#149 - From PepsiCo to Planning: Andy Fisher’s Shift from Corporate Ops to Fee-Only Advice

Andy Fisher spent 25 years leading operations at a Fortune 500 company before launching Path Setter Financial, a fee-only RIA built on clarity, transparency, and calm.

In this episode, we talk about his transition from corporate leadership to advisory firm owner—and what engineering discipline taught him about building better financial planning processes.

We discuss how fee structures influence outcomes, why fiduciary advice truly changes the conversation, and how Andy structures discovery to help couples align spending with values. His philosophy is simple: the math is straightforward, but behavior drives results.

We also get into real advisor topics—navigating stock comp, pensions, and early retirement windows; launching an RIA; early operational mistakes; implementing a CRM; outsourcing strategically; and the role peer groups play in momentum and accountability.

If you’re building or refining your firm, this conversation offers practical insight into process design, client communication, and helping families move from analysis to action.

If you found it valuable, follow the show, share it with another advisor, and leave a quick review.

Andy's Social:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-fisher-16522410/

Music from this episode was obtained through Bensound.

Transcript

Meet Andy Fisher And His Pivot

SPEAKER_02 0:04

How's it going, everyone? Welcome back to the OnlyFe-Only podcast. And as always, thanks for being here. In this episode, we talk to Andy Fisher, who is the founder of Path Setter Financial. Andy has a really interesting background. He spent more than two decades in senior leadership at PepsiCo before making the transition into fee-only financial planning. He's also been deeply involved in financial education for years, from teaching seminars and volunteering with IRS tax prep programs to serving on the board of a credit union. And now through Path Center Financial, he's helping clients build clarity and confidence with comprehensive planning. Really pumped to have him on the show. So let's kick it off with Andy on the Only Fee Only podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Only Fee Only Podcast. I'm Peter Travolo. I'm here with my co-host Brock Buckles. And today we're so excited to have Andy Fisher on from Path Setter Financial and having him share a story about building his RIA. So Andy, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here. Yes. So we're going to dig into your background, but let's start from the beginning. How did you get into financial planning? What piqued your interest? And we'll kind of follow that road to where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, sure. Well, I think it goes back uh many, many, many, many decades. You know, when I was young, um, I was raised by a single mom. Uh, she was a high school teacher, and so you know, I knew the value of a dollar, and um she was great. She was all about you know saving money and not getting into debt, and that was that was awesome. And so I started working, I got a real job, and um I was saving, but then I was saving for a car, I was saving for a house, and I turned 30 and uh realized I didn't have a plan. And uh my boss at the time said, hire an advisor. I did, and it was like the world opened up to me. And so I became you know curious at a young age about uh uh about financial planning and all aspects of it. So that's what that's what really got me interested in this.

From Engineering To Frito-Lay Leadership

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah, that's awesome. So um I I mean, obviously you had those little moments where you're like those foundational moments when you're younger, you're learning about money for the first time. Um, but I want to make sure that we touch on your previous career because you had 38 years somewhere else um that was not the C-word we talked about before we started the podcast. So P word, Pepsi, yes, Pepsi. Pepsi, yeah, for sure. So not not the other uh competitor. So tell us a little bit about like what your career was like there, and then how ultimately you you decided to get into this thing called financial planning.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, sure. So um when I was five years old, um, I decided I was gonna be an engineer. And so um I went through you know high school and everything, and I said, okay, um and I actually became uh interested in physics. So I got a degree in nuclear physics from State University in New York, and it was about the time of Three Mile Island, and so that said uh which was the accident, the nuclear accident. And I said, okay, maybe I'll do something different. So I went to Georgia Tech and got my mechanical engineering degree, and I started off as an engineer. And uh I quickly kind of went into project management and then management, and I worked my way around RD and such. And I ended up with uh in supply chain operations, it used to be called, and uh, was in charge of uh Frito Lay North America warehouse operations for about 25 years, the last 25 years of my career. And I was just constantly learning. I I had a phrase, you know, I learned something new every day. People would say, You're an expert at it. And I'm like, nope, I'm still learning. And and within that, um, around I think it was 2010, um, I had an experience with our credit union, a bad experience. Um, I went to uh get money out of an ATM and it ate my card. My wife put her card in and it ate her card. So I went to see the president and I said, What's going on? Anyway, somebody with the same name as I was getting sued, and so they locked out my account. But I ended up developing uh developing a good relationship, and he asked me to come on the board. So I was my first real sort of financial experience was on the board of directors of a$250 million federal credit union. Wow. And so I learned the inside of banking, you know, from the banking perspective. Uh we were a credit union, so we're member member owned. And I said, Well, why are we charging members fees? We shouldn't be charging fees, we should be helping them. And the um the CFO at the time showed me the PL and said, This is why we charge fees. All of our profit came from fees. 100%. Wow.

