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This podcast interviews fee-only financial planners to learn about how they are helping their clients and serving their specific niches.
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#134 - Off the Grid, On a Mission: Ryan Sullivan’s Bold Leap from Engineering to Financial Planning
What does it take to build a successful financial planning firm—while living off the grid in a cabin-caboose hybrid?
Ryan Sullivan of Off the Beaten Path Financial did just that. After leaving a career in engineering that lacked the flexibility and impact he wanted, a chance meeting led him to financial planning. Despite industry warnings, he launched his RIA while still working full-time.
He and his wife bought 20 acres in remote Montana, where their home—half log cabin, half 1890s train caboose—is only accessible by snowmobile in winter. Ryan commuted up to four hours a day while building his firm on nights and weekends.
Early growth was slow—until he hired a coach, shifted away from rigid service models, and focused on project-based planning for architects and engineers. His technical mindset became his advantage, and the business took off.
In January 2025, he earned more than in the previous two years combined. Now, he runs his firm fully off-grid, embracing the lifestyle and clients that make it truly off the beaten path.
Ryan Social
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-sullivan-pe/
How's it going everyone? Welcome back to the Only Fee Only podcast and, as always, thanks so much for being here. In this episode we talked to Ryan Sullivan from Off the Beaten Path Financial, and when I say this guy is off the beaten path, he literally is. I mean, I think he lives like an hour away from any town or anything like that. He's got a really cool story. I think he actually recorded this podcast while he was running on generator power, so absolutely awesome, loves being out in nature and has a really cool story when it comes to building his firm and, you know, in the beginning trying to find that traction, and then he just kept being consistent and eventually things took off. So I think he's got a really cool story and it was awesome to hear about it. Let's let him tell it. Here is Ryan Sullivan on the Only Fee Only podcast.
Speaker 2:What's up everyone, welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only podcast. I'm Peter Travolo. I'm here with Brock Buckles and today so excited to have Ryan Sullivan on from Off the Beaten Path Financial. Love his story, love what he's doing on social media and so excited to have him on today. So, ryan, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me Excited to be here with you guys. Yes, you bet. So, for those who are listening in on audio, ryan's calling in from his cabin in Montana. So really excited to share what he's about his lifestyle practice and can't wait to dive in.
Speaker 3:So, ryan, for those who don't know who you are, you want to give a quick background of maybe even your previous career and how you got into financial planning. Yeah, so I started off as a mechanical engineer and I was designing HVAC plumbing systems for buildings across the US and pretty quickly into that, realized that I didn't see myself doing that long-term. I saw the people around me, more senior, and what that career path could look like. I saw kind of the people around me, you know, more senior, and what that career path could look like and it just didn't seem like it was going to provide me the time, income, the flexibility, the freedom, etc. Or really even the impact of things that I was looking for. And so that started a probably close to 10 year journey really of trying to figure out what that thing was going to be. And in high school I think I did that stock market game, you know, and so I kind of got exposed to that and I remember, you know so, my early 20s I'm working as an engineer, just Googling all the time like how can my money make me money? And I just really wanted to figure out, you know, how can I leverage, you know, money and wealth and assets and things like that. And so I got really interested in investing, consider getting into trading, but, kind of backed off from that, realized I don't have a lot of money not a lot of people are very successful with that and so realized I need to start a business and that was really how I was going to be able to make more money and then I could invest it and have a little more flexibility and things. And so I tried to start a couple of businesses, but that didn't really go anywhere. I tried to buy a couple of businesses that didn't really go anywhere and eventually I got the opportunity to start an engineering department at a mechanical contractor and so that kind of gave me the opportunity to learn the business side, to sort of be an entrepreneur. But I didn't have the risk, I didn't. I got a steady paycheck, I didn't have to worry about payroll, but I built that up to a good size team. You know, we did over one and a quarter million in annual revenue and but still just kind of kept back.
