Navigating the Transition: How XYPN Sapphire Simplifies Going Solo

Maddy Roche: Hello, and welcome to XYPN Radio. I'm Maddy Roach, your host. Today we have Brian Muller, founder of Momentous Wealth Advisors, an RIA based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Brian is one of XYPN Sapphire's first users, and today he shares his journey through the industry and what brought him to join Sapphire XYPN’s Corporate RIA. 

He'll talk about the challenges he faced through the state registration process and what prompted him to look for outside support.  During our episode today, Brian shares his unique marketing initiatives, his mission, what keeps him motivated, and how he has leveraged the XYPN member community and his journey to build his best firm. 

Without further ado, here is my interview with Brian.

Maddy Roche: Hello, Brian, welcome to XYPN Radio. How are you today?

Brian Muller: I am terrific. Thanks for having me on the show, is that what we call it? A show? 

Maddy Roche: It is the show, and we have so looked forward to having you on. Brian, you've got a beautiful, incredible journey to what has brought you here today as an XYPN member in the firm you're running, and so I want to get right to it. Brian, would you mind introducing yourself and your firm so our listeners have a little context for your 

Brian Muller: Yeah. Yeah. Brian Muller I've been in the financial services industry since 1996. Started at the time when I graduated from college they didn't hire people at Edward Jones, but I knew I wanted to be at Edward Jones, and started at a firm called Oldie Discount Stock Brokerage, which was like, they gave me a phone book that was the training program. They gave me a phone book dialed for dollars for my senior broker, and when I'd get a hot lead, I'd let them have the lead, and they made all the money. I made like $2,000 a month. So I spent most of my career at Edward Jones. I had left Jones worked for the Hartford mutual funds for a while, called on Edward Jones offices all over Minnesota. Then eventually left came back to Edward Jones and left Edward Jones to go with a small RIA that didn't, I knew pretty quickly that they didn't share the same vision. I had this idea that I wanted to start my own. I just didn't have the confidence to do it. But I had this little coaching business that with my health and life coach certification I was gonna do on the side, and it was called momentous, and I always loved the word momentous. It's not used very often. You don't hear it very often, but the definition is of a decision of significant importance, especially on its bearing of the future, and it says a lot about what I was gonna do with my health and life coaching business. But I never really launched that and I always loved the name so much.

And when I started working on my own firm. I used Momentous Wealth Advisors as the name of the firm and started working on all the branding. I was really excited. I created my, my logo and my website and all the content. I was working on all that behind the scenes while I was at my old RIA and then I found out about XY Planning Network.

You know, I'd followed Michael Kitces for a long time, knew a little bit about XY. Started working with their team to help get state registered in Minnesota and it was taking forever, and eventually my old firm found out about me setting up this firm and they let me go, and that was on a Tuesday, and within a couple days, I, you know, saw that email come in from XY Sapphire 'cause I was on the distribution list. Didn't know about Sapphire, knew it was a pilot program, and Jeff Snodgrass reached out to Alan. Within a couple days I was on a Zoom with Alan and on Monday, that was on a Saturday, and on Monday I was signed up with XY Sapphire. They had already closed down the pilot program but agreed to take me on, which was a huge weight off my shoulders. 'cause I was wondering. What I was gonna do,

 Could have been months before I was state approved, my clients would've been in the dark, and so signed up with Sapphire on Monday, got a rep code with Schwab on Wednesday, started moving clients over within the next week, and it took about two to three weeks to transition all my clients. So

that was probably more than you, you just wanted to know what Bobeta Wealth Advisors was and me, but thought we'd just dig into it a little bit.

Maddy Roche: You gave us a great outline for exactly where I want to bring this conversation because your journey is really why we decided to open up XYPN Sapphire. We wanted to be able to help capture And have a safe landing for places for advisors like you who are finding themselves. Kind of in limbo a bit with registration and maybe with a prior firm.

