Nestled in the Hall office park across from the Star in Frisco is Southwestern Investment Group, where Andrew Cremé offers his financial planning services. Andrew entered the profession after a journey from hospital administration to owning a business consulting firm in Florida. Today he specializes in holistic financial planning for business owners and their families where he applies knowledge he had acquired consulting for nearly a decade.
Andrew has a simple goal – to be a trusted advisor in his clients’ lives and create clear planning areas. “When we were in business school”, he said, “professors used to say, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. I minimize the areas of my clients’ lives to which that saying applies. There are many ways that financial planners have been trained and educated that add value to clients, but I have found that business owners have the most value-laden planning opportunities and are severely underserved. They have additional inherent issues of business valuation, transitioning business ownership, new roles in society, as well as estate planning, to name a few.”
On Andrew’s bookshelf is a book titled, Enough Dreaming: Business Ownership Is Yours For the Taking. He finalized it in 2016 as he was getting into financial services and leaving business consulting. Andrew wanted to include the business principals he had utilized in the book to help others. The most common issues he found in consulting included how to grow, optimize, or start – so he tried to put a little of everything in a very compact package. “I’d eventually like to expand on it in to add financial planning advice”, he stated.
Andrew made the leap from consulting in Florida to financial planning in Texas. “The reason we decided to move to Texas was that my family lived here. My brother moved to Texas in the early 2000’s and my parents retired and came in 2015. With the move I needed to decide if it made more sense to stay in consulting or make a change. I decided for change because I really liked the idea of being in a field where you can work with clients for a lifetime. My father had that as a small-town family doctor, and I saw the impact he was able to have on the community. Business consulting, hospital administration, and financial planning all require the same assets of strong analytical and planning skills coupled with the ability to make more complicated subjects easier to understand by others.”
Asked what the greatest rewards and challenges are, he stated, “Hands down the greatest rewards of the field are to be able to walk with families in meaningful ways that help them change their family trees and enjoy life! There are numerous challenges, but I would say that biggest one is industry differentiation. Because there is not regulation that says how you operate your practice, people immediately put you in the same category as another person that comes to mind. A personal conversation may be the best means to overcome this challenge.”
Andrew is a pretty quiet person overall, enjoying reading and spending time with his family. A few goals to do soon would include gardening and getting into competitive shooting.
Andrew’s household includes his wife, Janelle, an immigration attorney, his daughter Gianna, 2nd grade at Baker Elementary, and their dog Shelly.
To begin a conversation with Andrew that could lead to your better “financial fitness”, visit https://www.swinvestmentgroup.com/advisors/creme-wealth-team/.