How Plan Sponsors Can Cut Through 401(k) Noise With Grant Ellis

Episode Intro: The GAP with Grant Ellis

Your 401(k) plan might be “working” on paper, but are your people actually getting clearer, calmer, and more confident about retirement? We sit down with Grant Ellis, founder of Ellis Retirement Services, to talk about what plan sponsors are up against right now: nonstop vendor outreach, confusing regulatory updates, payroll integrations that break, and a flood of tools that often adds friction instead of results.

Episode Description:

We get practical about what helps sponsors cut through the noise. Grant shares why independence matters in the retirement plan advisory space, especially for fiduciary decisions like recordkeeper selection, fee benchmarking, and building a defensible investment process. We also make the case for the often-underappreciated “engine” of the system: the third-party administrator. When a specialist advisor and a strong TPA work as true partners, sponsors get better plan operations, smarter plan design, and real checks and balances that reduce risk.

Then we zoom in on the end user: the participant. Grant argues that participant education and financial wellness are where the industry too often mails it in, swapping human conversations for another app. We talk about what actually moves the needle, including simple explanations, live Q and A, thoughtful plan design tweaks, and when auto enrollment can help close the retirement coverage gap without making employees feel tricked.

Subscribe for more candid conversations about retirement readiness, share this with a plan sponsor who feels overwhelmed, and leave a review to help more employers find the playbook for better 401(k) outcomes.

Guest Bio: Grant Ellis

Grant Ellis began his retirement planning career in 2005 and has been serving the needs of his clients ever since. As an analytical person and a student of the industry, Grant loves the complexities involved with 401(k)’s and retirement planning. More than that, however, he loves that he gets to take those complex subjects and connect them to his clients’ needs and desires. Whether he’s working with a CFO, HR team, or an individual prepping for retirement, his goals are the same…helping them define goals and create a plan to achieve them.

When he isn’t serving his clients, Grant likes to live as full a life as possible. He plays guitar and sings at his church (he even got to sing with Garth Brooks once!). He used to own a peanut butter company, wrote a book, guest lectures at Universities, and plays a little golf every now and then.

More than anything though, Grant values the time he spends with his family. He and his wife Cara live in Eads, Tennessee with their two kids. Walker is nine and loves to play baseball, and Callan is eleven and loves to sing like her daddy.

Contact:

Grant Ellis
901-519-7734
hello@ellisretirement.com

Website: https://ellisretirement.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back to the gap, the podcast where we tackle one of the biggest challenges in America today, closing the retirement savings and coverage gaps, while also shining a light on what's actually working in our system. I'm Shannon Edwards, your host and owner of TriStar Pension Consulting. I would like to welcome all listeners to our podcast with a special welcome to those of you listening for the first time. On this episode of The Gap, I'm pleased to welcome Grant Ellis, founder and managing principal of Ellis Retirement Services, a specialized 401k and retirement consulting firm based in Memphis, Tennessee. Grant has spent more than two decades in the retirement plan industry working with companies across the country to help them optimize their retirement plans and improve outcomes for their employees. His experience is especially broad. He has worked on both the provider and advisory sides of the business, consulted with international brokerage and private equity firms, and owned both a TPA and 401 advisory firm. That combination gives him a practical, deeply specialized perspective on what plan sponsors need, what advisors can do better, and how the system can continue evolving. Grant is also a nationally recognized thought leader in the retirement plan space. He is frequently invited to speak with industry leaders and legislators about improving retirement readiness for American workers. And his firm describes its mission as helping as many people as possible to prepare for retirement. That makes Grant a terrific guest for the gap because this podcast is about both sides of the American retirement story, the real savings and coverage gaps we still need to close, and the meaningful success the private retirement system has already had in helping American workers build financial security. Grant brings the experience of an advisor, entrepreneur, plan consultant, and industry advocate to that conversation. So with that, I am welcome, I am excited to welcome Grant Ellis to the gap. Thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah, thanks for having me. Goodness gracious. I I appreciate the intro. I hate bios. They are cringy to me, but uh I do appreciate you having me on today.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Well, I'm excited to have you. Grant, I want to start with your story. First of all, how did your career in the retirement plan industry begin? And what ultimately led you to start your own firm?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Oh, goodness. I I love people's background stories because it's not one of those things where you grow up thinking, like, I want to be in the 401k space. I can't wait, you know, when you're 15. I have to give a lot of credit to my father. My father was a third-party administrator. He owned a TPA firm for 45 years. So I

