Welcome back to Don’t Retire… Graduate! In today’s episode, we’re taking you behind the scenes of the financial planning profession with our recurring segment, Diary of a Financial Advisor. I’m excited to welcome back Andrew Harrell—a second-time guest and a perfect example of what it looks like to excel and give back in the financial advisory field.
Andrew’s journey is marked by involvement and leadership—not only within the firm but also as a newly minted board member of the Financial Planning Association (FPA) of Maryland. He’s someone who truly believes in the collaborative spirit of financial planning, working to foster connections among advisors, drive awareness of legislative issues, and elevate the next generation of planners.
In our discussion, Andrew and I dove into professional growth, the value of mentorship and collaboration amongst advisors, and the imperative of getting involved in advocacy through organizations like the FPA. We touched on why participating in these associations expands one’s perspective, and how collaboration trumps competition among advisors. Andrew shared his experience spearheading NextGen initiatives and explained how networking and community work not only benefit clients but enhance the profession as a whole.
We also dove into the nuts and bolts of financial wellness, spotlighting BFG’s pioneering corporate financial wellness program—a benefit many don’t realize exists for employees at all levels, breaking the stereotype that financial advice is just for the wealthy. Andrew walked us through what it’s like to deliver hands-on guidance to folks navigating benefit packages, personal finances, and tough life decisions. And, of course, we chatted about the “wellness” aspect—what it means to equip clients with the tools and peace of mind they need to thrive not just financially, but holistically.
Of course, I also had a little fun ribbing Andrew about his office nicknames, including “Young Protege” and “EJ” (Eric Junior), and we wrapped up with his vision for his future in the profession.
5 Key Takeaways:
Collaboration Over Competition: Andrew emphasized that financial advisors can—and should—see each other as collaborators, not competitors. Networking with peers expands your perspective and helps everyone, including clients, succeed.
The Value of Professional Associations: Being active in organizations like the Financial Planning Association provides community, advocacy, and professional development opportunities you won’t find working in a silo.
Holistic Financial Wellness: Corporate financial wellness programs aren’t just about asset management; they’re about empowering employees of all levels to make informed decisions about their benefit plans, insurance, and other financial topics, bringing real peace of mind.
Legislative Engagement Matters: The financial planning profession faces significant regulatory and legislative pressures. Advisors need to stay informed and get involved in advocacy to ensure their voices—and those of their clients—are heard.
Impact Beyond the Numbers: Financial wellness means helping people feel good about their decisions, providing reassurance, and allowing them to focus on what matters most in life—without constantly worrying about money, assets, or benefits.
Eric Brotman [00:00:01]:
This is Eric Brotman, the host of Don’t Retire, Graduate, the podcast that asks you what you wanna be when you grow up so you can graduate into retirement with a purpose and a passion. Welcome to our diary of a financial advisor segment, where we interview financial planners about their professional journeys and their passion for helping others succeed. Today, I’m pleased to welcome back a second timer, Andrew Harrell. Andrew joined BFG in May of twenty eighteen as an associate, became a lead advisor in 2023, and as of January, became a shareholder in the firm. He graduated cum laude from Coastal Carolina University earning a bachelor of business administration degree in finance. In 2023, he was presented with an outstanding alumnus award from CCU’s Wall College of Business. And upon joining the firm, Andrew began pursuing certifications and designations to help him further establish relationships with clients and help them build meaningful lifestyles. In 2020, he earned his CRPC, this chartered retirement planning counselor designation, followed by his CFP, his certified financial planner practitioner designation, in 2021.
Eric Brotman [00:01:05]:
I should also mention he’s a local and a graduate of Calvert Hall College, the high school here in Baltimore that boasts my younger brother as an alum. Welcome back to the diary of financial advisor.
Andrew Harrell [00:01:16]:
Thank you. Appreciate you having me.
Eric Brotman [00:01:18]:
So, Andrew, you you I I I before we get into serious conversation, I feel like I need to let everybody know that you have two nicknames in this office. Two that I can share with the crowd. I mean, I’m sure there’s there’s a few other I’m
Andrew Harrell [00:01:29]:
glad it’s only two that you’re sharing.
Eric Brotman [00:01:30]:
It’s only that two. One of them is young protege. Yep. This man has been called young protege mostly since he arrived right out of college because, the the office decided he was he was mini me, which is terrifying because he’s six five. For better or for worse? For better or for worse young pro and now they just call him EJ for Eric Junior. For better or for worse again. Again, so it’s good to have my kid brother here. Another Calvert Hall kid brother.
Eric Brotman [00:01:55]:
I like that. So, Andrew, let’s talk a little bit about, about the Financial Planning Association because you recently were named to the board of the Financial Planning Association of Maryland. I’m a past chair of that board. It was twenty plus years ago. Our president, Lena Nebel, was a past chair of that board. So no pressure at all, but you’re gonna need to eventually run the, run the whole state association. What’s that been like for you, and and why did you get excited to get involved?
