Finding Abundance: Eric Brotman on Financial Advising, Podcasting, and Building a Legacy

Virginia Elder [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Reaching Abundance. I’m Virginia Elder, your host. This is the podcast where you get weekly cliff notes on developing mental fortitude and podcast marketing strategies episode description. Let’s get into the episode. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to a financial advisor who’s published books, been a regular on local TV, has hosted his own podcast since 2018, and quite frankly, seems to be doing all the creative content publishing type things all the time. He’s on the show today to spill the beans and tell us how he does it, what it’s like getting OBAs approved, that’s outside business activities for anyone who’s not an advisor who’s listening, the way he works with his compliance office, and much more. I’m so excited to have Eric Brotman on the show today with us at Reaching Abundance. Eric, thank you for being here today.

Eric Brotman [00:01:18]:
This is my pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks, and I’m I’m ready to go. I know we’re gonna have some fun today.

Virginia Elder [00:01:23]:
Absolutely. So first off, share just a little bit about your books, your profession. We are gonna get into some exciting discussion around separating your outside business activities from your advisory practice, but just give us a little runway there. What are we looking at?

Eric Brotman [00:01:44]:
Well, I started in the financial business, thirty one years ago, which is horrifying because I don’t feel that old. And then in 02/2003, I started a firm and it was myself and one full time and one part time person. And we were trying to do some things a little differently and swim upstream like any good salmon would and trying to build something a little unique. Over the years, it’s taken on a life of its own. And some of the OBAs, and you mentioned that, have really become a very big deal for me personally, and it’s helped us professionally as a team. So you fast forward. We’re now 20 full time people, 10 CFPs. I have published three books.

Eric Brotman [00:02:22]:
We we I host a podcast, which I absolutely love. And I’m doing white papers and speaking gigs and doing I started a consulting practice, and we have a media company, and we’re doing all these various things. But it all started with being a sound financial adviser and growing a practice and growing it literally one client at a time and one employee at a time. And and so the the runway has been sort of a an uphill climb. It’s hard. It’s hard to start a firm. It was particularly hard in the days before the Internet, you know, or or right as the Internet was coming along and and the technology wasn’t great. But, being able to start the practice when I did, I learned some of the basic blocking and tackling.

Eric Brotman [00:03:03]:
I got all the education I could, which I think is important. And I became an authority at a young age. Mhmm. But being an authority to me is not enough to be great at what we do. And I know we’re gonna talk more about why influencing makes such a difference, not only to us as an as an industry and as a organization and to me as a professional, but also to the community.

Virginia Elder [00:03:24]:
Yeah. So stay on that for a minute. You mentioned before we hit record that every financial adviser is an authority the day that they pass their tests. So talk to me a little bit more about that and why it’s so important for y’all to step up and share your voice.

Eric Brotman [00:03:45]:
Well, you know, in general, we don’t learn personal finance at school. You know, when we’re kids, we don’t learn it from our parents. We might watch them. Often we learn bad habits. Sometimes we watch our parents fight about money or we watch them both be spenders or both be savers and never do anything. And there’s so much baggage around money. And the general public never gets real financial literacy or financial education anywhere, not formally or informally. It’s not in schools.

Eric Brotman [00:04:15]:
It’s not in businesses. It’s not in employment. It just doesn’t exist. So when you decide that this is what you’re gonna do for a living and you begin to get credentialed very quickly, you know, more than the vast majority of the public about lots of this. It doesn’t mean you have more experience. You don’t if you’re young, but you have more knowledge. And being able to convey that knowledge in a way that gets people motivated to act is then what’s important because you could be the smartest person in the room, but if you don’t have anyone to talk to, that’s not useful. So it begins with the knowledge base, but it has to grow into an ability to reach an audience and not only to reach them, but to motivate them to act in their own best interests.

Eric Brotman [00:04:55]:
And that is a skill that I think some of us are born with and some of us learn over time, but it’s an important skill for a financial advisor.

Virginia Elder [00:05:02]:
So walk me through the thought process of someone, you know, maybe they’ve established their own practice, things are going well, they’re building a team. They’re looking around recognizing, like, ah, like, should I get on YouTube? Should I do a podcast? Should I write a book? Like, what’s the best way to reach people? All these things are going through their head, and then that’s coupled with the fact of, like, okay. Like, what? I’m a financial adviser, and then now I wanna go be an influencer? I mean, come on. Like, how do we navigate that baggage?

Eric Brotman [00:05:36]:
Well, let’s start with with not quitting our day jobs. You know, I am not a podcaster. I am not an author. I am not an influencer. I’m a financial adviser. I’m a financial advisor who happens to have a podcast and write books and do public speaking, but I am not changing my day job. So for advisors who are thinking about adding this into the repertoire of business development and marketing and media relations and all these things, I think the first step is to realize that you’re not trying to become a professional at this. You don’t have to be a professional at this.