Grant’s Path Into Retirement Plans

SPEAKER_02 2:30

didn't know what that meant when I was growing up. But after I got out of college, I got introduced to the industry and through connections I had made, kind of through my father and his firm, I got my start on an internal desk without really knowing what a 401k plan was. And that was kind of the kickoff point. So I give a lot of credit to there were several people in my life who gave me a chance early on. And it's one of the reasons like we try to help people uh get into the business because I love it, but I would have never known about it had it not been for some people who pointed me in certain directions and then gave me a shot when I didn't really deserve one.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

That's that's awesome. Yeah, I I actually started in the business working for my dad's CPA firm. Oh, really? So, yes, and my first 401k plan was a 3,500 life balance forward quarterly vowel participant directed 401k plan that I had to do on a DOS-based admin system. You have worked on both the provider side and the advisory side. You've also owned a TPA firm as well as your 401k advisory firm. So, how is seeing the retirement plan business from both of those different angles shaped the way you serve plan sponsors?

SPEAKER_02 3:38

It's it's a great question. It's really everything we do makes me appreciative of having all of those lenses. Because I think it's really hard, and I didn't plan that also. Let me back that up. It's not like, hey, uh, I know I can be really knowledgeable if I do all of this, but spending time, honestly, on the TPA side, I tell a lot of younger advisors, if you really want to do this business well, go spend time with TPAs because they know it, they know this stuff. They're the really smart people in our industry who I think are very undervalued in some ways. And from a knowledge perspective, you you just can't beat it. So when I was having to dig through understanding how to run valuations and get my QPA and QKA and all those fun things, I hated it at the time, but it provided this lens and this solid technical foundation for the rest of my career. And then combining that with on the record keeper side, just dealing with advisors every day, all day long, and it drove me crazy too, gave me the perspective of how different advisors handle their business and working with their clients. And I could kind of identify, oh, this is the way I want to do it in the future if I ever do this, and this is the way I don't. So it was really a lot of technical knowledge and expertise that I was forced into somewhat, combined with being able to just like witness a lot of interactions with clients, which kind of created to me a perfect storm of helping me get to where I'm at today.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Oh, that's awesome. And I love that you love TPAs.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

I love listen, I tell everybody, most of my clients would probably fire me before they'd fire the TPA, and they would be wise to do so. I don't know why it is. Sometimes in our industry, it's like a side topic, but sometimes like we don't talk enough about the TPA. Like they are the engine that that keeps all this stuff running in the right direction. And so we we really always tell our clients like we are a partnership with our TPAs. We want them at the table because there are things that they have expertise in that we don't, and vice versa. And when you pair a really good specialist advisor with a really good TPA, that is a dream team in all aspects for a client.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

I love that. You know, this is going in all of my marketing materials, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Like this quote is Yeah, and you can pay me to say that either. I just I believe in it for real. And I I think it's very important to have good partners in place. And and rather than, you know, sometimes there's I've witnessed a little bit of animosity before of like client ownership, and like, well, this is my client, this is my client. And I tell people, I'm like, you're looking at it the wrong way. This is our client. We have different roles that mesh,

Why TPAs Are The Engine

SPEAKER_02 6:00

and we get to work together to make sure they have the best retirement plan that you can possibly have. And so you are on the same team. And the the sooner that both parties realize that and work together, man, you just can't uh you can't believe how much how much impact you can have for a plan sponsor in all directions.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Yeah, I agree. Because I'm at DPA. So I know you do.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

I just listen, I'm gonna preach it for you a little bit because I love I love them.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

No, I love that. What types of employers or plan sponsors do you most enjoy working with? And what do you think they're looking for when they come to you?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

