What is a simple thing that a Plan Advisor can do right now to improve their offering and impress new potential clients? What would be a GAME-CHANGER? If I had to pick or isolate one thing that I think would be super effective it would have to be centered on what the Industry calls “Retirement Readiness.” My advice would be to create a tangible and trackable approach to participant success and when you really think about it, isn’t participant success really the same thing as the plan’s success?

The plan only succeeds if the participants succeed. However, for a variety of reasons the retirement plan world has instead placed it’s focus on fancy things like fiduciary process, expense ratios, fees, fiduciary status, investment reviews, RFPs, vendor comparisons, mutual fund analytics, etc. 

Let’s ask ourselves, what is this whole 401k thing really all about? If broken down to the simplest form it is about participants building up money to help fund their retirement.  Show your prospects and existing clients that this is where your focus is. In addition, excite the decision makers by showing them that your approach actual tracks, monitors and documents the success through logical metrics.

In the same way you maintain and follow an IPS (Investment Policy Statement), create a statement around participant education, support, engagement, savings and measurable results. Imagine walking into a prospect and handing them some marketing materials that outline your approach and commitment to helping their employees accomplish the real thing that matters. Sure, you can tell them that you still got skills when it comes to investments, fee analysis and fiduciary process….but that you have not forgotten or lost track of what is really important and why all those others things exist in the first place.

I know one thing for sure. If when meeting with a Plan Sponsor you can show them you have a passion for results and you have used this passion to build out an accountable process that you track to insure success, how can you not win the business? You are making a real difference within their company. Very few of your competitors really go all in on this approach. They talk about retirement readiness, they maybe conduct decent education meetings (and even pay for the pizza), they might even utilize a recordkeeper created widget or two to assist, but they don’t have a hands on, no bullshit, passion fueled approach like you do!

BE A GAME CHANGER.

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Learn more about Plan Design Consultants, Inc.  A Third Party Administration firm using a concept called smart.easy.awesome to reinvent client experiences and shake up the TPA world. www.plandesign.com