Speaker 3:Coming back to finance investing for myself, and I actually ran into this guy at the store randomly sometime in 2020. And he was a financial advisor and used to be an engineer, and so we really hit it off and we started grabbing a drink or going out for lunch and did that for like two years and early on I wanted him to manage my portfolio and he was like no, no, like he looked at it. He was like you should just keep doing what you're doing. He was like I don't think I've ever seen someone with that level of sophistication in their portfolio. That's coming to me, you know, looking for me to manage their investments. So he kind of encouraged me to do that.
Speaker 3:I learned more about the business and the industry and you know I was kind of getting fed up with my engineering job and those things and so eventually it was like then I traded options. I traded options for like six months, made a bunch of money, lost some money, kind of very typical. And uh, and then was like you know what I think becoming a financial advisor, you know, going down that path makes a lot of sense. I'm having these conversations with different people. I built up this expertise. I love talking about this stuff, I'm good at it and uh, and kind of seeing the business model, you know what that could look like?
Speaker 2:Uh, it made sense to go down that path. That's awesome. So stars aligned, in other words, yeah. Yeah, so you're in Montana, Bozeman. Um, when's the first time you learned about XY planning network? Did this planner you meet? Were they a part of XY or what was that set up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so he was with the broker dealer and so I started looking into different types of advisors and how you could launch business or what that would look like. And, as I started thinking about, actually knew quite a few financial advisors or talked to them over the years, and they were pretty much all broker dealers. One guy was with Ever Jones, um, and so I reached out to a bunch of them and asked a bunch of questions and I remember the guy I mentioned previously. And then there was another guy that I met in college, um, who'd been an advisor for a while, and they both were like, do not start an ria, uh, like you don't know what you're doing and compliance and yada, yada and all these things and like you need to be at 100 million plus, you know, in assets for that to make sense. And then then I found xy and um. I think I actually found alan moore first, and then I saw xy and saw he was in bozeman, and then I downloaded his little book and I and I'd actually scheduled a meeting to meet with xy to talk to them to understand more about what that would look like.
Speaker 3:I had no idea that they were based out of Bozeman and so I saw that Alan was out of Bozeman, that he founded XY. So then I was like, hey, are you in Bozeman? And the lady was like, yeah, I was like I am too. Could I just come into the office? And she was like, oh yeah, that'd be great that come into the office. And she was like, oh yeah, that'd be great. Like that never happens. So I went into the office there, met with her personally, and then it turns out her boyfriend was actually an architect who I was working with on a project at the time, and so we were like kind of friends or we just kind of knew each other, and he ended up becoming one of my first clients and so that was another kind of crazy thing about xy being in Bozeman locally and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Man, it's crazy how the world goes around, isn't it? Things just kind of feel like the stars align sometimes.
Speaker 3:It really is. I mean and my story has a fair bit of that over the years and if we talk more about my house and property and stuff and like there's, it blows my mind like how you sort of put things out into the world and they come back and, um, yeah, like the amount of things that lined up to be perfect with launching this business and other areas. It really is crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's get into it. Let's get into the personal life a little bit, man, because like you're out out in like a cabin, I mean it's really cool your house, like tell the listeners before we get into like actually starting the ria. And getting into that like a little bit about like where you live and and all of that yeah, so I say I live in a cabin in the woods.
Speaker 3:Uh, technically I mean it is a house, um, but there is so half of it is a log home and then the other half is a 1890s train caboose and uh, so it's, it's super unique. Uh, originally I reached out to peter to help me with some insurance issues we're having for, uh, wildfires and stuff like that. But uh, so, but the property it's, I mean it's 20 acres. It backs up a national forest.
Speaker 3:I can ski I'm a big skier and backcountry skiing so I can literally put my ski boots on in the basement nice, like concrete gear room, fireplace in there to dry gear and everything can ski right out the door. Hop on a snowmobile, there's trails around. Um, you know, I can hunt, I can shoot guns right in my yard. You know I look out at, uh, the bridger range, which is a prominent range outside Bozeman, and so I can. I can see the mountains from my bed and like big, you know picture window and the sunrise and sunsets are incredible. There's like nobody around. You know it's, it's, it's the dream. And so my wife and I had this dream for a while. But, you know, it just seemed out there something we talked about, but it didn't really seem like we didn't know how it was going to happen.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Eventually, I talked to a friend in Oregon and he had bought some land and built on it, and so that kind of gave us the idea about hey, we should really start looking more into this and figure out how to make it work. About, hey, we should really start looking more into this and figure out how to make it work. And in 2023,. We put offers in on five different properties before and all of them fell through for like super weird reasons, and so there's another kind of serendipity crazy thing and no-transcript, little crazy things and uh, but yeah, we're an hour and a half from town.