That's a great question, too. I say that every time, so I'm gonna quit saying it. But no, we it's funny. In our industry, we we we're in the small plan market primarily, so mostly in the 25 million below market, and there's specific reasons for that. One is we really like to be in the trenches with our clients, meaning when we get into situations where we're dealing with, you know, boards and politics and like extensive 100-page RFPs and all this stuff. I don't love that. And so a lot of it's just personal preference of I love to be in there with the leadership group, the ownership group, or whoever that's really just trying to have a positive impact on their people. And that's honestly the biggest thing we're looking for. We are looking for people for leadership and owners who want to do well for their employees, like first and foremost. And you can tell that very easily, very early on. And so if they're bought in and they're like, listen, we recognize we don't know necessarily what we're doing, we need partners to help us impact our teams, that's where we're starting. And then usually, you know, it's gonna lead in all of the all of the different directions, but it requires buy-in. It requires we're actually looking for companies that have a pretty good culture or at least want to try to develop one. And again, part of that selfish of like, we want to have fun doing what we do. We need the ability to create good energy in those meetings and break down the kind of walls that people have between financial topics and financial advisors and their employees. And we're really good at that, but that means we got to have buy-in from leadership. So, first and foremost, culture, buy-in, employee impact, and then just an understanding. We also are looking for clients that aren't trying to do it all themselves, that try to outsource things to experts, right? That are saying, like, listen, this is not our world. So we want you to do what you do, we'll do what we do, and and that'll be a good partnership for us.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Awesome. Your firm's website says you are product agnostic and focused on tailored solutions. How important is independence in the retirement plan advisory space, especially when sponsors are relying on advisors to help them make fiduciary decisions?

SPEAKER_02 8:28

It's every, it's everything. I I take, oh goodness gracious, you're gonna get me going, Shannon.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Uh I take it- I love it.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah, I I just I take we take our fiduciary responsibility extremely seriously. And part of that is the ability to source and analyze options for our clients. And so everything we do, a lot of what we do is filtering the nonsense. And what I mean by that is like, I get it, everybody's trying to make money, and you've got to get paid and you have to be profitable, but there's there's far too much bias and influence in products and in services and solutions these days. And so we look at that as a big part of our role and we tell our clients this like we get paid the same thing no matter what you do. I don't care, I don't care who you use. But what we're gonna do is filter all that for you so that you don't get into something that you didn't understand, where the cost was not transparent and you didn't know the service options. We get to act as kind of your warrior on your behalf. And the the ability to be independent, it for me it comes from witnessing what not being able to be independent leads to early on in my career, of seeing like, hey, we can do whatever you need, but we can only use these five record keepers. And you're like, well, then you can't do whatever they need. And so every decision we make with record keepers, vendors, broker dealers, it does not matter, starts there. Of we just want to lay out all the tools, let us know what's available for our clients, and then and then if we want to start talking about like pricing credits and things like levers that you can pull, there's nothing wrong with them, but we start with baseline of full transparency and dependence, and then we move down from there. And if it makes sense for the client from a fiduciary perspective and impacts their people in a good way, sure, we can consider it. So I think in our industry moving forward, it's becoming more and more important, not that it ever never was, simply because plant sponsors are overwhelmed. They just there's it's so confusing. They're overrun with sales and process and tactics and tech, and they're just looking for partners who are going to come and help them dig out of it and figure out what they need to do and how they need to think through these types of decisions.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Yeah, definitely. What was the biggest lesson you learned from moving from larger provider institutional environments into building your own independent advisory practice?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Well, you know, the interesting part is I spent I've spent so much time owning my own practice now because I started my first one when I was 28. So it's been over 15 years now. So I don't even hardly remember. I just know this like I'm a big believer in a client, they they are trying to get us to help them solve problems, you know, impact their people. And so for me, it's about flexibility and autonomy, meaning that like I don't want anybody to impact the choices that we make for our clients in any way whatsoever. It goes back to the independence part, but it's also right now the ability to move fast if we need to. Uh, you know, unfortunately or fortunately, listen, to each his own. I'm just built to go, hey, here's a problem, let's solve it. And what tools do we have to do that? And that's not congruent to a large corporate environment that moves a little bit more slowly for for all the the reasons they need to. So I've just always loved the ability to go, no, no, no, like that doesn't have to take six months. Let's do this now. And here's what we can do and help you solve it. So I've gotten so used to that ability that every time, you know, people come and want to talk to us and hey, come join our firm or whatever. Yeah, and we get into it. And the minute there's some nonsensical three-hour staff meeting that nobody actually needs to be at, I'm out.