So, Brian, let's stay back in history for just a moment. You said you always knew you wanted to go out on your own, And that's not in every advisor. It, we talked to all sorts of advisors and lots of them share that. There was always this inkling of wanting to be an entrepreneur, but where did that start?

When did that start And how did you integrate that into your life before you became an entrepreneur?

Brian Muller: Yeah, I think, I grew up around the stock market. My dad watched CNBC. I always had an interest. I knew I was gonna do something in the financial world, but I wrote a business plan in college called Life Track. It was a business of integrating health into wealth, like some kind of system where people get rewarded to make healthy choices, with a discount in their advisory fees.

And that's something that I want to eventually explore. That was a business plan I wrote in college. Almost, well, it was a lot. I'm not gonna day myself two bucks here, but it was a long time ago. Right.

Maddy Roche: A couple years ago.

Brian Muller: But I had this vision back then to do something with health and wealth together, and that's why I eventually got my Health and life coach certification that eventually I'll use and integrate that somehow into my business.

But I always had an interest in it. I'm a very creative person. I've written music for a long time. I put out a bunch of albums, so I have this creative side that was just kind of set aside when I was at Edward Jones. 'cause Edward Jones is a wonderful firm, one of the best in the industry, I think great people. But it was a very cookie cutter approach and it was very boring to me. To follow this recipe, even though it worked, right? I built up a great business the first time, built up a great business the second time, and it put me in the position I am today to have this lifestyle practice that I have.

I had 300 clients at Edward Jones, both times, well over 300 clients, and I was working 10, 12 hour days, weekends, evenings, you know, and it was not a lifestyle practice.

Maddy Roche: Wow.

Brian Muller: So I knew one day I'd have the confidence to go off on my own.

And when I found out about Sapphire, it was like this is it. This is everything. This is perfect because I know myself enough to know I wouldn't want to do billing, bookkeeping, compliance, all those things which I could have had my own firm and wire, you know farmed that out to somebody.

But the turnkey solution, still having ownership of my relationships and my firm, and my brand was super important to me.

Maddy Roche: Tell me a bit more about what Sapphire allows you to do now that you're on the platform.

Brian Muller: Pretty much just focus on my clients, right? It's, I joke with some people, but, other Sapphire advisors or people interested in Sapphire, I said I haven't been on hold once with Schwab, personally, and that to me is worth quite a bit. But also just little things like I used to spend a lot of time figuring out if there was enough cash in all my client's accounts.

For the advisory fees to be taken. I don't do that anymore. We have a system in place with Sapphire where they take care of that. In taxable accounts. I want to make sure they sell the right things so we're not creating too much tax liability. But, that took a lot of time even with 60 households. Going and looking through, making sure they have enough cash for those advisor fees. So Sapphire takes care of that. Just those little things, and then of course, the big tasks like the bookkeeping, you know, having somebody that knows what they're doing. Yeah, I got an A in accounting back in college, but it's not something I like to do. Not at all.

Maddy Roche: Totally. Yeah, we see that among a lot of advisors that within the first year or two, they're identifying big components to the business that they don't want to handle, and there's really no shame in that. There's so much to do when you're running your own firm, and as a coach, we're always looking for areas for folks to outsource and get support and be able to offload some of that responsibility.

And so it sounds like this has been a real sweet spot for you to land in terms of the components of the business, and you just knew that wasn't your jam.

Brian Muller: Yeah, I think if I would've known about Sapphire to begin with and I must have missed some of the emails or, you know, I was just busy working on my vision and everything, I would've gone the Sapphire route to begin with. I wouldn't even have went and tried to get state registered because it's, I knew how hard it is to get state registered in Minnesota, you know, and being on calls with other Sapphire advisors and how easy it was for, you know, some of 'em were getting approved two to four weeks in their states and here I was, I started the process right before Thanksgiving and it was February already.

Maddy Roche: Wow. 

Brian Muller: There was probably another couple months before we were gonna be approved.

