Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner,

speaker and consultant Michael Kitsis to hear stories of how leading financial advisors

navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading

industry consultants about how to break through to the

next level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone.

Welcome to the 41st episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is

Elaine Beatle. Elaine is the founder of Beatle Financial, an independent

R.A. in Indianapolis that provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management,

and over the past 29 years has grown to more than one billion of asset center management.

What's fascinating about Elaine's business, though, is not simply that she's been successful

in growing into the one billion AUM milestone, but that she founded the firm from the start as a fee-only RIA in 1989, a time when very few financial advisors launched fee-only firms and even fewer who were women.

In this episode, we explore Elaine's journey as a pioneer female fee-only financial planner from starting her career in a bank trust department where she learned

all about estate planning and investment management to becoming the director of financial planning

for Coopers and Leibrand and honing her tax planning expertise in a big aid accounting firm

of the time, before ultimately transitioned to create her own independent RIA.

From there, Elaine shares how her advisory fee structure evolved from initially doing standalone

financial planning project fees to her current blended AUM plus upfront planning fee model,

the unique engagement letter process that she uses after her initial meeting with clients to

quote them a fee and onboard them, and the way that she breaks up her upfront planning fee into an

initial and series of ongoing payments in the first three months to help clients get buy-in to

complete the process. And be certain to listen to the end, where Elaine talks about how she

navigated the challenges of bringing her son into the advisory business, from first requiring

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