Alan Moore launched his own financial planning firm because he didn’t want anyone to have control over the entirety of his income or his life.
That realization only came after he was let go from a job he moved to Wisconsin for—a life change that he refers to as humbling. The issue, as Moore saw it, was that people without millions of dollars in assets couldn’t access the same resources as wealthier clients.
“The vast majority of Americans who don’t have half a million or more in investable assets don’t get to work with a financial advisor because they don’t meet their minimums,” Moore explains. “I felt like that was a business model problem, not a client problem.”
Moore BSFCS ’09, MS ’12, who now lives in Montana because he can ski and fish in the same weekend, started a company focused on clients who didn’t have to meet the usual requirement of being wealthy to receive advice. Moore also used a fee-for-service model, rather than the traditional one based on percentage of investable assets.
In the first 18 months of running his company, Serenity Financial Consulting, he also answered more than 100 phone calls from fellow financial advisors. “People were asking very similar questions, but not about financial planning. They wanted to know how you run a business,” Moore says. “Our degree programs teach us how to do the work, but they don’t teach us how to run a business.”
The conversations led Moore to start another company as a side project. The interest was overwhelming.
“We had no idea the market that we were stepping into,” Moore says. He sold Serenity to focus on this new endeavor, XY Planning Network, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Moore is now CEO and co-founder of XY Planning Network and co-founder and executive vice chair of AdvicePay, Inc.
XY Planning Network takes the guesswork out of running a business by providing technology recommendations, marketing resources, and coaching to small business owners in the financial planning industry. Moore uses his podcast to highlight members’ entrepreneurial journeys.
Our mission statement is to help people live their great lives.” — Alan Moore, CEO and Co-Founder, XY Planning Network
The members of XY Planning Network follow Moore’s fee-for-service model, which also allows them to connect with a younger generation of clients who are in the process of building wealth. AdvicePay, Inc., launched as an efficient, compliant way for these advisors to get paid.
Moore says the biggest benefit that members receive, though, is the community the platform creates.
“Our mission statement is to help people live their great lives,” Moore says. “For every advisor we’re able to help start their own business, they can then impact 100 clients’ lives through the work they’re doing. Now, more than 180,000 consumers have access to financial planning, most of which didn’t have access before.”
Equally important to access is asking the right questions. While working on his master’s at UGA in family financial planning, Moore learned about financial therapy through UGA’s ASPIRE Clinic, where he collaborated with students training to become marriage and family therapists.
“I believe financial planning is a helping profession,” says Moore. “How I was trained at UGA takes a more holistic look at someone’s personal finances. It really puts the person at the center of it and asks them what they want out of life.”