unknown 11:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I'm like, we got too much to do. So I can't, like, we're not gonna make up reasons to fill time. So I I we just encourage like our team, it's all about like we're gonna move fast, we're gonna break stuff in a good way, and we're gonna just really focus on that inline impact of everything we do, even the boring stuff, right? The you and I might like love fiduciary due diligence, but nobody else likes that word. But if we do that right, it also impacts the employees, it impacts the people. And for for us, the really everything comes down to we've spent 20 years talking to employees who are retiring, right? And you have that conversation of I have we have a client now that's like, I don't have any money, and then they said yes to their 401k 40 years ago and didn't even remember, and he's got $700,000 and is overjoyed. And then you have the other that's like, I'm retiring tomorrow, and they have $1,500 in their 401k. Those are very challenging, very joyful, and very hard conversations to have. It all comes back to those for us every single time. So if we if we get off kilter at all in terms of our mission and vision and values and how we think about things, or let's say that we're thinking about, I don't know, talking to somebody about selling, which we're not, then it always comes back to that. Does that allow us or deter us from helping those people? And so far that's been independence, autonomy moving fast is uh allowed us to do that the best.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Yeah. No, I'm the same way because you as you know, in the TPA world, there's a lot of people being bought up, right? There's a lot of aggregators, and of course, we get approached all the time. My first answer is I haven't had a boss since '92, really. Nobody's been telling me

Culture Fit And Advisor Independence

SPEAKER_03 13:30

like that. Institutionalized, yeah. Right. So like I would be a terrible employee and I'm not ready to retire. So let's just stop the conversation right now because it's not happening.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah, it's uh it's a really interesting topic. I I try to look at it from both perspectives, and it's not right or wrong. Like somebody wants to get paid for what they've built, then I I would rather them just own that, right? We were, I was talking to another advisor who most people that listen to this would probably know. And we were like, why don't you just I want somebody to come out and be like, hey, yes, I sold my company for the money. Instead of like, hey, this is what's gonna be in the best interest of our like, no, it's not. But that's okay. I I think our industry has always struggled with how do you build and exit, right? It's not an easy thing to do. And there's all these different models, and like it's it's also, I will tell you from an advisory perspective, and you know this from a business owner perspective, one of the biggest fears is that you get towards the end of your career and you don't have anything to show for it. That there's not something that you, you know, we poured all of our money and energy and sleep into this for however long, and you want that asset to be worth something down the line. Hopefully, you can do something like my father's firm didn't, they he sold it to an internal employee who'd been there for 20 years, and it was like a perfect, beautiful setup. It's just not always the case. And so I just tell people when they're thinking about that, and this is what I tell myself, because I'm the same way. Like I and I actually, Shannon, I talk to all of them and I talk to them for a long time to kind of see what the deal is.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

But it's again, number one, how does it impact my life? How does it impact my family? You know, I meet with friends who have sold and they're traveling all the time and they're all over the coast and then hote, and I'm like, that's maybe later, but right now I've no desire to do that. And then what does your business actually look like? You know, like are you running anything? Are you reporting? Like, I just people need to slow down, I think. But I also understand that the first time somebody offers you money for something you built, it's a very exciting thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Right, right. Yeah, it can be, it can be.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

So yeah, even internally, right? It's like somebody wants what you built. That's like the dream.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

It makes you proud.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's also good just to talk to a bunch of people who have done it, and uh, most of them are not super happy, you know? Right. Like unless they are retiring fully. But if you're still working, that whole like, hey, we're gonna need you here for six years, and right they're like, goodness gracious, a lot of them are miserable. So just caution, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah, yeah. You have more than 20 years of experience in the retirement plan industry.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Ugh.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

What accomplishment are you most proud of so far?