Maddy Roche: Oh, that is, that is the hardest time for advisors.

Brian Muller: Yeah, and it was, you know, I was very, I had lost some weight. I wasn't eating. I was really stressed out just trying to hide this process a little bit, you know, so my firm didn't find out, and of course they eventually found out if I would've been with Sapphire right. In the beginning it would've been a lot easier, but it happened the way it was supposed to.

Maddy Roche: Mm-hmm. 

Brian Muller: As stressful as it was, it happened. Really, really smoothly, and to have a team help me with that transition was huge. You know, putting all the DocuSign packages together nicely with my fee agreement and making sure the paperwork was done right and all the things. It was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulder.

Maddy Roche: Yeah, I'd love to talk a little bit more about, from your perspective, what you needed to do in terms of this transition and what you felt Sapphire was able to do to support you. 'cause you came over with a fair number of clients, upwards of 50, right.

Brian Muller: Yep, yep. You know, it helped that I was already on the Schwab platform. It makes it a lot easier, because it's just one form for each account. Of course, we had to redo, move money agreements and things like that to get the advisor authorization on those, but. I just got organized very quickly, got all the stuff to them, talked to all of my clients.

You know, it was kind of a shock for my clients because it happened. I didn't expect it to happen that way, but they all stuck with me. Nobody stayed behind. They came with me for a reason. From Edward Jones. Those were my favorite top 50 clients, and the team at Sapphire helped me transition these very quickly.

I think we did it over, we tried to stagger it so it wasn't like just inundating the other firm. But, I think within about three to four weeks we had every client over and all the assets coming in.

Maddy Roche: Wow. From a client's perspective. What do you worry about when a transition like this happens and how did you communicate it? Did they feel the move? I understand they were your favorite clients, but what do you worry about as an advisor when a transition like this is looming?

Brian Muller: Yeah, I mean, it's just, my clients have been with me for a long time and, you know, leaving Jones was the biggest transition 'cause there was a lot of paperwork involved going from a brokerage firm to Schwab. This was much easier. I didn't have as many worries, but, just making sure that they felt okay with this transition and felt good about it.

And they all, they were doing business with me and they loved some of the new things that I was doing, the new financial planning software, I was using MoneyGuide before, and that was actually a lot easier than I thought. You know, if I could have stayed with MoneyGuide, but I loved RightCapital so much. The implementation of RightCapital is much easier than Money Guide ever was, and. The portal that the clients get access to is just so cool with the budgeting feature we added so people can link their bank accounts and things like that. So, but the transition was very, very smooth. I didn't really worry a whole lot.

I, and I made it very clear to them that this is my own firm now. This is the last move. Like you're, you're never gonna have to move. Knock on wood. But, you know, when I look back at it, you know, sitting at XYPN live and they're talking about the pilot program, and I didn't even think about it. Being a pilot program like this might not work, you know?

Right.

Maddy Roche: We were just testing it.

Brian Muller: I am just glad they brought me in for the test because it worked and it's continuing to work and they're continuing to work on new things.

I think one of the things recently is just the onboarding system that we had signed up for wasn't working the way that they wanted it to, so they're gonna be using a new one. I think that's gonna be great once we have that, so I'm not just loading stuff into box.com with. Client information to set up accounts. It works, it's fine,

but having a system that fully integrates everything is gonna be huge for onboarding new clients.

Maddy Roche: Wonderful. I'm interested in how you relate to Sapphire, maybe on a day-to-day basis And what that communication is like And where does your work end in their work start.

Brian Muller: You know, I always feel like the follow up is really good. So, you know, I

send them orders for clients for a rebalance or if client needs cash, you know, support at XYPNSapphire.com is a common level every day. They're really good at making sure the task gets done and then letting me know it got done.