Speaker 3:in the winter you can't get here, uh, other than snowmobile, um, or we have a side-by-side with tracks. And so that's like a two-hour commute, and so we were driving back and forth while I was still running my engineering department, building this business on the side and commuting four days a week, driving back and forth hour and a half to two hours one way, and, yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say, man, if you ever feel like you don't want to do an ria, you decide you're on to the next thing. You might be a good candidate for a reality tv show, like in the middle of nowhere with ryan. Yeah, yeah, that's cool, man. No, that's, that's really unique and it's it takes a, it takes a certain kind of person to to live out and and be self-sufficient and do all that. That's really cool that you're that guy man. Um, so take us through. Like you start your ria, you get up and running. I know sometimes with like filing and all that stuff, that can be kind of a process but like what's your strategy going into it and and what do you? What's kind of the first few weeks or few months look like?
Speaker 3:yeah, so so I launched the business on the side while I was still working, and part of it was so. I had this master plan and the plan was I wanted to have my own business for income, potential, flexibility, potential, different things. But I knew that we need to get the property first, and so I launched the business before we'd really started looking for a property. And then, once that it became clear and that that was like our top priority, well, I couldn't leave my job before we got that, because that was going to make, you know, lending and much more difficult and you know if I have the income or not. So we had to get the property first, and so I was building the business on the side and then so it was. It was tough, you know, I mean, and and I worked pretty much every night, every weekend, like I remember I don't know how far along it was, maybe eight months along, or maybe a year or something and I was talking to someone. I was like I think I just took like the first day off since I launched, you know, like since I decided to go down this path, where I didn't do a single thing related to my business that day, and and that was fine. I mean, my wife and I we don't have kids yet. That comes next on the plan, and so you know it was a grind to do all that and I had career changers so I didn't really know what I was doing.
Speaker 3:I talked to a lot of other advisors, I did a lot of kind of networking. Xy was a big part of that. I went to the XY conference that first year, before I was even fully registered, yeah, and just tried to learn as much as I could about what people were doing and how it worked. And I had a few clients come on, initially friends and family, I think kind of typical and then just nothing. And so I hired this marketing firm and they were helping me do LinkedIn ads and automated outreach and some stuff like that, and I was talking to people but nobody would really come on. And so in that first year I had like five, maybe five initial clients it was like friend and family. A couple of them, you know, stayed for ongoing and then I think I brought on two, two clients and only one of them actually paid me in that full first year. So it was very slow.
Speaker 3:And then, and then then the next year. So I'm still working full time, still building this. On the side, I brought on a few more, um, maybe like four or something like that kind of throughout the year, but it really wasn't going anywhere. And but now we've got the property and now I'm commuting a lot, I don't have any any time, I don't have any energy, and it's like this is I gotta, I gotta get out of this.
Speaker 3:And so I go, and I talked to my employer and I'm like hey, you know, I want to work more remote, um, and that wasn't an option. So I'm like well, what if I'm just not the manager anymore? What if I just quit, basically. And so we started to make this plan to phase me out. Well then somebody this other guy gets hired who's now in charge of me and he like expedites the whole thing. So I'm seeing the writing on the wall where now I don't have the income to support us. Like my wife works, but it's not enough to cover the property and the side by side and all these things we had to do.
Speaker 3:Right and so I'm like freaking out and I'm very stressed about this whole thing, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to make this work. And so, uh, the plan was, and so I actually got them to well, they kind of changed their mind. But, um, I got a three month period where there was like the phase out period starting in August of 24. And so after that then they're like hey, you can just work from home, like fully remote. And I was like that was never an option before and I never even asked for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah so basically what they did was they just sent me home and then they continue to pay me, but I wasn't really working anymore. So I got two months fully paid for September and October to build my business and work on that, but I was still getting paid from my employer. It's a little blessing in disguise.