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Professionally, because it'd be different if it was personally, those are different for me. I mean, I'll give you kind of both answers, I guess. I mean, uh my biggest accomplishment in life by far is that I have a family that loves me that I spend a lot of time with, and we have so much fun together. And that's honestly ties into your first question about independence. Of when I look at what I really want in life, I think that anybody who owns a business, and you'll know this too, we are builders and growers, right? I have to, I have to work at being present, of not thinking of the next thing to build and grow. I have to balance those out. And for me, when I'm looking at a day like today, we have an exercise. Not when I say we, my wife and I talk about this stuff a lot because I'm neurotic and she has to listen and process it. But we talk about like what's an what's an idea, what's a perfect day look like? And when we answer that question, I have a lot of those days. I get to work and and provide a lot of value to people, and I have so much fun doing it. And like when I'm talking to employees, it's my favorite thing in the world. And then I get to go to my kids' baseball game, and then I get to take my daughter to the doctor if she needs to go to the doctor, and it doesn't get better than that for me. So at least in stage of life, that will change when they're out of the house. But for now, that's my the number one thing I'm most proud of is they are priority for me, and we run a good business at the same time. Professionally, I you know, I I think it's it's cliche, but it does come back more to the conversations that nobody knows about that we have with participants. Of like, I don't care. I used to, and this is the opposite. I've had to grow up. I used to care all about awards and this and that and vanity metrics, and I and I and I've always like personally struggled a little bit with comparison syndrome. I've always kind of felt like the little kid in the room. And I look at somebody else and I'm like, they have how many plans or how many millions of dollars in assets under management? And I've I've spent a lot of time over the last decade, you know, kind of maturing into the idea of like, I have everything I need and want. And like I get way more value now from that person who lives in the middle of nowhere, maybe Mississippi, and just being able to talk to them and they're terrified, and we get to ease their fears and tell them they're gonna be okay and help them make good decisions. I'm far more proud of that than any of any awards or accolades that I've ever gotten. And I think the next stage of my career, so I'm 45, so I've got I've got some space, a little bit, hopefully, God willing, is just to lean into that. Like uh I love the idea of a simple life with a lot of impact. And that's kind of so early on, it was definitely I was the opposite. I was about money and awards. And and and now I'm like, no, I'm good. How about a simple life, maybe a cookout on the back porch and a lot of impact with a lot of people along the way? So that's what I'm proud of.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

No, that's awesome. That's awesome. When you think about the clients you've helped over the years, what does a successful retirement plan engagement look like to you?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Could you be a little more like uh what do you mean by successful, like with the plan sponsor or just in general?

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah, like for instance, one of my clients I helped them design their plan and I worked with them for, you know, over 25 years, and we grew up from, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars when they came to me to like a hundred million, you know, last year and thousands of employees, but all of those like their their participation rates are in the 90%. And, you know, obviously working with a financial advisor who helped in that too, but we, you know, we worked together on plan design and and so to me that's successful, right? Because we took this plan and we grew it to a point through plan design and through teamwork that all of these people's and and these people are manufacturing people that speak foreign languages and don't speak English as their first, that they're all able to retire and retire successfully because of the work that we all put in. That to me is a success story. So what's what's your success? Like, what does success look to you look like to you when you're engaging with a plan?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, it's a okay, I understand. And I I I probably have a little bit of a contrarian view. I don't disagree with you at all. I agree that I I this partly the way my brain works, though, is I think too much. I have very focused on the the individual participant level in my mind. And I mean, not that the business is not important, but what we're trying to do is obviously meet the business where they're at in terms of their goals and what they're trying to accomplish. And honestly, a lot of times they don't know what those goals are, right? So then it's it's that's really valuable and fun to me when you can open up opportunities, even with plan design, to a client that they didn't know existed. Like, let's just talk about what you want things to look like, and we're gonna throw in some stuff you've probably never heard of. That consulting side of things I really enjoy, and as you know, can have a huge impact. When it comes to success with the plan, I'm a little bit different than some advisors because individual situations are so different from person to person. And what I mean by that is like we do, we have a wealth management arm too, and there are plenty of times when contributing to a 401k is not in the best interest of a person. And so I struggle a little bit with my success metrics. We we work on this all the time of what does that look like? Smaller plans, we can be a little bit more specific because we can look at individuals and say, okay, this person who's in this scenario, yes, they need to be saving in this way. But we don't use a lot of blanket metrics simply because the situations we run into, I'm kind of the anti-advisor of there are foundational things they need to have in place sometimes before they start pumping money into a 401k. We've seen 401ks, and I love them, we've seen people have adverse situations because their money was tied up into a 401k and they didn't have any liquidity outside of it. So we're just really trying to go can we meet as many people where they're at as possible and try to get as much personalized financial guidance to the individuals as we actually. Absolutely can, and tie that into a really good plan design with potentially, you know, auto functions if it makes sense, and and then tie that into the goals of the company. The other thing on