Eric Brotman [00:06:09]:
You know, I set up a small studio in our office, which I’m sitting in, put together a backdrop, got all the equipment, and it was unbelievably inexpensive and easy. This is not a major undertaking. This is a really easy thing to do in today’s world. And so deciding that you want to do it is sort of step one and then learning how to do it and finding the resources and the professionals to help you. Because like anything else, you know, we’re not naturally necessarily going to know how to do this. Our kids might. You know, I think our teenage kids could do this tomorrow. They’ve already figured it out.

Eric Brotman [00:06:40]:
But for those of us who are of a certain generation, it didn’t come as naturally to us. And so you have to sort of learn some of the skill set and learn how this works. But I don’t think it’s important necessarily to decide immediately. I’m gonna be on YouTube or I’m gonna use Instagram or I’m gonna use these other platforms. Be platform agnostic. Develop a message first that you think will resonate with people that you wanna share. And then look at the 10 different ways that you could do it and pick the one that brings you some joy. Which one do you have fun with? Because if this is a grind and if this is miserable like anything else, you won’t wanna do it.

Eric Brotman [00:07:14]:
If you’re having fun with it, people will know. You can’t fake that.

Virginia Elder [00:07:18]:
I like that. So you mentioned of a certain generation. I know several advisers who are a little up there in age, and they also have this mind trash around, for lack of a better word, around like, I’m too old to start a channel or, you know, start sharing content. Like, all these young people are way better at it, way cuter, way younger, all these things. Right? Why would I do that knowing also that that mindset is holding them back? Because a lot of young people would like to go to someone who’s a little bit older and more experienced with their money problems. So walk us through this of a certain generation situation.

Eric Brotman [00:08:07]:
Well, first of all, I I reject the fact that just because someone’s younger that they’re cuter. Let’s go with that. Immediately. I am not willing to accept that as fact. The rest of it, maybe. I think a lot of clients do wanna work with advisors with whom they really have something in common. They understand each other. And I actually think it’s usually better for clients to have an advisor younger than them.

Virginia Elder [00:08:28]:
Interesting.

Eric Brotman [00:08:28]:
And I say that as somebody in my fifties who’s been doing this a long time. And so what I realized was it was important to surround myself and build a team around the next generation of advisors. So we have 10 CFPs in our office. Half of them are 30. Wow. So we are bucking the trend of advisors getting older. Now I might be able to do a really great job on on a podcast or an interview or whatever because of some of the experience that I have and because I love doing it. But ultimately, if somebody wants to join our practice, they’re going to wind up working with one of our advisory teams that’s already in place.

Eric Brotman [00:09:01]:
They’re not gonna be working with me. They’re gonna be working with one of our teams. They want their adviser to be younger than them so their adviser’s there when they need the most. In the same way, none of us wanna use our parents’ doctor. Yeah. We don’t wanna use our parents’ lawyer. We don’t wanna use our parents’ financial advisor. And it’s okay.

Eric Brotman [00:09:19]:
And I think one of the keys to building a financial advisory business is having multi generational clients. I think that’s incredibly important. That’s how wealth moves between generations. It’s also then important to have multi generational advisors. So if you’re a do it yourselfer and you’re a single man or woman shop and you’re 57 years old and you’re thinking I’m too old to learn this, first of all, you’re not. You can start this at any age and it’s a ton of fun. But secondly, as you look at ways to grow and scale the practice, if you haven’t already moved down the path of trying to build an ensemble or trying to groom one or two or 10 younger advisers to be part of your team, you know, as we get older, we we sort of move away from the knowledge curve and we move toward the wisdom curve. There’s an incredible book written by a PhD.

Eric Brotman [00:10:07]:
It’s called from strength to strength. And it talks about that shift from intelligence to wisdom. I rely on the young people in our office to have the intelligence and the knowledge. They’ve done their exams more recently. I took my CFP exam in 1998. There is nothing relevant today to what I studied then. Now, yes, there’s continuing education and other opportunities, but we need the young people in our office to technically sound, to be able to rattle off the rules and regs, but they haven’t seen it all. And so having somebody older who’s been through it.

Eric Brotman [00:10:38]:
It doesn’t mean you’ve been through everything your clients have been through, but you’ve been through some of it, certainly, if not your own family, with other families. You know, you’ve been through losing a loved one. You’ve been through marriages and divorces and kids and, and education and buying and selling houses or starting businesses or retiring or all the various big events in life. I’ve helped hundreds of families through that. Our young people haven’t, but they are technically incredibly sound. You know, I would encourage anybody in their fifties who doesn’t have a succession plan to start really thinking about the future of their business isn’t them. They’re a part of it. You know, I’m not going anywhere.

Eric Brotman [00:11:20]:
They’re gonna have to kick me out of here kicking and screaming. I’m having too much fun. But it’s okay for me not to own the whole firm. It’s okay for me to have partners. It’s okay for me to have young people who are going to wanna do things differently than I am. But as long as we’re using the same basic playbook and as long as we are making decisions by committee, you can build an incredible team. And I don’t think you’re ever too old to start doing that. But I do think if you’re a one person shop and you’re getting into your mid fifties to early sixties or beyond, unless you plan to die at your desk and leave nothing behind for airs, I think it’s really important to build a succession plan to have a business that will outlive you.