Even a trade, like, Hey, we got these trades done, or we got this money a move money agreement signed and and done by the client, and the money went to the client. So just not having to worry about, I know if I, I send that email to support, it's gonna be taken care of. I put some notes in Wealthbox and I know it's done

and I don't, sometimes I don't even look to see if it got done because I'm busy with other things.

I just know that it's been done, and they always send me an email that tells me it's done.

Maddy Roche: Oh, what a relief.

Brian Muller: yeah, I mean, just all those little things that you just don't have to worry about And deal with and just focus your time on servicing your clients, and I do a lot of other marketing things like sponsoring pickleball tournaments and doing the podcast and working on the book.

And so to make, to, just to know that, that this ship is running nicely, right. It's, it's smooth sailing. I haven't had any issues with something not being done timely.

Maddy Roche: Hmm. Wonderful, and I love that you, you just gave us a little insight into some of the marketing initiatives. That you're doing. I find your work on the marketing side very unique and it requires some heavy investment from you, but creative investment from you that I think some of other advisors don't have the capacity for.

And maybe this is one of those things where when you have such support provided through something like Sapphire, you're able to flex those muscles a bit more around how can you be creative and reach your target market. So I'd love for you to just explain to the audience a bit about what. You sod and excited about finding new clients.

Brian Muller: Yeah. You know, it's now that I've been with Sapphire a year and I'm settled, I've brought on some new clients and assets from current clients. I'm trying to figure out. What my capacity is, we've talked a lot about this in our coaching sessions, and I don't, certainly don't want to get back to the point where I have 200 clients and I don't have a life anymore. So I have to be very selective on the clients I do take. So the marketing that I'm doing is mainly focused on. People I enjoy being around. The pickleball community is where I've spent most of my marketing dollars, sponsoring pickleball tournaments getting in contact with pros who know other pros. An ultimate goal would be to have a couple pickleball pros, the ones that play the big pro tournaments as clients.

Maddy Roche: Wow.

Brian Muller: These are people that are active, that have good attitudes that just are, living a life differently. So I want to make sure that clients I do bring on, inspire me and that are, that have a good energy about them.

So I have an older book of business as well, so I'm concerned. I have clients that don't have kids that have a lot of money with me, and they're in their late seventies or early eighties, so I know I need to bring on the 40 and 50 year olds that are making good money, that are building their wealth, not taking money from their accounts. So as I grow, there's gonna be times where I'll add capacity, but I think I can bring in another. Maybe 30 clients, families that I work with and put me right around 80, and I think a hundred would probably be the max. But the whole goal is getting back to where I was. You know, I left some assets behind when I left Edward Jones and, kind of took a step back. But the beauty is that because Sapphire only takes 20% and does all the things that I need to be done to run a successful business. I make more money with less clients and less assets than I would anywhere else. So it's been great to have this lifestyle practice, and I do surge meetings, so I have six to eight weeks of meetings. Then I have time to market and onboard new clients in between those periods and time to record the podcast, episodes to release. So I'm not trying to do all that during review season. 'cause review season is very busy. I visit with clients, all my clients, typically four times a year,

mostly over Zoom, or in person,

which is more than most clients.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep that up, and certainly there's some clients that. Just choose not to do their midyear review. They're too busy or whatnot. Some of my working clients, but all my retired clients, they're coming in to see me face to face four times a year, which I've never had that many touch points with clients.

And when I get to, you know, 80, 80 to a hundred, it may be difficult to keep that up. It probably will go down to two times a year, which I think is still plenty, and then some touch points in between.

Maddy Roche: Can you define how you define lifestyle practice and why it's important to you?

Brian Muller: Yeah. You know, number one, having your own definition of success, right? When I was at Edward Jones, you were always around other advisors and we had different levels you could reach. Like what, you know, you'd go to go to meetings and then some new advisor would ask you what level you in, you know? And you were always trying to get to the next level because so and so got to the next level.