Speaker 1:What's that? A little blessing in disguise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like honestly it was. I mean, I think they could tell I was very nervous about all of it and so, but that actually worked out phenomenal. And so then around that same time I hired a coach, so I started working with Lucian Govender and that was huge and and I just got to work about like I gotta, I gotta replace my income. And so actually one of the things that coach had me do is I wrote a letter to my wife that was like hey, I'm sorry, I've failed. And I did it eight months in the future, which ended up being May 1 of 2025. And basically that was when I was going to run out of money and going to have to go back and get a job or do something different. And and so by the end of 2024, I was starting to like build some momentum and I was starting to bring on some more clients. And then come January of 25, it just like took off, and so I made more in January of 2025 than I made in all of 2024 and all of 2023.
Speaker 2:That's amazing Good for you. So I mean, what's the secret sauce? That's amazing, awesome, good for you. So I mean, what's the secret sauce? You know, when you had those eight weeks, you know, and you had however many hours in the day, how did you allocate your time? You know what was the best ROI? What did you find?
Speaker 3:worked Throughout this whole period. I've actually had a fair number of leads and prospects, and so I've tracked it all. I have a spreadsheet with all of it. I think I'm up to like 240 or 250, 229 so far from the very beginning of people that I classified as interested in meeting with me, and so not all those people I actually met with. But and so a lot of that's been driven through social media and some of that was some ads and then some of it's been just a lot of outreach and so what, what I really changed was I reduced my fees a little bit and I got less focused on reoccurring revenue, and I think I was really obsessed with I want to have reoccurring revenue.
Speaker 3:I like the asset management model. It's very sticky, it grows kind of organically and and then if I can't do that, then I wanted like a subscription, you know which a lot of XY people do, and Montana doesn't really allow that. So I had to do like this weird workaround to get around that. But I was trying to push people into these options that didn't really make sense for them, because that's how I wanted my business to be and just the people that I was getting in front of and talking to just weren't a good fit for that, and so my target was architects and engineers as well as like kind of mid career professionals, and so I was talking to people in similar situations as me that I had experience with and felt like I could help. So I'm not really talking to retirees or people at that point in time and so they don't have a lot of assets to manage. They don't necessarily need like ongoing help A lot of times they just want to get things figured out.
Speaker 3:And so I had to make a shift, and it was from actually a XY mastermind group this one lady was talking about it and I realized I can just do more project stuff, and so I and I had an option for that, but it was kind of expensive. So I reduced my fees and I gave an option for people to do just kind of this project work, and then on top of that, the coach helped me develop like a specific process and kind of unique thing for me and my firm and I was kind of doing that, but it wasn't really developed and I didn't present it very well. So I reduced my fees. I got really clear about how I work and what I do. And then I also did some sales training stuff and got better at how to present and ultimately, how to convert, and then I just worked a lot, and so I think the combination of those things then really started to pick up. And so I think in January I brought on like eight new clients in January or something and been averaging for the last eight months. I've been averaging for a month Nice dude, you know.
Speaker 3:And so, and then then the other thing that I did too is I also got a little more focused on working with business owners architecture and engineering business owners and because of my background basically kind of building my own little firm and always want to be a business consultant it seemed like an easy thing to help them out with.
Speaker 3:And what I realized was these firm owners don't really have any money and they don't really worry about that because they're so focused on building their business, and if their business was doing better, they would have more money to invest and do other things. And so that's what everyone wanted. They want to know how can I make more money. So I started offering business consulting services as well, and so that was the other piece of it, and so I don't know what the breakdown is now, but you know, maybe 30 to 30 plus percent of my clients or revenue is coming from like these business planning services and and then I offer both, and so now I have a way that you know people that don't necessarily have a ton of income or ton of assets can work with me and pay at relatively high rates because they see the value and they see the potential of that.