Eric Brotman [00:12:00]:
If I kiss the bus tomorrow, Virginia, this place runs. They will miss my charming personality, but they will the place will run.

Virginia Elder [00:12:08]:
Absolutely.

Eric Brotman [00:12:09]:
And that I’m very, very proud of that. I mean, ultimately, building a practice is is exciting, but building a legacy is is, excitinger. Can I use that? That’s not a word, but I’m going with it. It it’s a whole another level of, I think, ways to measure success is having something that you’ve created that’s going to outlive you.

Virginia Elder [00:12:29]:
And in many ways, some of the content or all of the content that you produce, whatever channel it’s on, especially your books and things like that, those will outlive you. Yeah. So share with me a little bit about the decision and the process of establishing an outside business activity, getting things approved. What is that process like?

Eric Brotman [00:12:54]:
Well, some of it comes down to the type of structure that you have. Are you your own registered investment advisory? Are you part of an independent broker dealer? Are you an employee of a regional firm or of a national firm? You know, the big national firms where you’re an employee have completely different set of rules and regulations, partly because they’re so big that they have to regulate themselves based on the lowest common denominator. But if you’re in an independent broker dealer with 500 or a thousand or 1,500 reps, or what have you, you’re gonna wanna talk to not only the compliance department, but also the marketing people and and find out what they already allow. And then you’re going to have to consider whether you want to be the one to help them stretch those boundaries. Yeah. I’ve been in this business long enough to remember when compliance said we would never have a website. We will never have email. It can’t be monitored.

Eric Brotman [00:13:43]:
You will never use email. It’s not allowed. So I know it’s not true. I know we can do these things. Some of the organizations will say we want a script and they have a hard time understanding that none of this is scripted. I don’t know what you’re going to ask me next. I’m actually quite alarmed at it. But whatever it’s going to be, there is no script.

Eric Brotman [00:14:03]:
But we can submit all of these various things before we push out our own content. We submit them through compliance. I’ve never knock on wood. I’ve never had one show where they’ve said you can’t do that.

Virginia Elder [00:14:15]:
Right.

Eric Brotman [00:14:15]:
And some of it’s because I know where the third rails are. Mhmm. You have to know what not to say. I mean, if I was gonna start slinging individual securities on your show, they would say, time out. You can’t do that. That’s advice and it’s all kinds of problems. Well, but if we’re talking about ways to build a business or ways to help your family or ways to talk to your kids about philanthropy, that’s not gonna raise those red flags. So you need to make sure that the content itself is within the compliant realm to begin with.

Eric Brotman [00:14:44]:
And assuming it is certain independent broker dealers I know have various rules. Some are more restrictive than others. I would say ours has been incredible to work with. I mean, they really we’ve pushed them. There’s no firm in our in our organization who submits more content than we do. We actually, I believe, are number one in that department. So we’re a nuisance, But we’re a nuisance in all the right ways because it’s quality content. They don’t have to tell us thou shalt not.

Eric Brotman [00:15:08]:
We’re not getting a lot of that. We’re getting a yes. Here’s how you do it, not can you.

Virginia Elder [00:15:13]:
I agree with what you said. We’ve been working with advisory content for about five years, and I’ve never had something that we’ve submitted to compliance for our client or with our clients that’s just like, nope. Can’t air that episode. Take it down. Like, nope. Nope. Nope. We’ve never had that happen.

Virginia Elder [00:15:33]:
I’ve had remove this section or paragraph, remove this sentence. And even when I saw that, I was like, you know, okay. Fine. We’re being real strict. That’s okay. And that’s why you have editing available. There’s all kinds of amazing software. That’s why you have people like my team.

Virginia Elder [00:15:51]:
You know? I would say bring in some guidance so that when you get feedback like that, you could take care of it. And it’s easy peasy, and it’s not an actual bump in the road. Right?

Eric Brotman [00:16:03]:
It’s not.

Virginia Elder [00:16:04]:
And I think that holds so many people back. So did you have any mind drama, or what other setbacks or struggles have you felt with, like, well, I wanna do this thing, but they’re saying this, or I think they’re gonna say no.

Eric Brotman [00:16:21]:
Before we go there, you you also just mentioned something about having a team of people. When I say don’t quit your day job, do not do this yourself. Mhmm. We are financial advisers. We’re not podcasters. Don’t sit and edit and do I was at, the FinCon conference once, and I watched someone record and start editing their own show in the closet, so it was quiet. They literally took a microphone into the closet in their room. It was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.

Eric Brotman [00:16:49]:
That’s not the way I wanna do this. I want this to be a professional endeavor. And while they got content out and God love them, if you can afford to do this kind of work, hire good people and let them make you look good because frankly, that’s what happened. So you asked about what bumps in the road there were. Frankly, there haven’t been many. I would say that the mistakes that have been made were almost exclusively mine. I mean, I I screwed up a lot of things in publishing. I screwed up in how how to write things and how to design things and the things that I could have done better always revolved around hiring good people.

