale as your firm grows.

• The “Tyranny of the Denominator”

  Michael Kitces revisits one of his most enduring ideas, explaining why maintaining high growth rates gets harder as your AUM base expands, and how strategic focus can break the cycle.

  Read the original Kitces.com post

• How to build gravity around a clear niche

  “We’re all terrified of who we’re not going to get,” Kitces says, “but you already don’t get 99.9% of the people you meet.” Focusing on one audience—like doctors in residency or young tech founders—can multiply your growth.

• Why separating sales from service is essential

  Kitces argues that the traditional model of advisors as both business developers and relationship managers is a relic of the brokerage era—and that scaling firms must rethink this structure.

• How XY Planning Network and AdvicePay empower advisor independence

  Learn how XYPN helps advisors launch and run their own RIAs, providing full compliance, tech stack, and community support—so they can focus on serving their clients, not paperwork.

• The “Advicer” Mindset
  Kitces also shares the inspiration behind the Financial Advicer Manifesto, a seven-point statement of values that defines what it means to be an independent, advice-centric fiduciary in today’s landscape.

  Read The Advicer Manifesto

  “Advisors who thrive are the ones who get clear on who they serve, what problems they solve, and why it matters,” he says. “That’s what creates gravity. That’s what scales.”

Why It Matters

As Michael reminds us, “Scaling isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing less, better.”

Whether you’re running a solo firm or leading an enterprise, the lesson is the same: pick a niche, build systems that serve it, and let the gravity of your reputation do the heavy lifting.

Resources Mentioned:

• Kitces.com – Research, CE, and industry insights

• XY Planning Network – Launch your own RIA with full compliance and tech support

• XYPN Compliance Services – Support for RIAs handling registration, filings, and ongoing requirements

• AdvicePay – Payment processing platform for fee-for-service advisors

• Vocatus LLC – Thanks to Ray Hennessey, Lisa Aldape, and team for the introduction

• Michael Kitces on LinkedIn

Related Episodes You May Like

If you enjoyed this conversation, you’ll love these episodes too:

• Redefining Growth for Advisors — Dan Zitting of Nitrogen Wealth

• AI Advertising for RIAs — Ian Karnell of VastAdvisor

• Building Advisor Workflows That Scale — Louis Retief of Hubly

Building the Back Office of the Future: AI Agents and Operations Tech That Will Transform Advisory Businesses

What if the most powerful lever for growth in your advisory business isn’t marketing or client service… but operations?

That’s the message from David Knoch, CEO of Docupace, in this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast hosted by Mike Langford.

David and Mike dive into the operational backbone of wealth management: the systems, processes, and people that make it possible for financial advisors to deliver on the promises they make to clients.

While most of the industry’s innovation has focused on the client experience, David argues that the real transformation (and the biggest inefficiencies) still live behind the scenes. As he puts it, “The industry is still pretty archaic in its operation.”

He estimates it’s a $50 billion problem, with error rates on paper-based workflows as high as 60% and compliance alerts that produce 95% false positives. All of that friction costs advisors time, money, and credibility.

Talk to Docupace Today

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why operations are the lifeblood of your firm.

  The client-facing work may be the “tip of the iceberg,” but underneath lies the machinery that determines scale, client satisfaction, and profitability.

• How Docupace is reimagining the advisor back office.

  David explains how the company is building a “purpose-built universal operations platform” to help advisors maximize the value of their tech stack—regardless of size, channel, or custodian.

• The growing role of AI in advisory operations.

  Learn how Docupace is developing “intelligent automation”—a network of digital agents designed to handle repetitive, complex operational tasks so advisors can focus on higher-value client work.

• Lessons on leadership and acquisition strategy.

  David shares how Docupace’s recent acquisitions—Hubly and PreciseFP—fit into a broader strategy of building a cohesive operational ecosystem without stifling innovation or culture.

• A fresh perspective on the advisor profession.

  Having spent decades across channels, David believes the industry’s best people are motivated by service, not sales—and that operations excellence is central to honoring the promises advisors make to clients.

Why It Matters

As advisory firms consolidate, and as technology options continue to explode, operations have become the differentiator.

Firms that master efficiency and consistency at scale are the ones that will win the “battle for talent,” deliver superior client experiences, and sustain margins even as the industry evolves.

Docupace’s approach, connecting systems, automating manual work, and removing friction, offers a blueprint for what the next generation of advisory operations will look like: invisible, intelligent, and indispensable.