Building A Firm And Resisting Buyouts

SPEAKER_02 22:10

that side, when we're talking to a company, like I would love to be able to go to every plan and be like, okay, your safe harbor auto enroll and you know auto escalation, and it's gonna be and that work, it works, but like maybe they don't have that kind of money, you know. Maybe they're installing a 401k for the first time, and it's one of the reasons I like small plans is because we we can get really hyper-specific with the company and the individuals and hone in more on their situations and be specific for that. But I look at some of the metrics I wish I could track better that I think for us are successful is kind of the the overall impression of the stress level of the employees. And so it's again, we can't really measure it, but it's why we're so big on conversations and group meetings and everything of it happens every single week of literally three days ago. I'm 45 years old and I nobody has ever explained it. I've never understood this stuff until now. And that to me is success because it's like it's such a personal, like we've heard these things forever, and then financial advisors come in and blah, blah, blah, asset allocation. And we get to come in and like, you know, I love people lighting up when they're empowered by the knowledge of like this is not that hard to understand. It's just a lot of terminology. Let's help you. And then you see them go, okay, now we can take control over our financial situations, put emergency funds into place, even if it's basic, then start layering money into 401ks and other savings vehicles and like really step up on the wealth side of putting all the building blocks in place. So long-winded bad answer to we check, we still keep an eye on all the same metrics that everybody else does.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

All things considered, we want high participation rates and high deferral rates for sure. And when possible, we want to lean into the personal financial side of things and see if we can really understand somebody's specific situation and make recommendations accordingly.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Awesome. Um, is there a particular plan sponsor or plan participant story without naming names that captures for you what is possible when the whole team, the employer, the advisor, the TPA, and the record keeper, when everybody's working together and aligned?

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah. I'll give you a brand new one because I've got tons of them. We were working with a company right now that we had our first meeting with last week, with the entire employee team. So early on, it was we've been kind of, and this goes back to the sales and prospecting side, which we're not talking much about, which is fine, but I don't naturally love that side of things. Like I put me in a room with somebody, let's have a conversation, we're good. But like the, you know, I'm not like I don't like cold calling people and bothering on me.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