Virginia Elder [00:17:24]:
Interesting.

Eric Brotman [00:17:25]:
So, you know, I was hired at one point to write a book, and I wrote it. And it was an experience. I learned how to do it, but it was not a good contract. So I learned about the contract. Then I self published a book, which was great, except I did my own design and the design was awful. And so now I have a team of people who when we’re ready to do this, they know how to do it. Mhmm. I’m not a book publisher.

Eric Brotman [00:17:45]:
I wrote it. I’m a writer. I was an English major in school. I’m finally using that major. I don’t have to be a designer. Yeah. I’m not a website designer. I’m not a a podcast producer.

Eric Brotman [00:17:56]:
I’m none of those things. I’m a financial advisor, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a consultant. I wear lots of hats, but one of them is not podcast producer. So I would say that the the bumps that I ran into the road were mostly self imposed. They were things that I tried to do myself and learned the hard way not to. So if I can get any of your listeners to learn the easy way, it’s find good people and let them do what they do better than anyone and get out of their way and give them good content to work with. I mean, ultimately you can only sell a show. You can only create buzz around a show if it’s good.

Eric Brotman [00:18:30]:
If it’s awful, that’s a whole nother story, but you can get advice on that too. On what kinds of topics should you do? What kinds of audience do you wanna reach? How do you how do you do this? I don’t have the first clue how any of that is done and it’s okay.

Virginia Elder [00:18:42]:
Yeah. Thank you. I really love that because the reason I started doing this is to allow people the time and energy and mental space not to sit here and have to learn new software and spend hours behind the screen, but to free them up so they have time for their clients. And then they also have content that’s going live kind of automatically in the background because we’re doing it for them. So Well,

Eric Brotman [00:19:09]:
it’s not only going live automatically. It’s evergreen. Yeah. I did a lot of traditional television. I was on Sunday morning news in the Baltimore market on NBC. It was a big deal. I was the Sunday morning finance guy, and I’d go in for a two or three minute segment on Sundays. Not every Sunday, but frequently over many years.

Eric Brotman [00:19:27]:
Mhmm. And it never created business for our firm. I would run into people at the bagel shop, and they’d say you’re the guy from TV, but it never created business. And partly, it’s because those clips were largely gone. If you people don’t watch the Sunday morning news because they want personal finance. They watch it or listen to a personal finance podcast because they want personal finance. They’re interested in what you have to say, and it’s forever. It’s evergreen.

Eric Brotman [00:19:52]:
So somebody can share that show six months later, not just say, oh, yeah. I saw this person on TV. Yeah. So traditional radio was not successful for us. Traditional TV was a ton of fun, and I love live TV. It’s better than any roller coaster I’ve ever been on. However, it didn’t create business.

Virginia Elder [00:20:08]:
Interesting.

Eric Brotman [00:20:09]:
And podcasting has for sure.

Virginia Elder [00:20:11]:
And I would say, sure. Like, radio, TV. I mean, it’s great experience. Makes you think on your feet. You have to be Yeah. Camera ready. No stutters, stammers, or ahs, and and you just gotta go. So it’s great training, but, yes, I agree with you.

Virginia Elder [00:20:29]:
There’s nowhere where I can go look at the archives of, like, your past news spots unless you happen to get those recordings.

Eric Brotman [00:20:36]:
Well, you have to buy the recordings, first of all.

Virginia Elder [00:20:39]:
Mhmm.

Eric Brotman [00:20:39]:
And then they’re three minute spots. They’re little segments, and people aren’t gonna that’s not the I know kids are watching, you know, YouTube videos that are ninety seconds all the time, but that’s not where you go for financial advice. That’s where you go to watch cats do silly things. Yeah. I I think there’s a there’s a better way to promote somebody who wants to learn about personal finance is going to seek out the knowledge centers for that. And there are lots of them in the podcast first. In addition to considering hosting your own show and having your own content, don’t be afraid to guest on other people’s shows.

Virginia Elder [00:21:10]:
Oh, yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:21:11]:
Because quite frankly, that’s how you reach other audiences that aren’t your own. And you also learn a lot from other hosts and you can do show swaps and they can be on your show and you can be on their show. And that helps with guesting services and all of those things. I’ve had financial advisers on my show, and people thought, well, why would you do that? They’re a competitor. And to me, they’re not a competitor. Someone’s gonna choose us because they like what we do, and they are confident and comfortable with us. The same thing’s true of a different firm. People are gonna choose that firm because they like and trust and are comfortable with that messaging.

Eric Brotman [00:21:42]:
Yeah. There’s so much and to use your word, there’s so much abundance. There’s a huge abundance of opportunity in our business and an incredible shortage of financial advisors in this country. And in fact, a ridiculous shortage of good financial advisors in this country. So if you’re one of them, I don’t consider you a threat. I consider you part of the tide that’s rising our industry. So I’m perfectly happy to work with other financial advisers and, and and see if we can’t get that message out to more people. We all benefit from it.

