Andy NearyI help insurance professionals turn brand awareness into business growth.

You are best position to serve the person you once were.

27 Jul 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:11

In this brief segment, Andy Neary explains that professionals who transition from an internal role—such as HR—to an external advisory role, like benefits consulting, gain a strong competitive edge. By having personally performed the duties of their former client role, they can empathize, anticipate needs, and speak with credibility, saying “I was you at one time.” This shared experience creates trust and positions the advisor as the consultant they wish they had when they were on the employer side.

But I always tell our clients, if you can ever put yourself in a position where you are serving the person you once were, you are in a very, you have a very good competitive advantage there. And what I mean by that is we've had HR professionals, right, make the jump to benefits advising. Well, guess what? You're serving the person you once were. You're serving HR professionals.
Exactly.
You running a benefits program for a private employer, now advising them, had to give you a little bit of a competitive advantage because you could look them in the face and say, "I was you at one time." Well, that's exactly correct.
And that's something that, you know, again, in that support of production, I was always very open about when I would look a prospective client in the eye and say, I understand what you're going through. I understand that what you, even if you're a benefits professional, not just an HR professional, even if you're a benefits professional, the health and welfare component of what you do is just one very small slice of what you do and what you have to deal with. And, you know, You know, I did always try to be the consultant that I wished that I'd had when I was on the employer side, and I do think it's a competitive advantage if you've sat in those shoes.