And you think to yourself, well, I'm better than them. I can get to that level. So you're always feeling like, even though you're successful by a lot of standards, you'd never felt. Successful 'cause you always felt like you had to get to the next level, and for me, a lifestyle practice is knowing what your enough point is, how, how, what's your enough point in terms of the income you need to build your own financial independence and financial freedom and still be able to live life and experience life and be there for your kids.

You know, being a single dad since 2017, I had to dial back. On ambition and working long hours. I had to figure out a way, 'cause I didn't want to get a nanny. I didn't, some of my friends are like, I can't believe you never got a nanny. Like you

did this on your own, and thankfully I had a, the type of career I could do that if I had a job, like some of my friends were there traveling to China and you know, all over the place and working 10 hour days, it wouldn't have worked. So for me, a lifestyle practice is having the freedom. To be there for my family,

 To be able to play pickleball from time to time, not have to worry about getting to the office at eight 30. Most days I get to the office about 9:30, 10, and I work till three 30 and I'm home. When the kids get home from school, a lot of times, during a review season, sometimes they're sitting there alone figuring out what to do, but they're 13, 11.

They can figure it out.

Maddy Roche: They're old enough.

Brian Muller: A grill cheese sandwich.

Maddy Roche: Fair enough, and Brian, you also have enough capacity that you're writing a book.

Brian Muller: Yes.

You know? Yeah. I just got an email from the folks at Wiley with the presale link code on Amazon yesterday, I didn't think we're that far along right? We're in the second

stage of editing. So the book's called Momentous Decisions, seven Steps to Better Health, more Wealth and A Richer Life, and it's based upon a framework that I developed after my wife Amy passed away in 2017, and it's called the Made Life Framework, and it's. An acronym. I have a lot of acronyms in the book. I'm an acronym guy. I don't know what my problem is, but I love acronyms. The Made, the Made Life framework is just centered around meaning, accomplishment, difference, and experiences, and when you look back at your life, you're gonna ask yourself, what did you make of it? What, gave your life meaning, what did you accomplish without sacrificing your most important relationships? What difference did you make in the lives of your family and your friends And maybe charities that you or other organizations? And then what experiences you had along the way. 'cause life is all about experiences, so it's, it's a book that I'm very excited to release because it integrates life, health, and wealth all into one book. Each chapter starts off with just understanding why you maybe haven't reached your health goals or haven't adopted a healthy lifestyle. Some of the things that have been in your way, some of the blocks that have prevented you from achieving wealth or achieving good health, and then all the top life decisions.

Top 10 life decisions, top 10 wealth decisions, and the top 10 health decisions to help you. Live this richer life. So it's been a really fun process. I didn't think I'd ever get to this point where I'd actually be a published author. It was always a long lifetime goal. A lot of this book was written seven years ago, so the way it all worked, I didn't send it to 20 publishers.

I ran across a friend in my neighborhood that happened to work for Wiley and said, Hey, you should send me this book. He actually asked me, have you ever thought about writing a book? 'cause he had followed my story and I said, I have one written. So I sent him the table of contents and the intro and I was on a Zoom three days later with three people from Wiley and they, they loved the idea of it. So yeah, he, it's still, I'm still. Pinching myself that this is gonna happen, and now it's like they told me, you know, it's the hardest part is not writing a book. It's actually selling it, right? So, so my friends might get annoyed that I post about pre-sales for the next two, three months, but hopefully it'll sell some copies.

Maddy Roche: Well, you certainly have an inspiring story. Your dedication and motivation is just palpable and it's really, really fun to watch. I'm interested, what else do you have up your sleeve, Brian? What can we expect from you over the next couple years?

Brian Muller: Well,

One of my, one of my goals is to start doing video for my podcasts because I just have only done audio. One of the things I would really like to do is launch the Momentous Wealth Academy and go to schools to teach teens. About wealth principles,

Maddy Roche: Hmm. 

Brian Muller: Because I just, you know, it's not taught in schools and so that is a longer term goal to launch that academy and work on and have it available even for people to take these courses online. But. More importantly, going into schools.