Virginia Elder [00:22:12]:
I love that you brought this up because I think that is something that holds other advisers, planners, financial coaches back in their own space and keeps them from producing content because they’re thinking, like, well, the podcast space is so competitive or saturated. I’ve even heard that, which I have all kinds of facts and stats to buck that trend. But

Eric Brotman [00:22:36]:
Yeah.

Virginia Elder [00:22:36]:
Share a little about, like, okay. Sure. You can search financial planning or financial advice, something like that on a podcast app, and you’ll see a lot of shows pop up. But I’m always through launch and coaching processes talking about, okay, but what makes you different, and why is your message different, and where what is your niche? And there’s all these conversations that separate you from the quote, unquote competition, but then I love your mindset around these people are not competition.

Eric Brotman [00:23:05]:
Yeah.

Virginia Elder [00:23:06]:
All of us can have a full book of clients and be so happy and reach everyone, and there’s just so much abundance. So share a little bit more about that mindset and almost, like, how you got there. Did you ever feel like there was some competition in this space, or have you like, what have you done to create that mindset?

Eric Brotman [00:23:27]:
Early in my career, I certainly did. And partly because I came in through into this industry in an area where you were competing with the guy or gal in the next office. Mhmm. It was extremely competitive environment, and you were trying to be the top this or that. And it was actually very unhealthy because you didn’t have teammates. You had sort of rivals down the hall. And so when when I built BFG, I built it to be a firm that was a true ensemble and a true team. None of our CFPs have their own book of business.

Eric Brotman [00:23:55]:
We all work together with, with company clients. We all share in that opportunity. We all share in a lot of the upside of the opportunity. And so I’ve built a different mousetrap so that I’m not competing with the person next to me. In fact, if anything, I’m rooting for them. Yeah. Which is a very different a very different mindset. I would much rather have a high five in the hallway than wanna deck somebody because they had a good day.

Eric Brotman [00:24:17]:
Like, like, I don’t understand. That’s just to me that that doesn’t make sense. I’ve also when you start looking for content to talk about for a show, you only have so many good ideas. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got, you know, half a dozen at any given point, but not a hundred. Yeah. There’s certain things that you wanna talk about that you can talk about that are impactful and that you’re passionate about, but there’s only so many. And so rather than saying the same thing over and over again, you need to have guests that have different perspectives and can share different things. Mhmm.

Eric Brotman [00:24:45]:
I would also say you wanna avoid knowledge based things. People aren’t going on there necessarily to learn. They wanna hear stories. They wanna get motivated. So there are 400,000,000 people in this country, and they all have a different story. You could ask any one of them to share their story, their any of that. You’ll get interesting content that will be completely unique. It’s not hard to find.

Eric Brotman [00:25:15]:
Ask people to share their stories, and they’re all different.

Virginia Elder [00:25:18]:
Yeah. Okay. So speaking of stories, share the story of you getting your podcast started and some of the mistakes or, like, challenges that you felt a lot. You mentioned it earlier. Like, you’ve made all the mistakes. You have all the experience to share

Eric Brotman [00:25:35]:
with you. No. I I haven’t made I haven’t made all the mistakes. I’m still making new ones routinely.

Virginia Elder [00:25:40]:
Okay.

Eric Brotman [00:25:41]:
I think anybody who says that they’ve never made a mistake and that they’re perfect, you should probably run because that that just simply falls.

Virginia Elder [00:25:48]:
I would agree.

Eric Brotman [00:25:49]:
Most of the mistakes that I made were in the publishing space Okay. Because I never tried to podcast alone. I knew better by the time I was ready to do that not to do it alone. I also guested on probably 50 shows before I ever tried to to host one.

Virginia Elder [00:26:05]:
Oh, nice.

Eric Brotman [00:26:05]:
And I don’t know that you have to do it that way. But when I showed up at my first FinCon, it was 2017. I didn’t know what a podcast was. I just knew that money and media sounded like a good thing. And so I went and, you know, Michael Kitsa says, Eric, you gotta go. And so I I listened to him because I always listen to Michael. And when he said to do that, I I showed up and I didn’t know what it was. Two years later, you fast forward.

Eric Brotman [00:26:27]:
I’ve been on dozens of shows. I’ve launched my own show, and I’m now speaking at that conference in 2019

Virginia Elder [00:26:33]:
Mhmm.

Eric Brotman [00:26:34]:
Which is Twilight Zone stuff because I was walking around like a deer in the headlights at the first expo hall. Like, I don’t know what these people are talking about. I don’t know any of these folks. And two years later, I was speaking, and now I consider this like a like another family. I look forward to seeing everybody every year. Yeah. The talk that I did in 2019, I actually have on my consulting website on the home page. And if advisers wanna hear about the specific mistakes and the goofiness and the things that happened to me, I mean, it’s very funny, I think, and very personal.

