An Inside Look at How We're Designing #XYPNLIVE 2019

Over the past 10 years, I have attended numerous industry conferences. It wasn’t until 2018 that I attended my first XYPN LIVE event.

The differences between XYPN's annual conference and other industry conferences I had attended were immediately apparent. From the energy of the attendees and presenters to the high level of engagement with the exhibitors, it was clear XYPN LIVE truly is an event for the next generation of financial planners. 

I knew XYPN LIVE had become a premier industry event for financial advisors looking to launch, run, and grow fee-only financial planning firms. After attending, I finally understood why. 

One of the biggest differentiators of XYPN LIVE is that every presenter, speaker, exhibitor, and session is chosen with intentionality—no one and nothing is there by accident.

Content is carefully curated to provide the greatest possible value to the attendees. XYPN's Advisor Success Team, which I now lead, is responsible for hand-picking every content offering at our conference. 

Bigger and Better

We take this responsibility very seriously. No matter how strong the reviews of our conference are, we always believe there is room for improvement. That’s why we strive to make each conference bigger and better than the one before. 

As the XYPN LIVE audience continues to grow and evolve, so does the conference itself. We proudly provide cutting-edge educational content and resources to support firm owners in different stages of business ownership, whether they're just starting a firm or are well-established and looking to expand.

While the feedback from XYPN LIVE 2018 was amazing, it was also apparent that the attendees were hungry for more advanced content centered on specific topics to help their businesses and to help them provide enhanced client services.

XYPN LIVE attendees aren't just advisors launching new firms. They're also advisors with rapidly growing firms...and advisors transitioning from an old firm to a new firm...and advisors looking to rebrand...and advisors running multi-advisor planning firms...and, well, you get the picture.

Each XYPN LIVE attendee has a unique story, unique struggles, and unique needs—we strive to satisfy those unique needs with the content we provide.  

With that in mind, we are excited to expand the amount of education and training content we are offering at XYPN LIVE 2019.

Where Did We Start?

When designing and deciding how and what content will be delivered at our annual “unconference”, we started by segmenting the type of attendees we see at XYPN LIVE events. 

Content tracks will be based on specific topics, and each session will be designed for a specific type of attendee. This approach will allow each attendee to get access to the content—including industry tips, tricks, and best practices—that is most relevant to their business.

First, we have advisors who are launching firms. As part of this segment, we have advisors launching with no clients or revenue as well as advisors launching but transitioning clients from another firm. While both “launchers,” these are two very different segments with different needs.

For new advisors starting from scratch, we have content focused on how to set your business up, how to create and choose your service offerings and pricing structure, and how to build a client base.  

For experienced advisors launching a new RIA, the content will be more focused on transitioning your existing business, shifting and enhancing your value proposition, and running your RIA efficiently and effectively—or rather, like a total boss. 

XYPN LIVE also has attendees who have successfully launched a firm and built a solid base of clients and revenue, and who are now looking to grow. These advisors may be looking for sales and marketing strategies to take their businesses to that next level, or ways to enhance their client service model to attract more clients.

This has become a large segment of attendees at XYPN LIVE and our goal is to provide specific content centered on how to grow, and to highlight best practices from other advisors who have built successful businesses and share the stories of how they did it.      

What about the business owners who are at pivotal decision-making points in their business? Those who are asking questions like:

• Should I hire or partner?
• What parts of my business should I outsource?
• How can I run a more efficient business?
• Do I want to start building an enterprise firm or am I content with my current size?

All of these decisions have positives and negatives that must be weighed. We want to help ease the heavy burden of making these critical decisions by providing sessions that help business owners evaluate these key areas of their businesses and leave them with tangible takeaways they can actually implement. 

Our content will help firm owners run their best business with sessions designed to improve efficiencies, reduce firm risk, improve client experience, and develop advanced planning techniques and an enhanced client service model.

Not Just Better Content—More Content

And we aren’t just shaking up the type of content we’re offering at XYPN LIVE 2019. We’re also shaking up how much content we’re offering.

We are very excited to increase the number of concurrent sessions for each of our content tracks—Start, Run, and Grow My Firm and Continuing Education—from three to five. 

Subject matter experts will offer invaluable content covering a wide range of topics relevant to each segment of attendees, including: sales and marketing, financial planning, investment management and solutions, practice management, operations, and compliance.

These topic areas will be the foundation for each content track. Our goal? To provide different levels of content in each track so every XYPN LIVE attendee can leave feeling accomplished, invigorated, and inspired.

We know each XYPN LIVE attendee faces different challenges, has different aspirations, and wants different things out of their conference experience. By taking this approach, we are able to design content to challenge and educate every type of advisor and firm owner and help them take their businesses to the next level.

What does this mean for attendees as they prepare for XYPN LIVE 2019? Each XYPN LIVE session will be clearly defined, and will include the topic, session description, what the attendee can expect to takeaway, and the type of attendee the session is ideally designed for. This will allow all attendees to review the complete schedule before the event and choose the sessions that will bring the most value to their business. Your XYPN LIVE schedule might look completely different than another attendee’s, and that’s exactly the point!         

Finally, who will be providing the content for each of these sessions? The best of the best, of course. We're still in the process of selecting and finalizing our 2019 speakers, industry professionals, and subject matter experts, but we promise XYPN LIVE 2019 will boast an all-star lineup. Be sure to keep checking our XYPN LIVE schedule as it takes shape over the next several months. 

By offering expanded sessions designed specifically for our different segments of attendees and by hosting a variety of highly qualified and well-vetted presenters, we hope to enhance the educational benefits for all XYPN LIVE attendees and provide a truly remarkable conference unlike anything you've ever experienced. 

We invite you to read more about XYPN LIVE 2019 and visit our registration page to get your pass.

About the Author

As XYPN's Director of Advisor Success, Malcolm is tasked with doing just that—helping advisors succeed. After graduating from Gettysburg College with a B.A in Management, Malcolm jumped straight into the financial services industry and never looked back. With a drive to help shape the future of financial planning and a passion for bringing financial advice to the next generation of clients, he has a lot in common with the advisors in the Network.