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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October 20, 2026

Trilogy Capital, a $5 billion wealth manager based in Irvine, Calif., is acquiring Mountain Capital Investment Advisors, a $1 billion registered investment advisor firm in Westminster, Colo.

Trilogy says the deal is its largest acquisition of the year and will establish its 11th office location and its second in Colorado.

Mountain Capital was founded in 2011 by Brandt Burns, a former U.S. Marine and airline pilot who says that joining Trilogy will provide his team of advisors with additional resources to improve their service model while preserving much of their operating model.

“We will retain our brand and unique position in the marketplace, and our leadership team, advisors, and staff will remain intact, so client disruption should be minimal,” he says. “This important move for our firm will not replace what we’ve built—it will strengthen it.”

In addition to Burns, other members of Mountain Capital have worked as pilots or in other roles in the aviation industry, and it has a niche serving clients who work in that sector. Brandt’s wife, Mountain Capital co-founder Michelle Burns, spent 14 years as a senior manager for United Airlines. At Mountain Capital, she led development of a specialized tax-preparation service designed for pilots and other aviation-industry professionals. Trilogy says that an affiliated company, Trilogy Tax & Consulting, will absorb Mountain Capital’s tax service.

Read more here.

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By Trilogy Financial
April 1, 2018

A financial expert breaks down how to get through tax season unscathed, including how to prep, when to file jointly and the best ways to optimize your refund.

’Tis the season—for taxes. Listen, we know shuffling through IRS forms and deciphering a new tax code is one of the least enticing ways to kick off newlywed life (especially if you just returned from your honeymoon and finally wrapped up thank-you notes). But if you haven’t already, it’s time to get down to business filing your first tax return as a married couple. Have questions? We have answers, thanks to Jeff Motske, president and CEO of Trilogy Financial and author of The Couple's Guide to Financial Compatibility. Here’s what first-time newlyweds need to know this tax season.

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