But we've had an individual wealth client who works at a nonprofit in the in Tennessee that's very well known. And we just kind of tell everybody like I and my wife was helpful with me. We just kind of tell everybody who we are and what we do, right? Like I'm not trying to be salesy, but like, hey, by the way, this is our bread and butter. We love working on corporate retirement plans. And at some point, we got introduced to them and we went in and just to have the conversation, and they they hired us there on the spot, and we were kind of going against JP Morgan and all these big companies, no offense to any of them. And we talked to them about why, and it was like, I don't know what it is about financial advisors. If we're good at anything, it's emotional intelligence and kind of empathy and like the human side of things, right? The ability to connect with other humans. And so when I have a when I ever I have a meeting that's the first meeting with the team, to me, it's the most important meeting I'll ever have with that company because they come in guarded, right? And you've probably seen this of nobody wants to go meet with the financial advisor at their company and nobody wants to listen to a 401k presentation. It sounds and I and so what I do is we go in, my goal is to like, I want to be friends with as many of these people after this meeting as possible and empower them with a bunch of knowledge. So we went in last week, and so three hours away, I drive over, like people still think it's crazy that you know we've grown quite a bit. I do most, I still do a lot of that stuff because I love it. I'm I don't ever want to give up the things that I love. And you know, we we rolled in and I was wearing a, I'll I'll never forget, I was wearing a jacket. I'm always really worried about what I'm wearing. Part of it's just my neurotic nature, but you know, you want to you don't want to look like a suit if you're dealing with people in manufacturing or whatever. So I went like jeans, blazer, and I walked in and they were all kind of in t-shirts and stuff, like this kind of cool nonprofit. And so immediately I just made fun of myself. And it was like, well, I'm that guy who's wearing the blazer, and I apologize because I look like a loser and you all look comfortable. And uh, and it just brings the tone down. And since that, we had we had an hour long, you know, seemingly simple. But since that we've done multiple rollovers from old plans that people didn't know they they could roll over, and we've done enrollments for people who had never signed up because they were scared because they didn't understand it. And that's where the guy that was 45 said, I've never heard this stuff before explained like this, and now it makes me feel better. That to me is success. And of course, the client afterwards is like, y'all are awesome. Like we, and we're like, we're just trying to be good humans. That's all it is. Like, I appreciate the feedback, but I think if if more of us, as advisors at least, kept the human side of things the focus, right? The impact side of things the focus, the dollars will come. And unfortunately, too often the success metric is only the financial side of it. But goodness gracious, if you do it on a long tail of how many people can you help and impact during your day, you will get paid. And we charge, we're not cheap at all, right? But the ability to come out of that and them go like the CFO and the CEO are like, I we, I this is we I can't believe we haven't had this for years. Like, this is the best thing ever. And that to me is success for sure. And it's not rocket science, and it's not, it's just where we try to go, how would we want to be treated in these scenarios? Let's do that and do a lot of it, and then add process and tech behind it so we can scale it. And and so it just gets me all fired because I'm so excited because I love working with those those clients, and that gets them excited too, because they can feel that energy. And like we we really believe in what we do, and we are very excited to hopefully work with you all for another 30 years.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah. What has your best client taught you, or your best clients taught you about how employers can use retirement plans not just as a compliance requirement, but a meaningful employee benefit?

SPEAKER_02 28:25

I love it. I it it to me, it ties into culture. You can't fake culture, it starts with leadership. And I know that's it's as we're talking about buzzwords of total rewards and benefit plans and everything like that. I've got a client in mind, a biotech firm that we've been working with for a long time now, that it started with them sitting down with us and saying, we love our people. And you walked in the door and you could feel this. You walk you, there's people that you know write their stuff on the wall and you walk in and you're like, ugh, everybody hates working here, right? So to me, it starts with leadership of sure, you can have a successful retirement plan and benefit plan and health plan, but it's not going to be, it's not going to be bought into from your people unless they know that it comes from a different place. And this company, we sat down and and they're private equity backed, they're a biotech firm, people all over the country and people locally. And they sat down with us. So we were CEO, C H R O, CFO, TPA, absolutely. And I was like, nope, you're coming. And we had the first meeting, it was not about stuff. It wasn't about investments, it wasn't about even planned design yet. It was simply let's talk about the people. And they downloaded to us how much basically we could tell how much they cared about their people, and they're longing to make sure that all these benefits plans work together and were awesome. And how could we hype them up? And so it started from a different place where a lot of times it's like, okay, you know, how much match do we have to give? And you're like, uh, okay, like we can do that, but that one, that plan has been unbelievably successful because every meeting is that. Yes, we're gonna talk about, you know, uh the alternative investments in private equity market things and all the stuff going on and DOL regs and guides, but it starts from a position of how are your people? And they are very they keep us accountable too of like what's our plan for the next year for educating our people and do we need to get back in front of the team all hands meeting? And they regularly bring us in. They I've I've never seen this, not very much. They have an all-hands meeting on Fridays at 10 a.m. And they have about 50 people in in the office, and they have about a couple hundred all over the world, and it's video, and everybody is jazzed to be there. And I've never, you know, most of the time it's like, oh, like we gotta go. They care so deeply about their people, and their people feel it, and they love working there. And so everything works better. Their hiring processes are more efficient because all their people are their biggest spokespeople. Their benefit plans are bought into because number one, they're rich benefit plans, right? They're not skipping on everything and being like, how do we the lowest cost possible? Rich benefit plans that are all integrated and they're constantly trying to evolve how they approach the conversations with their people. And to me, it honestly lands in a couple of things too, is we we I I didn't coin this term, but the the concept of internal champions, right? So you have a couple of people on their staff that everybody else looks to and they are preaching their benefit plans, including their 401k, of like, no, no, no, do this. And those people were like, done. If this she says