And then with the book being published I used to do a lot of public speaking. I built my whole business at Edward Jones doing seminars.

And I used to run kind of self-development academies for our region. So I want to get back into speaking and doing speaking engagement.

So I would love to be on stages. Maybe with local leaders in Minnesota and develop like a conference, kind of like XY Live does, except more geared towards health, wealth, and life principles. I have some goals to get on a stage again, and start refining. Getting back to public speaking is not something you just do, right. I'm a, I feel like I'm a natural on stage. I've always performed and things like that, but I still get nervous and I'm sure you do too. But that is something that I want to get better at and get prepared to do more speaking engagements down the road and make more of a difference.

Maddy Roche: Beautiful. I'm wondering, Brian, you've joined the XYPN Sapphire Group, and you've, you've experienced kind of what XYPN as a community is, how would you say the community of both the Sapphire users and advisors, as well as kind of the XYPN community at large supported you over the past year?

Brian Muller: Yeah, I think, you know when I left Edward Jones, I had a lot of it was almost like grief. Like I had left a lot of friends behind. A lot of the families. Their kids knew my kids, and I'm new to XY so I haven't been to XY live more than once. But being there feeling like I was part of something and not feeling like I was gonna be completely alone, I. Even when I was at the other RIA, it felt like I was alone and there was very little support. There wasn't the comradery, being part of the Sapphire Group with other advisors and there's a lot more that are being onboarded there. That's gonna be really neat 'cause it is gonna feel like we're all part of the same firm with our own brands

and everyone has different ideas and different things and different perspectives and different ways of doing business. It's, it's been really cool and I look forward to more stuff like that. Especially XY Live And some of the other things I'll be going to, but, it just, it's cool to feel like I'm part of something still because that was talked about a lot at XY Live about the isolation and feeling alone, and you, you still are, I mean, here I am in my little office alone, but having the support and the comradery from some of our XY meetings that we have once a week and things like that. It's just, it, it feels so much better.

Maddy Roche: Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. To wrap us up. Brian, I'm interested, just some of the questions you prompt in your book. I would love to, I can't wait to read your book and hear some of your responses, but what would you say motivates you every day?

Brian Muller: Well, I'm just like everyone, I'm not motivated every day. You know, it's like, willpower is like a cell phone battery, you know, if you don't it just fades throughout the day. But for me, when I'm not feeling like I'm moving the needle or making progress or making a difference, I don't feel good.

I don't do well with downtime, and sometimes I'm okay, I'll just go play some pickleball if I don't have anything to do. But for me, I'm just, I want to make sure that the life that I live, and you know, I remember hearing a quote that said, the life you lead is the lesson you teach. I want to make sure my kids see what it's like to live this richer life, and I don't have a perfect life. There are days I get lazy and I watch Netflix instead of doing something fun with my kids, because that's just life. You need to kind of slow things down every once in a while. But I want to make sure that. 30 years from now, I look back at what I did in my life, that I made a difference with my family and friends, and the causes I care about. I had just lived a life of rich experiences, not just lavish trips, and I love traveling. We're going to Turks and Caicos next week for spring break, but I want to make sure that we have just rich experiences and that some of those don't cost money, and it's just. Having those things that traditions and things like that, that the kids will remember. So for me, it's just all about meaning, you know, still accomplishing some things, but not having that success be my God and money be my God, knowing my enough point and trying to make a difference And live a life of amazing experiences.

Maddy Roche: Hmm. Well said. Brian, it's been a total joy to have you on XYPN Radio. Brian can't wait 

Brian Muller: Well, yeah. Thank you so much and I appreciate your time and I know this is uh a huge thing for you doing this, and you're so good at it. You're so good at it. You're such a great coach as well, and I'm just so glad you're part of the whole XY community.

Maddy Roche: Thank you Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Muller: Awesome. Peace out.