Related Episodes You May Like

• How Financial Advisors Can Reduce Paperwork and Supercharge Their Productivity - Ryan George, CMO of Docupace joined Mike Langford for an episode of the show a few years ago. It’s a fascinating conversation that forecasted many of the innovations we see today for back office professionals.

• Why RIAs That Take Workflow Management Seriously Are Growing 33% Faster Than Their Peers - Mike and Louis Retief, Co-Founder of Hubly sat down for an extensive conversation about his experience joining Docupace and his shared vision for the future of the industry.

• How AI Will Power a New Era of Hyper-Growth for Financial Advisors and Wealth Management Firms - Ian Karnell, CEO of VastAdvisor shares how AI is set to transform client acquisition.

Why RIAs That Take Workflow Management Seriously Are Growing 33% Faster Than Their Peers

What if your firm could grow 33% faster simply by running more efficiently?

That’s not a hypothetical—according to Louis Retief, Co-Founder of Hubly, that’s the reality for firms leveraging Hubly’s workflow automation platform. In this week’s episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, host Mike Langford sits down with Louis to explore his journey from founding Hubly straight out of college to scaling the company and leading it through its recent acquisition by Docupace.

The conversation digs into the challenges financial advisors face as “accidental business owners,” why back-office efficiency is just as critical as client-facing tools, and how workflows can transform a practice from barely keeping up to thriving.

Book a demo for Hubly

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How Hubly helps advisory firms scale by eliminating inefficiency.

• Why many advisors struggle as accidental business owners—and how workflows can help.

• The importance of educating teams about process management (and avoiding “workflow shaming”).

• Insights into the current wave of wealthtech consolidation and acquisitions.

• How Docupace, Hubly, and PreciseFP are working together to create a more powerful advisor back-office ecosystem.

Why Workflows Matter for Financial Advisors

Many advisors excel at building client relationships but struggle with the operational side of running a business. As Louis explains, that’s where workflows come in:

• Client onboarding → Streamline every step from paperwork to funding accounts.

• Money movement processes → Create accountability for transfers, contributions, disbursements, and conversions.

• Client reviews → Systematize annual or quarterly check-ins to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Hubly takes the familiar concepts behind project management tools like Trello or Asana and makes them purpose-built for regulated wealth management firms. The result: less time spent on repetitive admin tasks and more time serving clients.

The Entrepreneurial Journey Behind Hubly

Louis shares the story of how a passion for efficiency and personal finance led him to cold-call over 100 advisors while still in college—discovering firsthand the operational pain points that became Hubly’s foundation.

The conversation also covers:

• The unique role of the “process and automation influencer” in advisory firms—and why Hubly builds for them as much as for advisors.

• Lessons learned from early mistakes in go-to-market strategy.

• Why Louis believes consolidation in wealthtech is just getting started.

• What it was like to evaluate and ultimately join forces with Docupace.

Related Episodes You May Like

• How Financial Advisors Can Reduce Paperwork and Supercharge Their Productivity - Ryan George, CMO of Docupace joined Mike Langford for an episode of the show a few years ago. It’s a fascinating conversation that forecasted many of the innovations we see today for back office professionals.

• How Financial Advisors Can Grow Beyond Accidental Business Owners - Mike mentioned this episode with Robert Russo, CEO of Independent Advisor Alliance during his conversation with Louis Retief.

Why Financial Advisors Who Embrace New Business Models and Adopt AI Today Will Be the Ones Still Standing Tomorrow

If you are not already questioning the core assumptions behind your advisory practice, this episode may give you the push you need.

In this episode, Mike Langford welcomes Steve Lockshin, founder of AdvicePeriod and Vanilla, for a wide-ranging conversation about how financial advisors can and should evolve their practices. Steve challenges long-held industry beliefs and offers a bold perspective on how estate planning, AI, tokenization, and new pricing models are shaping the future of wealth management.

While Steve is widely known for his success as an advisor and entrepreneur, it is his passion for solving real problems that stands out. His focus on estate planning, for example, began as a differentiator but has become a defining element of the value he brings to clients and the tools he builds.

Whether you are a financial advisor, a fintech executive, or someone thinking about where this industry is headed, this conversation will challenge your thinking and help you reimagine what great advice looks like.