Eric Brotman [00:27:04]:
And I encourage you to take a look at it. And I I know Virginia will put that in our show notes, but it’s brotmanconsultinggroup.com. In terms of the podcasting, the first year when I guest it, I really didn’t know what shows to go on. Yeah. And I got some help, which was great, but I I didn’t know the difference between a great show and a lousy one. And I thought to be on a great show, you needed a show with a big audience. Well, that’s not necessarily true. You don’t necessarily need a hundred thousand people to hear it.

Eric Brotman [00:27:30]:
You only need a hundred if 50 of them are interested in what you have to say. So you’re better off with quality over quantity.

Virginia Elder [00:27:37]:
Exactly.

Eric Brotman [00:27:37]:
And so I stopped chasing the biggest shows and started chasing the shows that I thought would resonate the most with the people who I know and work with and wanna work with. And that was actually a really interesting thing because it’s hard to get on the big shows Mhmm. Because they’re being pitched constantly by everyone. And yet a lot of times that’s less impactful. And I I had learned this early in my career doing trade shows. Like, I didn’t need to shake hands with 800 people and collect cards in a fishbowl. I wanted to shake hands with 10 people and actually know who I was gonna call on Monday. Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:28:09]:
And so I I think there was learning around that. And I I’ve told lots of people, if you decide to host your own show, it’s not even necessarily important to know how many listeners you have. I mean, unless you’re trying to monetize this and be a podcaster, you want the right listeners. You want people who are gonna be raving fans about your business and about your show and are gonna leave you a review and share it with friends. And so I think we have to stop allowing our numbers mind, which by the way, financial advisors, we all have metrics. Everything’s a scoreboard. Yeah. I think we have to put our numbers mind away, which is hard for us, and start looking at the quality and the the ROI from doing this kind of work is significant.

Eric Brotman [00:28:48]:
I mean, I I can trace profitability to these kinds of things, and I know they work. But what I couldn’t do was tell you how many people heard the show or the show that I was on or or the shows that we were pitching or any of those things. And I don’t think it matters. It’s available out there in the universe somewhere, but I don’t think that’s what we should concentrate on. It’s getting the right people to hear your message the right way at a time where it means something to them, not just a ton of earbuds who happen to be flipping channels and catch you.

Virginia Elder [00:29:15]:
So on that track, I do find myself having lots of conversations around, well, when will this show me ROI? How many episodes do I have to create before I get a client that says, oh, I found you on a podcast. Do you remember that moment, that client, that light bulb event for yourself?

Eric Brotman [00:29:39]:
I do. And subsequently, I’ve now sat down with people, said, oh, yeah. I listened to your show and I listened to some of this stuff or I read your book and I saw your content. And that’s, you know, from an ego standpoint, that’s very cool because that means that before somebody even took the time to get to know you, they were interested in what you had to say. And that’s yes. There’s some ego involved in that and you’ll feel good about it. But the first thing that we did that really moved the needle was learning to put content out that people wanted that was free and to promote that instead of promoting our business. Because what I found was people don’t listen to a personal finance podcast necessarily because they wanna check out whether they wanna hire you.

Eric Brotman [00:30:21]:
They’re interested in learning something or hearing a story or identifying with something. And so we created a lot of landing pages and wrote some white papers and and some other checklists and created free resources so that I could go on a show and talk about taxes or talk about planning after someone dies or talk about how to build influence in your practice or any of those things. And I could then give a simple website people would remember. Yeah. And they could go and they could download that information, read about it, and then learn more about me and our firm later. First, it’s give people something of value that they want that’s free. Mhmm. And that’s another thing financial advisers aren’t necessarily good at.

Eric Brotman [00:31:00]:
But if you can figure that out, if you, you know, I went on one show and I was promoting a white paper on the four places that most Americans can put money in accounts where used properly, it’s never taxed again, at least during your lifetime. And I have given talks on this to financial prosperity conferences and and other things. And a lot of times even advisors don’t get these four things right. And so I’m not gonna tell you what they are, but I will tell you that if you go to lowtaxbook.com, you can read about them. And so somebody who’s interested in paying less taxes will go to lowtaxbook.com. They might not remember our company name. They don’t even remember my name, but they’ll go to that. Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:31:39]:
And once that’s downloaded, they’re gonna say, oh, there’s something here. I should probably look into this further. And then they find you. So one show that I went on went viral and it was in my first year. I would say that the ROI was created for me within twelve months, but the ROI initially came much more from guesting on other people’s shows than from hosting my own show. But what’s interesting about that is it’s easier to get on someone’s show if you have a show.

Virginia Elder [00:32:08]:
Yes.