unknown 4:54

Yeah.

Inside Credit Unions And The Cost Of Fees

SPEAKER_00 4:55

So I said, okay, I see why we're charging fees. What else can we do? Anyway, so I I was on the budget committee and the Alico committee, which is the Asset Liability Investment Committee, and I learned a lot for 10 years there. But I really wanted to get closer to people. Uh, we did write-offs every month, you know, who was writing this off and everything, and it was all confidential. But so many people who were, I thought, successful at work were going bankrupt, and we were writing off their loans. And I said, we have to figure something else out. So I switched from the the in industry, the banking side, to the people side. And I started doing seminars, teaching seminars and volunteering. Um, I did a ton of volunteering. I did the Vita program, which is the IRS volunteer uh income tax assistant program for low-income people. I developed and taught seminars. I've had well over 4,000 people go through my seminars, um, and mostly at the former at my former job. Um, I taught financial empowerment classes uh in downtown Dallas for an organization. It used to be the YWCA, then it was Wings, uh Women in Need generously supported, and then it became uh Ascend. Uh so I was teaching classes there, and I really got to know people in these classes. I mean, half of them didn't have a bank banking account when they came into the class, and educating them was was really important to me. Um and I it was so impactful. The stories that people would tell and how you could turn them around really got to really got to me. And I realized that this work, um, you know, people talked about their passion. This work really filled my soul. Um I don't know if I can tell a story. I told I'll I'll tell a couple stories if you don't mind. Please, yeah, that's what we're here for. Um, I was teaching this one class, and you can imagine, you know, I don't know, 25 people in the class, and very diverse class, if you will. And this woman, the last class, it was a six-week course, two, two, three hours a week, six weeks. The last day, the woman stands up near the end of it and says, I have a story to tell. I was in the middle of talking, she just interrupted me. I loved it. And she stands up and she says, On my refrigerator, I have a cross and it says WWJ D, right? What would Jesus do? And now on my freezer, I have a dollar sign and it says WWAD. What would Andy do? So before I make any decision with money, I think about what would Andy do? And that just those kind of stories. I have a couple of those, but those just they fill your soul, and I still get goosebumps when I talk about those kind of stories.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah, I mean, you're in good company there, WWJ D and A.

Teaching, Volunteering, And Soulful Impact

SPEAKER_00 7:26

No, no, no, no, no. That's that I'm not implying that at all. But it's it's just the the fact that you know you could have an impact on people and see it and feel it. And so I did that. I did mentoring uh at another organization. Um, I wrote executive white papers. So I've done so much volunteering that when I did an early retirement, semi-early retirement, um, I had people come up to me and say, Hey, are you gonna do this? And so I started looking into it. And um, I had joined a retirement club, and you all know and everybody knows Andy Panko. Yep. So uh Andy was at this club, he was he was one of the uh speakers, and I went up to him afterwards and I said, Hey, I'm thinking about this. And he said, XYPN. I said, What's that? He goes, XYPN, just look it up, just do it. Yep. And so he encouraged me to talk to XYPN, and within three months I was registered. Wow. And started started the business journey of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

So before that, have you had ever heard of fee only financial planning or kind of what was your experience? Because you said you met an advisor when you were 30 years old. So how much has that changed since then?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