Book a demo for Vanilla

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Steve believes the traditional AUM model is broken, and what pricing structures better reflect true client value

• How estate planning became a key differentiator in his advisory business, and why more advisors should embrace it

• The opportunity to serve high-net-worth clients without managing their portfolios

• How AI will extend an advisor’s capabilities by automating tasks, surfacing opportunities, and personalizing service

• Why tokenization will fundamentally change how client data is accessed and shared

• How younger investors and clients will reshape the advisor-client relationship in the coming years

• What advisors can do today to stay relevant in an increasingly tech-enabled world

Related Episodes You May Like

Redefining Growth for Advisors with Dan Zitting, CEO of Nitrogen Wealth

Listen to the episode

Dan discusses how client behavior, digital engagement, and better communication skills are reshaping how firms grow.

Episode Resources

• AdvicePeriod Website

• Vanilla Website

• Vanilla YouTube Channel

• Steve Lockshin on LinkedIn

How AI Will Power a New Era of Hyper Growth for Financial Advisors and Wealth Management Firms

How can financial advisors and wealth management firms unlock true organic growth in 2025?

Ian Karnell, CEO of VastAdvisor, joins Mike Langford to unveil a game-changing platform that uses AI to create scalable, compliant digital ad campaigns—without the bloated cost of traditional agencies or lead brokers.

In this high-energy episode, Ian pulls back the curtain on VastAdvisor Enterprise and how it enables RIAs, broker-dealers, and asset managers to:

• Define ideal client profiles with psychographic precision

• Deploy niche-targeted ad campaigns across platforms like Meta, LinkedIn, and Google

• Automatically generate compliant ad copy using SEC- and FINRA-aware AI

• Measure ROI down to the dollar—with built-in campaign and compliance dashboards

If you’re tired of expensive steak dinners, unreliable lead brokers, and slow growth… this is the moment you’ve been waiting for.

Ian and Mike also explore the rise of agentic AI, why GenAI will reshape the competitive landscape in wealth management, and how firms can empower next-gen advisors with a real tech stack for growth.

Book a demo for VastAdvisor with Ian Karnell

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why organic growth has stalled for many financial advisors—and how AI can reignite it

• How lead brokers like SmartAsset and Zoe make their money (and why it’s time to cut them out)

• The hidden cost of slow, manual compliance workflows—and how AI can solve it

• How VastAdvisor Enterprise builds predictable, scalable ad campaigns that convert

• Why democratizing digital ad strategy is a game-changer for mid-sized RIAs and enterprise networks

• How next-gen advisors can reach full client capacity faster—with an AI-powered lead engine

• What “agentic AI” is—and why it might be the biggest shift in FinTech since the cloud

• How niche audience targeting and platform-specific insights (e.g., Meta vs. LinkedIn) improve ROI

• Why embracing AI isn’t optional—it’s a survival strategy for the next five years

Related Episode:

Redefining Growth for Advisors: Dan Zitting on Frictionless Tech, Sales Skills, and Client Confidence

Dan Zitting, CEO of Nitrogen (formerly Riskalyze), shares how the advisor sales process is evolving—and what firms must do to keep up.

How VRGL Is Turning Prospecting Into a Scalable Growth Engine for Financial Advisors

Featuring Kyle Zasky, CEO of VRGL, on the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast with Mike Langford

Client acquisition is one of the biggest challenges facing financial advisors today — not because there’s a shortage of prospective clients, but because there’s often a gap between interest and trust. In this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, Mike Langford is joined by Kyle Zasky, the newly appointed CEO of VRGL, to explore how advisors can use data, design, and digital empathy to turn prospects into clients faster and more confidently.

This episode is a must-listen if you’re looking to boost your organic growth without adding more friction to your already full plate.

🎧 Listen to the episode or watch the full video below.

Why Prospecting Is Broken — And How VRGL Is Fixing It

The traditional approach to financial advisor growth has long depended on referrals, word-of-mouth, and face-to-face meetings. But in today’s hyper-digital and post-pandemic environment, that model doesn’t scale. Most advisors have full calendars servicing existing clients — which leaves little time for prospecting.

Kyle Zasky, who stepped into the CEO role at VRGL just weeks before this recording, breaks down the real issue: while most advisors know they need to grow, they don’t always have the tools or processes to engage prospects meaningfully before they sign on the dotted line.

“We’re in the business of arming advisors with data and analytics about the prospect,” says Zasky. “So when they sit across the table from a lead, they’re not pitching — they’re educating.”