Eric Brotman [00:32:08]:
So you start talking chicken and egg here. It’s like guesting on other people’s shows creates new audiences and I think has better ROI. I think going on other people’s shows will make you more money than having your own show. However, if you have your own show, you can get on more people’s shows to then have the ROI. So it’s, it’s a couple steps. It’s like a little, there’s some, some Kevin Bacon happening here. There’s a couple degrees of separation, but done properly, the combination of free information that people want and having a show that makes you relatable so people can see how you interact and hear your voice and hear, the, the way you interact with a host, for example, and then say, yes, I’d like to have you on my show. That’s what creates revenue and further abundance for the practice.

Virginia Elder [00:32:50]:
Yeah. I have watched people create basically an entire monologue style show where they’re just teaching. Maybe there’s some stories in there. They change the name of clients to, like, anonymize the situation and things like that. It’s great content. It’s really helpful. But what’s happening is they are podcasting in a silo. Yeah.

Virginia Elder [00:33:12]:
There’s no interaction. There’s no opportunity to share content with someone else’s platform. They aren’t guesting. They aren’t having guests on. And so, sure, you’re producing content, but when I get a hold of that, I’m like, oh, I feel so bad that no one gave them this advice that, hey, reach out to some other people, get on their show, have a guest on your show once in a while at least. Did you get any advice on that in the beginning or it was just like, this is kinda how it worked and how the cards fell?

Eric Brotman [00:33:45]:
No. I I got a significant amount of advice because I hired a company for guesting services, and I hired a company to help me develop my own one sheet and my own sort of voice. Yeah. When I went to develop the show, I already had sort of people in place to do that. I already knew who I wanted to hire and was ready to go. What’s interesting and and a perfect example of that is the time we’re spending together today, Virginia, which I would do anyway because I enjoy your company. But my audience is going to get to know you. They don’t maybe know you from Adam, but they’re going to get to know you because I’m going to share this content.

Eric Brotman [00:34:18]:
Your audience is going to get to know me. I would maybe never have met them in any other way. And so both of us have taken the authority that we have doing what we do and the platform that we have to create influence and then doubled or exponentially grew the abundance that we could create by doing it together. And so Yeah. You’re right. Podcasting in a silo, you might as well talk to a wall. You know, but having the guested experience to me means doubling or tripling or quadrupling or at least amplifying the group of people you can reach who already have interest in, if not you, the guest. I mean, our guests are gonna share the show.

Eric Brotman [00:34:55]:
Right. So why would you not have a guest on and and have them so proud of the time that they spend and happy to do it that they’re like, let me show you what what I just did. Yeah. So why not?

Virginia Elder [00:35:08]:
I agree. And I would also venture to say that there’s a little bit of, quote, unquote, danger in only having a show where you’re just doing interviews, and we never hear from just the host as far as their expertise being highlighted. Do you have any advice on that?

Eric Brotman [00:35:26]:
Yes. It’s a good point. And I think the way we did our show initially, the first five seasons, in fact, we were using a guested show every other week. And in the off weeks, we did something we called office hours because I have a school theme. It’s about retiring being a graduation. So it’s a school theme. So we did office hours. The TA is in.

Eric Brotman [00:35:44]:
And it was Q and A, and I was doing basically a monologue on those off weeks so that it became more advising. What we found was, though, that those were far less listened to and far less impactful because there was no guests. So I try to make sure that not only am I engaging with a guest, but sometimes challenging them. Yeah. And sometimes having not a debate, but a a conversation about philosophy and where do we agree and maybe where don’t we and what can we accomplish through that because it does help you create your own voice. And certainly, you don’t wanna argue with your guest on the show, but this isn’t crossfire on CNN or whatever. But it is an opportunity to share some of your own personality and some of your own thoughts on something and maybe then get feedback on them even if the feedback is, boy, I wouldn’t do it that way. And let me tell you why.

Eric Brotman [00:36:31]:
It’s like, wow. Okay. Well, we agree to disagree.

Virginia Elder [00:36:33]:
Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:36:34]:
And that’s okay.

Virginia Elder [00:36:35]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. I like hearing the two sides of it, and you’re like, oh, okay. Well, now I get both sides. I get both trains of thoughts. I can choose what’s right for me. Those type of conversations are really helpful. You mentioned earlier about establishing your team.

Virginia Elder [00:36:53]:
Now when someone comes into your practice, it’s very likely that they’re not working with you because you are the voice and face of the brand. You’re focused more on content and promoting the rest of the team within your practice. Yeah. How does someone think about creating abundance in this way? Typically, it’s financial freedom, mental freedom, time freedom. Choice has a lot to do with it. How would you advise someone on creating abundance in their business?

Eric Brotman [00:37:26]:
First of all, I’d tell them to be patient because it doesn’t happen overnight. I had no work life balance for the first decade plus of my career. I lived at my office, and there was no shortcut. It was a lot of long days and a lot of hustle. So patience does matter. But I also think mentorship matters. And finding somebody who can grease those skids for you by making introductions and teaching you how to do it so you’re not trying to recreate the wheel as a 22 year old, for example Right. Is a really helpful thing.