It was not fee only, I can tell you that. Yeah. When I started, when I started with XY, I started, I think that's when I really started about fee only because they were big into fiduciary, big into fee only. I think that terminology, they they introduced that to me, and I realized how much people are getting charged for things. Um, it's incredible. I just picked up a client last week, and they're paying tens and tens of thousands of dollars for AUM and products and all sorts of things, and it's just such a mess. And so I'm I'm a fraction of that. And so um I really got on board with fee only and being responsible and being a true fiduciary without conflicts of interest, without overcharging, and those kind of things. So um I feel like by accident or whatever, I landed in the right place with XY, being a fiduciary, you know, not not selling products. Um, I love partnering with you guys, and I always tell people, hey, I have these in these insurance people, and I don't get a commission. There's no there's no, you know, anything going back and forth between us. And uh so that's that was I think I didn't really know about fee only until XY. But I knew I knew about overcharging and I knew about products.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Right. Well, you knew what was out there, you knew some of the bad practices that were out there for sure. Yeah, and uh no, we we love partnering with you as well, Andy. Um, but tell us about so like I feel like it could be so overwhelming when you first get the registration done, right? Because it's like you get all of that done, and it's like, oh, wait, now I have to go, now I'm gonna go run a business, now I'm actually gonna help people, I'm gonna have clients. So what would and you had already done all of this really cool like seminars, giving it to over 4,000 people, you said, which is unbelievable. But what was your kind of train of thought in terms of like who I'm going to serve or how am I going to go get clients? Or was it, you know, people that you had already connected to in the past, or what was that like for you?

Discovering Fee-Only And Fiduciary Standards

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Um, I would say to summarize what I knew the month before I um was registered in a word would probably be clueless. Okay. Okay. I thought I, you know, I I understood all, I understood a lot about finance and a lot about planning. And I, you know, I learned the software and I feel like I could do it. But I really didn't know how to market. I didn't know how to grow the business. I didn't know how to get clients. And I I was very fortunate, I'm still very fortunate to have groups of other advisors were very giving. The the groups, especially with XYPN, the groups are very giving. And I have two or three calls a week, still to this day, with groups that helped me and coached me. They had been in the industry for a while. They gave me a couple of pointers. There was um, I I just went to school. Um, how to how to develop a plan from a client perspective, how to deliver a plan from a client perspective. I could do all the math. The math, physics and engineering, the math was easy. The math, yeah, half of it in my head. But you know, how to how to listen and how to deliver those things were new. And the marketing, you know, I hired somebody to do my website, you know, I read all sorts of oh, yeah, you write, do your own website, go to school, you know, Squarespace or whatever. Not my thing. Marketing is not my thing. Yeah, and so hired somebody to do that. You know, I outsourced quite a bit, lost money the first year, year and a half, you know, developing these things, but uh it was well worth it.

unknown 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I love that. So like Go ahead. Go ahead, Andy. Go ahead, buddy. I was just gonna ask, like, knowing what you know now, right? Like, what were some things that you wish you would have known ahead of time or some roadblocks that you know?

SPEAKER_00 12:46

I would say getting getting the marketing and the process down. Um, I was winging it, you know, at the beginning. Um, I use Wealth Box now for my CRM, and I didn't use that for the first six months. I had spreadsheets and all sorts of you know self-made tools. So, you know, getting getting the process down uh to be client focused is really important, client-centered.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So what are you like what's kind of your approach? I mean, everybody when they first meet with a client, like, you know, everybody's got these different strategies, or you know, during Q1, we're doing this type of meeting, Q2, we're doing this, but like when you first meet a client, what is your way of kind of going in there and trying to understand their situation? Is it kind of like, hey, here's what I do? What questions do you have for me? Or is it like, you know, the entire first conversation is just getting to know them? Like, what's your actual kind of process that you're taking clients through?