Andrew Harrell [00:02:21]:
So, yeah, I’m I’m a few months in at this point. It is a three year term that I accepted, and I I met, people who got me involved and integrated in the association through a leadership program that I did. It it’s been fulfilling so far. I am a chair of the next gen committee there. We are integrating, happy hours and networking events across the state, and getting more people involved, particularly our next one’s around, Wi Fi or women in finance. We’re trying to do a joint, event together. But it’s been a wonderful thing to meet other people and really give back and integrate ourselves in the community in a different way that I have in the past few years. You know, it’s funny.
Eric Brotman [00:02:58]:
I know a lot of financial advisors who think other financial advisors are the competition and they’re to be stayed away from. I know financial advisors who will not connect on LinkedIn with other financial advisors because they feel threatened by it. And yet you’re part of an association, and we’ve been members of this association for many years that brings financial advisors together. What do you think the benefit of networking with other advisors outside of our ecosystem? What is the benefit of doing that and why would anyone be afraid of that?
Andrew Harrell [00:03:28]:
I think the benefit is is, seeing a bunch of different perspectives, seeing how people handle, conversations or different situations because no one’s, situation is exactly the same. Not only learning about how people are going about things, but how they’re integrating themselves in the community and and what they’re doing good for, not only themselves, but for others. I don’t see other planners or advisers as competition. You actually should be working together because you’re all out there supporting, clients and the communities and trying to impact people’s lives. Not everyone does it the same way, but instead of treating things as competition, it should be more so collaborative.
Eric Brotman [00:04:03]:
So the the Financial Planning Association of Maryland also has a, a legislative arm and and not just for the state but for the country. And right now, there’s a a lot of pressure on, state governments to close budgets. There’s a lot of pressure on potentially taxes on services. There have been, conversations at the federal level about, about ending the subcontractor status for financial advisers. There’s a lot of regulatory pressure right now coming, and the FPA is one of those organizations, and we’re members of several designed to sort of protect us from some of that, potential regulatory overreach. How has how has your involvement with the FPA opened your eyes to some of that if at all? And and what do you feel like, other, financial advisers either need to know or need to do as a result of some
Andrew Harrell [00:04:51]:
of these threats? So the we actually had a a board meeting last week actually that talked particularly about one issue that’s going on, for some of the business around the state of Maryland, and, everyone kind of felt the same way about it. They wanted to make sure that that message got out there and that people, put their opinions in because it it did matter. It did affect a lot of people, and, we we made sure that the message was loud and clear as far as we spread that message and and get people to participate and to to share their their story about it. And, it’s a way to not only impact, give feedback, but also impact people and and the lives that they’re living every day and trying to help people whether it’s business to business or business to consumer or any of the services that are provided, it allows everyone to kind of come together and see different perspectives and really put their opinion out there.
Eric Brotman [00:05:39]:
What would you say to financial advisors or firms who are not members of the FPA or similar organizations?
Andrew Harrell [00:05:46]:
If they’re not members, I think they should be. It’s been a wonderful thing to to participate in, whether they’re a member or, more more so active on a committee or or join the board eventually, to some degree. I do think it helps not only network but participates in some of the the things outside of the walls that that you go and participate in every day with the same 20 or 30 or 40 people. It allows you to make a difference in in a different light, not just serving the clients, that come to your your place of business, but potentially others in the community as well.
Eric Brotman [00:06:19]:
Let’s shift gears a little bit. Talk about financial wellness because in 2019, as you know, BFG created a corporate financial wellness program in conjunction with KCI, a local, national, but a locally based, engineering firm. And, this was right after you joined the company. So this was brand new to us as it was brand new to you. You had been with us some six months or so. How have how has that program impacted you as an advisor and how do you see it impacting the participants who are or part of that, who are the employees of the of the groups?
Andrew Harrell [00:06:53]:
Yeah. I gotta tell you, most people when they think of financial advisors that financial advisors have a minimum and they won’t talk to people with with certain thresholds of assets. This isn’t anything like that. This is truly a benefit that KCI, as the company itself, is offering and paying for as a as a benefit to their employees, and that can go anywhere from entry level to senior management. We integrate ourselves to go in there and have consultations with their employees, not that we’re actively allocating their four zero one ks plans or or being the advisors of the plan itself going in there, but we’re actually sitting down with people, roughly eight a day per advisor and we’re sitting down and reviewing their benefit package with them because as you well know, Eric, over the years that you’ve seen people get slid a giant handbook with a bunch of different options and a bunch of different things to choose from and says here this is in effect January 1, and they don’t even know what they’re picking. So it allows us to go in there and really communicate that and
Eric Brotman [00:07:48]:
have a conversation around what’s what’s particular to them and and make them make more sound decisions. So to be clear, the employee benefit piece and the qualified plan piece aren’t things that we’re involved with. We’re more at the employee level helping one on one, helping folks integrate and use those plans. But also, I think one of the ahas is that they have plenty of things outside of their company, either because of a spouse or significant other’s company or because of prior employers or just because of personal assets. So how can you integrate that in a short period of time with somebody you’ve just met?