VRGL’s platform helps advisors quickly ingest unstructured portfolio data — even from PDFs and statements — and create personalized, white-labeled proposals that highlight risk exposures, fee inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement. It’s a compelling way to build trust and demonstrate value before the client relationship officially begins.

🎙️ Related Episodes You Might Enjoy

One of the goals of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast is to connect the dots between strategic conversations — and this episode with Kyle Zasky aligns perfectly with several others that explore technology, client acquisition, and the evolving role of the advisor.

If this conversation resonated with you, here are a few other episodes worth checking out:

• How Financial Advisors Can Help Clients Understand What Is Actually Happening In Their Portfolios — Justin Whitehead, Co-Founder of Pebble Finance, explores how AI-powered storytelling and data translation can help advisors strengthen client relationships and close new business with clarity and confidence.

• Exploring the End‑to‑End Digital Transformation of Wealth Management — Gauthier Vincent, Wealth Management Consulting Leader at Deloitte, breaks down how AI, data integration, and client experience are changing across every part of the advisory business — from first touch to full service.

• Solving the Biggest Tech Problem in Wealth Management by Creating True Ownership of Your Firm’s Data — Jud Mackrill of Milemarker outlines why centralized, accessible data infrastructure is critical to performance, scale, and winning new clients — much like VRGL’s proposal platform.

• The Evolving Role of a Financial Advisor in an AI‑Driven World — Dr. Emily Koochel from eMoney shares how advisors can blend data, AI, and human empathy to meet the expectations of today’s clients and prospects.

AI Isn’t the Threat — Inaction Is

Zasky also addresses a growing pain point for many financial advisors: AI-induced anxiety. Advisors are bombarded with new tools, and many feel like they’re falling behind if they’re not using the latest tech.

But here’s the truth: You don’t need to master AI. You need vendors who have and can deliver practical, easy-to-use solutions.

That’s where VRGL shines. The platform’s goal isn’t to dazzle you with complex algorithms — it’s to help you deliver smarter, faster, more confident conversations with prospects. So you can grow without feeling overwhelmed.

One Final Takeaway: Think Like a Financial Therapist

One of the most powerful moments in this episode is when Kyle draws a parallel between financial advisors and physicians.

Just like doctors use bloodwork and diagnostics to inform their advice, advisors should use portfolio analytics to diagnose client pain points. But that’s only part of the equation. The real differentiator is how well you understand your clients as people — their goals, fears, and financial behaviors.

“It’s not just about performance or fees,” Zasky says. “It’s about helping people feel seen, heard, and confident.”

That’s what today’s prospecting efforts must deliver. And that’s why tools like VRGL are fast becoming essential to modern advisory practices.

Ready to Close More Business With Less Friction?

If you’re looking to turn more leads into loyal clients — and deliver value from the first meeting — VRGL is worth a serious look.

📍Learn more about VRGL at www.vrglwealth.com

🔗 Connect with Kyle Zasky on LinkedIn

And don’t forget to subscribe to the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast for more insights from the leaders shaping the future of wealth management.

Redefining Growth for Advisors: Dan Zitting on Frictionless Tech, Sales Skills, and Client Confidence

What does it take to grow a modern financial advisory business in a world where referrals are no longer enough?

In this episode of The Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, Mike Langford is joined by Dan Zitting, CEO of Nitrogen Wealth, to explore the tools, strategies, and mindset shifts that today’s financial advisors need to succeed. From frictionless onboarding and personalized risk assessments to reviving the lost art of selling, Dan shares how Nitrogen is evolving to meet the real-world challenges advisors face every day.

Dan also opens up about what it’s like to take the reins of a legendary FinTech brand—formerly Riskalyze—and why the company’s rebrand was about more than a new name. It’s about refocusing on the advisor’s journey and the investor’s confidence.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why Friction Is the Enemy of Advisor Growth

  Dan explains how removing tedious data entry, manual workflows, and outdated interfaces is essential if advisors want to spend more time with clients—and less time wrestling with technology.

• The Power of Net Promoter Score (NPS)

  Nitrogen puts its NPS front and center, and for good reason. Dan breaks down how measuring client satisfaction is more than a vanity metric—it’s a leading indicator of trust and growth.

• Risk Isn’t About Age—It’s About Psychology

  Just because someone is 30 doesn’t mean they’re aggressive. And just because they’re 70 doesn’t mean they’re conservative. Dan makes the case for deeper, individualized risk insights that advisors can act on.