Launching An RIA And Early Missteps

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Um, you know, so I use AI for you know, meeting notes, and it's great because it tells me I'm talking too much. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's basically I I want to learn about them. I want to ask a couple of questions, and it's it's really everybody's unique. Every client I have, every person I've met, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people doing seminars and people coming up to me afterwards and asking questions. Everybody's unique, everybody's different. There's not one answer, but there are common themes. Sure. And, you know, um, people that don't have goals, you talk about goals. I don't have goals, I just want to, you know, this, that, and that. Everybody has a goal. They really, in their heart, in their soul, they have things they want to get accomplished: family, security, fun, uh, you know, all those sorts of things. And so getting to those, you know, sometimes people just spew them out, and sometimes you have to dig, and it's the fifth question down where they realize that they have a goal, and this is really what it means to them. You know, I do the what's your first, you know, memory of money with a lot of people, and uh, you know, what my parents taught me, this and that. Um, I had a meeting with a couple one time, and they'd been married, I don't know, maybe 10-15 years. Yeah, probably about 12 years at that point in time. And I asked the husband a question and I asked the wife a question about their parents and growing up. And I was out of the conversation at that point. They had a conversation between them. I didn't know that. Really? Is that why this and that? And they were learning about each other. I was just observing at that point. Yeah. And um, that was very powerful. I think it helped them because there was a little bit of I wouldn't say friction, but a difference in alignment on what they wanted to do. And we got to why.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah. Well, isn't that interesting too, how like money shapes people in that way? Because it's like, you know, somebody wants to go out to eat, the other person's like, we should stay home. It's like you think that you're arguing about eating out or not. That's not what you're actually arguing about or talking about. It's like the way that money shapes you, or scarcity around money, or can I actually go spend that money? And that's why I think it's it's such a powerful thing to have a good financial planner that says, like, no, every once in a while it's okay to go out and do those things, or you can do those things as much as you want because you have plenty of money saved. But it's like that can be an integral part of those conversations, I feel like, because there can just be so many differences and opinions between spouses when it comes to those sort of things. So that's gotta be super fun for you to watch when you ask a question like that. And then it just turns into like this game of tennis back and forth because you're like, we're getting somewhere here, right?

Building Process, CRM, And Marketing Basics

SPEAKER_00 16:17

It's so satisfying to me. It's really, it's really satisfying um to see that happen and see that evolve and get to the root cause. Because you're right, it's not, it's not how much you know dinner costs, it's whether we're gonna run out of money. Right. Or do we have enough cash or what's our budget? Um, I try to get a lot of my um clients on some sort of um I it's not I don't call it budgeting software because doing a budget is one thing, but visibility to their spending. So I there's a software program I use. I'm not gonna say it right now, but there, but I I I pay for it for my clients. I am happy to pay the monthly fee for them to have them get transparency of their money. I I there's two reasons for that. One, am I delivering an accurate plan? Are they telling me how much they're spending and is and is that the right amount in the plan? Because nobody knows how much they're spending unless they're really tracking it. And then the second thing for them, really, first things for them too. The second thing is is their spending, is are their financial resources aligned with their priorities? A lot of people kick the can down the road. We're just gonna go out to eat all the time. But we really, what we really want to do is save for a vacation. And so they're not saving for a vacation. They talk about how they can't afford a vacation, but they've made the subconscious, unconscious decision to go out to dinner three times a week and not go on vacation. And I can I can show them how to go out once a week and go on a fabulous vacation.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Right. Yeah. Three chip three trips to Chili's or one trip to Cancun. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Like whatever. Yeah, because it's really, you know, it's a matter of trade-offs. Or you can do both, or you can, you know, I you know, I would say a lot of them, uh, you know, especially people that have a lot of money, there's a reason why they have a lot of money. Because they've been saving and they haven't been spending uh a lot of times. And so, you know, some of them just need sort of permission and a and a and a ceiling on how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So would you say your niche is really pre-retirees, or where are you really finding that you add the most value to people?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So um I would say two-thirds of my client base is either direct, indirect referral from my former company. So all the seminars I taught there and the people I know and all that kind of stuff. Um Plenty of people there, I'm sure. Plenty of people there. Plenty of people there. Um but I would say, you know, I a third, my average age is 54. A third are retired or close to or half are close to retirement. Um you know, the my my heart breaks when somebody says, yes, I've been retired three years, what should I do now? Oh, the things we could have done for the last five years, right? Yeah, right. Those those hurt. It's like, okay, I immediately I you know, I shut my mouth because I'm like, I wish we had started this five years ago. So um, you know, I'll start. I I my sweet spot is like 50. If somebody comes to me at 50, especially if if they worked at uh if they're working at my former company, because a lot of things, a lot of people leave at 55. There's a lot of executive things, investing things, and and pension, or pension's gone away, but uh things that happen. So, you know, I I hope that they're with me before they turn 50.