Speaker 3:So kind of a combination of all these things stacking on themselves has led to the results that I've been seeing.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, man, and that's the cool thing is number one. You said a couple things there, like one, you got a coach, which I would imagine was huge, right. And then the other thing is like you just have to be tenacious, right. Like there's there's sometimes you do not know if it's going to work. I know and I can speak for Peter as well that there's a. There were a lot of times early on at BC where we were like I don't know how we're going to make this work, I don't know what we're going to do. I don't even know if people like believe in what we're doing or who we are believe in what we're doing or who we are. And we just like kept trying, right. And so what would you say to the financial planner that's out there that's trying to make it work it doesn't feel like they're getting a lot of traction and like how do they have that breakthrough moment? Or like what? What do they need to keep in their mind to keep putting one foot in front of the other?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. And I mean I've always been a fairly confident person, like I've always had a lot of belief in myself. And what's interesting is when I first started work with that coach, he was like you have this scarcity mindset and I was like really, and he's like, yeah, it's very obvious, and I was so worried about it not working or failing or different things and, and so that's where that letter that I wrote was really powerful. Like when he described it, I kind of like broke down, you know, crying, just thinking about the thought of even writing that letter and and so that was a way for me to kind of face those fears. And from that point forward it was like like this has happened and I and I just, and I'm not. It was like like this is happening and I and I just and I'm not. Historically I'm not like a huge like motivation guy, like I don't necessarily do things to get motivated, like I'm just pretty motivated in general. Yeah, but I started, you know, exercising in the morning and then I would go on YouTube and find some motivational video thing and just like play that while I was working out, and like every day I was just amping myself up and that was kind of what he had encouraged me to do and just filled myself with positive thinking abundance.
Speaker 3:I started you know journaling a little bit, just real basically, and I just didn't let any negative thoughts basically get to me. And so I'm accustomed to you know kind of going through the nose and dealing with you know people saying no and stuff like that. That doesn't really bother me, but I just had struggled with no one ever said yes and so it didn't look like it was going to happen and so I just got super focused. It was like I got to get to 15,000 a month. I just got to get to 15,000 a month and I got to do that as fast as possible. And then and I just filled myself with that abundance and thought about that and didn't really worry about anything negative, and then I actually didn't hit 15,000 a month, I hit 30, the first time that I ever took money out of the business. I'd never taken any money out of the business until January 25. And I did over 30, I did basically 31,000 a month in revenue. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's well deserved man.
Speaker 1:That's awesome Getting me fired up over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drop your coach's. Information. Coaches, uh, information in the podcast, yeah, my word. Well, that's awesome dude. So I mean you're an engineer by, like, you know, schooling and training, right, so you don't want to know what time it is, you want to know how the clock works. Um, so, like what are maybe some other like just changes from being a career changer? You're like, hey, I really had to change my mindset here. Or like maybe this is something that you know you know's cliche, but you really need to be positive about it. Like what are some of those items?
Speaker 3:You know, what's interesting is I feel like engineering actually provides like a pretty good foundation for doing, you know, financial planning and these things. And again, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I've just because I've talked to potential clients about it of like, hey, this is a actually a positive because I don't have some of the baggage, potentially, or the entrenched thinking that a lot of times comes from being in the industry for a long time of you were trained a certain way, you were taught to do things a certain way, so everyone kind of does the same thing. And that was what I was frustrated with. Actually, of talking to other financial advisors, was they all kind of said the same stuff? I was like I don't really agree with that. I want to do this different. I think there's a better way, and so my engineering brain is just very logical, very systematic.
Speaker 3:And that's how I outline kind of my unique offer, that's how I present things to clients and couple that with the social media aspect. Well, that's who I attract and so like I get comments on this fairly often, like just yesterday I was talking to someone and she's not even an engineer or an architect, but she was like this is laid out so well, it's so clear, and that's what I'm good at is taking these complex ideas and concepts, distilling them down, simplifying it, making it visual and presenting it in a way that somebody can understand. And I think a lot of the challenge in the financial industry is that it is pretty complicated. I mean, sure you can do things simply, but there's this massive spectrum between, yeah, buy an index fund and don't look at it again, versus doing complex derivatives and other stuff. You know what I mean. So like to be able to meet people where they're at and explain things in a way that they understand that's.