Eric Brotman [00:37:55]:
As I’ve progressed in my career and in my adulthood and alleged wisdom, I created for myself something which I’ve now done with consulting clients, which I refer to as the joy revenue matrix or the joy full matrix. And it’s a way to figure out how I’m spending my time and what are the things I spend time on that create joy for me. Mhmm. I think joy is an important thing because there’s joy and there’s abundance. So joy and financial success or other types of rewards. If you can find things that you do that both make you happy and joyful and also make you more successful, that’s where you should be spending the lion’s share of your time. If there are things that bring you joy, but don’t necessarily make you money, you want to carve time out for that because joy is irreplaceable. So whether that’s volunteer work or whether that’s, you know, pro bono stuff or whether it’s community things or whatever it is, make time for that because that’s part of what refuels our tank.

Eric Brotman [00:38:51]:
But when you find things that make you money or make you more successful that you don’t like doing, outsource them. Find people who love doing the things you don’t love to do. Find people who are good at and enjoy the things that you don’t enjoy and let them be great. And it will make both of you more successful because odds are the things that they don’t enjoy are the things you like doing. You don’t. The last thing I want is partners that are mini mes. That’s a disaster. What we need are lots of different kinds of approaches and and folks.

Eric Brotman [00:39:21]:
And then that last quadrant of the things that bring no joy and make no money, which you have to try and figure out how to get rid of. And some of it we can’t. Some of it’s continuing education or compliance stuff or there’s stuff in your business you just have to do. Yeah. It’s adulting one zero one, I realize. But if you can spend the vast majority of your time doing the things that that bring you happiness and fulfillment and doing things that make you more successful. And you can surround yourself with people who get joy and fulfillment out of the things that make you more successful but don’t bring you joy. I know that’s a mouthful, but at the end of the day, it’s an exercise and it’s a four quadrant box and we walk people through it and say, tell me how you spend your week.

Eric Brotman [00:40:01]:
Put it all here and then let’s figure out what to outsource, what to get rid of and what to amplify. Yeah. It’s that simple. And by doing that, it also helps when there’s a new opportunity that comes to you. It’s like, Hey, would you like to do this? And before it used to be, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I’ll do anything. Now it’s let me see where that would fall in this matrix. Where would this fall? Would this be something that I can’t wait to do? Or would I wake up that morning and go, oh, man.

Eric Brotman [00:40:28]:
Like, I woke up this morning knowing I was coming on your show and I’m like ready to go. If this was an, oh, man, then I would have said no to the interview. Yeah. It’s that simple.

Virginia Elder [00:40:38]:
Well, thank you for saying yes.

Eric Brotman [00:40:41]:
Thank you for asking.

Virginia Elder [00:40:43]:
I love this matrix idea. So this is something that you provide on a consulting service. Would you tell a little bit more? I know you mentioned it at the top, but you have the media company, the consulting service. Like, you have all these things. If someone is listening thinking, man, I gotta talk some more to this guy, Eric. Like, he he’s got all this experience, and I think he can really help me.

Eric Brotman [00:41:07]:
Mhmm.

Virginia Elder [00:41:07]:
How do they find you, reach you? Where should we follow you?

Eric Brotman [00:41:11]:
Well, there’s a couple spots. First of all, our company’s website is bfgfa.com. People don’t remember that, which is why I use the landing pages. But brotmanconsultinggroup.com is where all of the consulting resources are found and brotmanmedia.com is where the podcast and the publishing and you know, we have BFG University and BFG library and all these resources and all these things. And it’s an incredible amount of content. But the the reality is I’m happy to chat with advisers who wanna talk about ways to to become influencers or ways to to create more abundance in their practices. Mhmm. I take on a very limited number of clients normally on a monthly, and ongoing basis.

Eric Brotman [00:41:50]:
I have a partner in that, and we facilitate team meetings. We facilitate executive retreats. We facilitate advisory boards. And that’s partly my retirement plan. I mean, when I graduate into retirement, I am really no longer client facing in the financial arena, but I’m very much working with other firms and and with people who are client facing both in our team and and outside. And I feel like I can help people create more abundance that way, and that’s fun.

Virginia Elder [00:42:18]:
Yeah. I’ll have to have you on again in the future because we didn’t even get to talk about your fun branding and some of the thoughts around that. And Yeah. We’ll have to do that next time. So stay tuned, everybody.

Eric Brotman [00:42:30]:
The answer is yes. Again, it’s a blanket yes. Whatever you need.

Virginia Elder [00:42:34]:
Thank you so much for being here, Eric. This is so fun and informative. Thank you so much.

Eric Brotman [00:42:39]:
My pleasure. And I I knew this would be fun, and I’m glad we we had the chance.

Virginia Elder [00:42:47]:
I’d love to hear which piece of this conversation meant the most to you today. Head to reachingabundance.com/convo. If you’re ready to market your business effectively with a podcast, let’s talk. Click the book a call link in the description, and I’ll take it from there. Thanks for listening to Reaching Abundance. I’m Virginia Elder, and I’ll be back next week with another insightful episode for you. Follow me on Instagram at PodcastAbundance to stay connected in the meantime.