Andrew Harrell [00:08:21]:
Sure. They they will fill out a questionnaire if they’re able to, and and if they don’t, then we will certainly walk through some of the questions that we typically have. More so, it it is focused on helping them decide what benefits, either are available to them or make sense for their situation. But when conversation happens like that, they’ll say, oh, my spouse has this job or we’re on her plan or his plan. My my wife or or husband has, this retirement plan or or this pension offered to him. Do you know anything about that? Or what about this life insurance piece? There’s a bunch of different conversation pieces that come up and we’re able to navigate those conversations to a certain extent without having the information right in front of us, but people will be able to have a conversation around things that they they may not have available to them before and it’s a way for us to at least, you know, make someone’s day, in a short period of time, so to speak. So you’ve talked a
Eric Brotman [00:09:13]:
lot about the financial. Let’s talk about the wellness. Okay. What is the outcome or what do you think the takeaways are for folks who have participated? You know, we’ve done this for, KCI was the pilot, but we’ve done this for other, for profit companies. We’ve done it for nonprofit entities. We’re looking at doing this for municipalities or associations. I mean, there are lots of ways to impact as many lives as possible, in a really positive way, but the financial is what it is. What does the wellness component of that mean and and how important is it?
Andrew Harrell [00:09:48]:
Every company has their own benefit package, but the wellness part of it really is, making you feel like no matter how much money you make or how much assets you have that you’re making sound decisions, the benefits whether it’s health or medical or confirming beneficiary designations or you have wills or insurance in place and all those things are things that people don’t want to worry about as much when they go home from work every day and that’s kind of where we come in to say, have you checked these boxes and and kind of put peace of mind because there’s a lot on on people’s plates day in and day out and I don’t know about you, Eric, but I don’t wanna go home and talk about all all the stuff of what what happens to me and, you know, what what’s my wife gonna do and that sort of stuff. So if there’s something that we can help put peace of mind in, whether it is all of those aspects or just one of them in particular, we’re we’re here to help.
Eric Brotman [00:10:35]:
You’re absolutely right. I mean, they you talk about the cobbler’s kid with no shoes. I mean, for for financial advisers in general, we don’t wanna go home and talk about work, which means we don’t wanna go home and talk about finances either. Mhmm. And, and so that’s one of the reasons why every one of us, myself included, has a financial adviser within the firm because we have to take off our planner hat, put on our our spouse hat, basically, and have that conversation. I think it’s really important to have a dispassionate set of eyes on everything we’re doing. So we’re we’re almost out of time. And I asked you not that long ago what you wanted to be when you grow up.
Eric Brotman [00:11:09]:
And and I think we’ve already determined today that what you really wanna do when you grow up is be me, and that’s why they’ve called you EJ and Young Protege. Is is that in fact a true statement? Have we uncovered this today that you in fact wanna be me when you grow up, or do you have another plan?
Andrew Harrell [00:11:22]:
I would say, not exactly like you, but somewhat like, if, that’s still a a positive comment for you.
Eric Brotman [00:11:29]:
It’s positive enough. What’s next for you? What’s what’s next as we close the show?
Andrew Harrell [00:11:34]:
What’s next? Continue to develop my role here as an advisor, continue to elevate others around me and help contribute to the overall good of the company and help impact people as much as possible.
Eric Brotman [00:11:44]:
Thanks for coming back on the show. You’re becoming a regular. You might wind up being a co host someday. You never know.
Andrew Harrell [00:11:49]:
Hey. We’ll we’ll see. I’m EJ. I
Eric Brotman [00:11:51]:
could be cohost.
Andrew Harrell [00:11:52]:
We could make this our own show, really.
Eric Brotman [00:11:53]:
Very good. I’d like to thank all of you for listening and watching today. If you enjoy our show, please subscribe so we can continue to be a part of your journey to financial freedom. We’ll be back next week with another engaging guest and in two weeks with our next entry in diary of a financial advisor, not with Andrew. We’ll have a different guest next week, I think. For now, this is your host, Eric Brotner, reminding you, don’t retire, graduate.
Unnamed Voiceover [00:12:20]:
Securities offered through Kestra investment services LLC, Kestra IS, member FINRA SIPC, investment advisory services offered through Kestra advisory services LLC. Kestra AS, an affiliate of Kestra IS. Kestra IS or Kestra AS are not affiliated with Brotman Financial or any other entity discussed.