Speaker 3:I learned a lot of those skills doing the engineering and so I don't know that there was. I'm trying to think if there was a mindset shift I had to make from that. I feel like I've just really leaned into the skills and traits that I had developed there and identified those as strengths, and then I've worked to attract the type of people that also like that or think that way, and so I talked to a lot of engineers that have a scarcity mindset, that struggle to spend. You know, and that was a challenge for me is I'm a saver, not a spender, and so, again, that's what social media has allowed me to do is share a lot of those things and connect and relate to those types of people yeah, that's huge man.
Speaker 1:I mean, uh, there's so many, you know, there's so many things that go into creating a business and becoming confident and understanding what you're actually doing For someone that's out there not just trying to break through, but maybe someone that's thinking about starting a financial planning firm. That's in another field, right, so maybe they're an engineer or they're just like, have always been passionate about this. What would you say to them?
Speaker 3:I think it's, you know, pursue that interest. You know, that's what. That's what that other advisor you know, engineer turned advisor told me was like just keep going with it. And I mean, part of the reason why I was attracted to the space is it's. It's very important, it's so powerful, it has a huge impact on on your life and everything, and so some people people you know don't like money or talking about it or are scared of it or different things, but the reality is like it's just a tool and it gives you options, it gives you that flexibility, and so I think, if you have an interest in it, I mean I've been very impressed with the industry, um, and I think partially because I came up kind of through x, y and this side of it and how accommodating everyone was to talk to me and share information, and I was pretty shocked at how many resources there are out there for advisors, um, you know, I mean you guys are a good example of that too in this podcast, and so like there's tons of resources and people willing to help.
Speaker 3:What's interesting is I met a different advisor locally who's an RIA, but not really kind of on the side of it, and he talked about how competitive it is and how he used to have other local advisors coming into his office telling him to like step off when he was talking to a prospective client or something. And that was like so hard for me to comprehend, because everyone that I've really met in the space has been super friendly and willing to help and sharing information or insights.
Speaker 3:So I guess what I would say is like there's so much information and good people out there to help, go find them, go talk to them, and I talked to pretty much every advisor I could, just to learn what they were doing, how it was working, how could I accelerate my growth and kind of learn from their lessons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a big difference between the broker-dealer community and the fee-only community. I always told Peter we started at Northwestern. I was always like if some of those people saw what was going on in the XYPN group message where someone's like this client's not the right fit for me, who else wants them? I'm like it would be like sharks in a swimming pool. So it's really cool to see that vibe man. But I think you have so many good points, so many great things to say and such a unique story and a cool life that you live too, especially being out there and the train caboose and the side by sides, I mean, and then you're doing. What are you using for Wi-Fi? Maybe I should be asking is it Starlink? What are you using?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what's actually funny is my power's out and I'm running on a generator right now.
Speaker 1:yeah, there we go, that's amazing first generator fueled podcast right now yeah, this is the third one.
Speaker 3:So I've done I don't know a handful of podcasts, and I think this is the third time where my power's been out in the middle of trying to record a podcast but the only time I had a generator. The other times I was just sitting in the dark and I was running off a hot spot on my phone that's crazy.
Speaker 1:So you've got the, so you have a generator that runs your whole house um, not the whole house, so I just.
Speaker 3:I just have the internet plugged in and, like my little office area, that's pretty much it wood burning stove, I'm assuming or something, when it's when it's winter time yeah, yeah, I mean it's, it's. It's okay now.
Speaker 1:But too bad. Well, that's awesome, man. Well, I think everybody should follow along with what you're doing. You have such a cool story. Um, so, for people that want to follow along with your journey, what you're doing, and and, uh, be inspired by you, man, where can they follow along?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm, I'm super active on LinkedIn posts on there every day. I'm also active on Facebook and Instagram, so feel free to follow me and you know I, like I said before, I mean a lot of people took the time to talk to me and teach and share and mentor and things, and so you know I'm happy to talk to people as well. So if people are interested in learning more or have some questions, you know feel free to reach out. You can is ryan at obpfinancialcom and check out my website.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I love it. Ryan, Thank you so much for your time and sharing your story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no problem, Thanks for having me. Thanks man.