The Best Question to Ask Clients – And Yourself

By financial planning logo
February 28, 2019
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Written by: Chelsea Emery | Jeff Motske has one of the strongest ways to tease out client priorities I’ve heard in quite a while.

“What if?” Motske asks clients.

“What if one if your partner needs critical care? What if you want to move to Arizona? What if one of your kids starts a family on the other side of the country?,” the CEO of Trilogy Financial asks.

It’s deceptively simple, but an excellent method for getting at the heart of clients’ values and fears.

“These are critical questions,” Motske told me during a recent visit to Financial Planning offices in New York. “You want to ask them before things happen.”

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By Trilogy Financial
July 24, 2018

Cerulli Associates, a leading financial services market research firm, projects that more than one-third (35 percent) of financial advisors will retire in the next 10 years. In its wake, the next generation of advisors will inherit roughly $6 trillion of advisor-managed assets. This begets a crucial question: where will the industry find this next generation of advisors? As it stands, only a quarter of today’s advisor population is under the age of 40, according to the CFP Board, and of this, a mere 10 percent are under 35, Cerulli reports.

Why is the industry experiencing this new talent shortage? Of the myriad obstacles, poor industry perception and a lack of necessary structure to engage and mentor promising young leaders are two worth noting. However, they can be overcome with a commitment to understanding millennial preferences in the workplace and investing in the necessary resources to inspire today’s brightest talent to choose financial advising. It’s an investmentthat will deliver significant returns for both advisory firms and their clients.

Click here to read the full story.

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October 20, 2026

Trilogy Capital, an Irvine, Calif.-based wealth management company with more than $5 billion in advisory and brokerage assets, announced it has acquired Mountain Capital Investment Advisors in Westminster, Colo., an advisory firm with more than $1 billion in client assets.

The purchase of Mountain Capital, founded 15 years ago, is Trilogy's largest deal of the year and gives it its second location in Colorado and 11th overall, the company said in a press release today.

“Mountain Capital is a perfect fit for Trilogy and demonstrates our commitment to intelligent inorganic growth,” Jeff Motske, co-founder, president and CEO of Trilogy, said in a prepared statement. “Mountain Capital shares our commitment to long-term client relationships, fiduciary advice, and thoughtful financial planning, so the cultural fit is exceptional. We are very excited to be able to attract high-caliber people to Trilogy.”

Mountain was founded by U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former airline pilot Brandt Burns and his wife Michelle Burns, a former senior manager at United Airlines for 14 years, the press release said. Read more here.

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