• Why Referrals Aren’t Enough Anymore

  Referrals used to be the engine of growth, but in a digital-first world, prospects need more proof before they engage. That’s a theme we’ve explored in other recent episodes:

  • Beatriz Acevedo of SUMA Wealth on expanding your reach by engaging the next generation.

  • Greg Bogich of AcquireUp on rebuilding your sales muscle through intentional prospecting.

  • Felipe Toews on why honest conversations about risk and loss are the foundation of strong advisor-client relationships.

• How AI Will Reinvent Advisor Workflows

  Dan shares a vision for AI as a co-pilot—automating meeting prep, surfacing portfolio insights, and creating client-ready reports without the advisor having to lift a finger.

🎉 Join Dan and the Nitrogen Team at the Fearless Investing Summit

Looking for more advisor growth strategies, tech insights, and high-energy inspiration? Be sure to check out the upcoming Fearless Investing Summit hosted by Nitrogen. It’s one of the most highly-rated events in the industry—and a great place to connect with forward-thinking advisors and FinTech leaders.

Final Takeaway

As Dan put it best: “Advisors want to spend less time in software—not more.” The future of advisor technology is all about simplicity, automation, and empowering confidence—both for the advisor and their clients. Whether you’re a solo advisor or leading a fast-growing RIA, this episode is a must-listen.

How Financial Advisors Can Help Clients Understand What is Actually Happening in Their Portfolios

“We’re not just translating numbers. We’re giving advisors the language to deliver real, human conversations at scale.” – Justin Whitehead, CEO of Pebble Finance

In this episode of the Modern Financial Advisor Podcast, Mike Langford welcomes Justin Whitehead, Co-Founder and CEO of Pebble Finance, to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming client communication in wealth management.

Forget the hype. While many firms are still slapping “AI-powered” labels onto basic automation tools, Pebble is quietly redefining one of the most important—and often overlooked—aspects of the advisor-client relationship: communication.

Justin’s story begins with a moment every investor can relate to: a well-intentioned but poorly informed decision to diversify into Chinese markets… followed by silence from his advisor and a sharp market downturn. That experience, and his background in building portfolio analytics tools at FactSet, sparked a question that now sits at the heart of Pebble:

Why is it still so hard for advisors to clearly explain what’s happening in a client’s portfolio?

Why Portfolio Conversations Are Broken (And How Pebble Fixes Them)

Modern portfolios are complex. Clients are overwhelmed by jargon. Advisors are stretched thin. And yet, the expectation for personalization and clarity has never been higher—especially among younger, self-directed investors who grew up with Robinhood, Reddit, and real-time market commentary.

Pebble Finance solves this by combining deep portfolio math with AI-powered content generation to create real-world narratives that advisors can use immediately.

Think:

✅ Contextual explanations for market shifts

✅ Client-ready commentary in plain English

✅ Custom newsletters at scale

✅ All without touching PII or raising red flags with compliance

As Justin puts it:

“We’re enabling advisors to speak their clients’ language—quickly, accurately, and at scale—without having to sacrifice compliance or credibility.”

What This Means for Financial Advisors

For financial advisors, Pebble isn’t just another dashboard. It’s a conversation engine.

Imagine being able to instantly generate timely, portfolio-specific commentary that references what your client read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday or what they just asked you about over email. Or sending a personalized newsletter that highlights what’s driving returns in their portfolio—without spending hours researching or writing.

Now you can.

More touchpoints. Better conversations. Lower churn. That’s the promise of Pebble—and it’s one that couldn’t be more timely as advisory firms face increasing pressure to scale personalization without adding headcount.

Related Episodes You Might Enjoy

🎧 Behavioral Portfolio Management with Felipe Toews

In this episode, Felipe Toews, CEO of Toews Asset Management, explores how honest communication and scenario planning can deepen client trust. A perfect companion to today’s conversation on AI and behavioral finance.

➡️ Listen & Read the Episode Recap

🎧 Arnim Holzer on Macro Risk and Client Conversations

Another great episode for advisors who want to make market risk relevant and understandable for clients. Learn how to frame global macro events in ways that actually resonate.

➡️ Browse All Episodes

Want to Stay Relevant in the AI Era of Wealth Management?

If you’re an executive at a wealth management firm or a FinTech provider looking to empower advisors with scalable, high-quality client communication—Pebble deserves a look. This is the type of innovation that will define the next generation of advisory excellence.