Client Conversations, Goals, And Money Stories

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yeah, no, for sure. And and for those that are or for those that are kind of close, right? Because those are tough conversations. I mean, I guess our version of it on the insurance side would be, you know, sometimes we have to have hard conversations about people being uninsurable or, you know, delivering news that we don't necessarily want to. Um what do those conversations look like for you kind of when they become difficult? And it's like you've made a lot of money, maybe you haven't saved at the rate that you should have, and now maybe we're getting to them just in time, or like they're gonna have to dial back, or they're having to increase their savings rate. Like, how are you having some of those more like difficult or challenging conversations with people when that comes up?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Um that's a good question. I I you know, they're all unique and different, right? You know, sure. Um, sometimes I I I won't tell somebody to spend less, but I will encourage them to let's spend more time on what your spending is and let them discover that. So you have a 30% probability of success. Let's talk about what your priorities are. I won't say stop spending. Um most of the time they'll come to that conclusion by themselves, quite frankly. Sure. So it's not that I want I don't want to be the bearer of bad news. I'm my my wife calls me a wet blanket sometimes, so apparently I still can do that. But I I think people discovering that for themselves is is much more impactful.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

My hardest, my hardest conversation is the one that doesn't happen. It's it's where they're not responsive, they're not implementing any of the recommendations. You know, people that email me once a week with lots of questions, I don't mind that. I love that. People that don't respond, or we, you know, have a quarterly meeting, that's generally the frequency. Generally, you know, sometimes it's three, four, five times a year after they get going. Um when we're having the second conversation of not implementing things, that's the hard conversation for me. What do I need to do to help you? I'm happy to be on the phone for another hour and do all the clicks with you and and all that. Uh, those are the hard conversations for me.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Andy, were there any golden nuggets you were thinking of before coming on here or something that you wanted to make sure you got out there?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Oh, you know, you know, I if somebody's young, so just going back to you know, my niche, I said kind of, you know, by 50 is is a good age, but at any age is good because if you're 20 28 and you had your first child, there's a lot of planning there. If you're just getting married or if you're single, uh and if you're you know later in life. So you know, when I think about other people, you know, start you're talking about other people starting in the business or uh a nugget for you know potential clients.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

A client or a nearby.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

So I guess you're going the client route.

Spending Visibility And Values Alignment

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah. So, well, client, yeah, clients is, you know, stay involved. Don't give somebody your money and say, so and so's managing it. I don't know anything about it. You have to stay involved. It's always your money. And so I encourage them to uh to kind of stay involved, you know, take action and understand and learn uh along the process. For a new advisor, oh, I can't imagine that. I mean, I, you know, I'm semi-retired. This is uh a low stress building my business job for me. Um, somebody that's you know just getting out of school or early 20s, you know, what's your marketing? What's your niche? What's your network? How are you gonna find prospects? That's that's the first thing, uh, other than the content, is how are you gonna market through this? I stink at marketing. All I do is LinkedIn. I don't have a Facebook page. Um I just sort of post LinkedIn and then people remember I do this, and they remember they should probably get an advisor. Um most of my friends, I still see you know, people from former work, we we do uh breakfasts and uh adult beverages in the evenings. They all have advisors, and I'm glad it's the ones that don't have any advisor. I'm like, get one. I don't care if it's me or not, get an advisor. You you would you what you you don't know what you don't know. And so um, and I don't know what I don't know about any any particular prospect either. So people say, you know, the worst question to me is I just had uh$100,000 in cash. How should I invest it? I have no idea. I don't know what cash flow is, I don't know what your risk tolerance is, I don't know what your time horizon is. It's all part of the big picture in my mind. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Unbelievable advice, man, and and uh so many good golden nuggets in there. And uh so for people that want to find you, the best place I'm assuming is LinkedIn. That's where they should go if they want to follow along.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

LinkedIn, Andy Fisher, um pathsetterfinancial.com uh is my website. And there's a couple of links to send me an email or schedule a meeting um using Calendly. So lots of different ways to find me. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

I love it. Well, Andy, thank you so much for your time and expertise today. We really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

It was my pleasure. It was good to talk to you guys. Um, hope to see you later this year, maybe. Absolutely.

unknown 24:51

We'll see you.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

See you in San Diego for sure. See you in San Diego. Okay. Take care.