Defining Success By Participant Impact

SPEAKER_02 31:30

to do it, I'm doing it. And so it's this like to me, an ecosystem, like a cultural ecosystem. And the 401k, and they they don't look at it as a line item, they look at it as part of their rich benefits package, and they want to make sure it's as good as possible.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

That's awesome. It sounds like a great place to work.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

I know I laugh. I'm like, if y'all are having an opening, let me know. I'm coming. Right, we'll be able to do that. We'll take a job. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

What are the biggest challenges plan sponsors are bringing to you right now?

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Information overload, nonstop. I had a client last week, and not just product, sales, product, confusion, integrations, aggregators, MA. It's overwhelming. And and you can this is again where I tell younger advisors if you want to create any skill, it's putting yourself in the other person's shoes. You know, we're like, even now, it's becoming more and more challenging to get meetings set up with clients because of how overwhelmed they are. And I've probably got 65 emails in my inbox right now from this last 30 minutes, and I'm sure you do too. And they're getting hammered to the point of where we're having to outsource inboxes to other people. We've talked a little bit about this, but like the clients don't know, they're just trying to do their jobs. And the benefit package for a lot of these teams is one piece, and they have 50 other hats they're wearing. And so we have to be, we try to be very cognizant of telling them we're here to help you filter information. We're gonna let you know what's important and what's not. I had one client that literally pulled up her phone and was like, How do I get this to stop? And it was advisors texting her and saying, like, your 401k is our fees are expensive. And she's like, How do I stop it? And I'm like, I don't think you can. I don't, and it's unfortunate. And so they look to us to go, we just there's too much. And we're like, Yes, we know. So we are now your filter. If it has to be handled, we are gonna let you know. We're gonna handle it if we can. So we try to take as much off of their plate, and that's where that TPA advisor relationship is so important, right? Because if you're processing distributions and loans and all this stuff and investment changes and deferral changes, and I will also say to tie that in, the day-to-day operational aspects of running a 401k plan are becoming increasingly challenging. Um, even like we see payroll integrations breaking all the time right now, or they're not working effectively and they're always sold perfect, right? It's like our 360 integration is the most beautiful thing on earth, and then like it doesn't work. And then now with all of the different plan, you know, you got super catch-up contributions and catch-up contributions and double secret probation catch-up contributions, and yes, it's it's mind, it makes your mind spin. And so just keeping them up to speed with what's important and trying, like you throw that in with like, oh, now we've got guidance coming out left and right that's starting with the executive branch now instead of the other branches, and yeah, it's oh my goodness gracious. And so that's the challenge. And so our first it also makes it challenging. It's one of the reasons why we see a lot of inertia with plant sponsors of like, I don't want to move anything to anybody ever because I would rather just like not look at it, bury my head in the sand, and just hope I don't get in trouble. I I get it. And so we try to really help people understand that like our role with the TPA is to take everything possible off your plate that we can. And the stuff that we can't, we are gonna make sure you know exactly how to handle it and exactly what to do along the way, and also what you don't have to pay attention to. So when we're like right now, we're dealing with you know, the new guidance on alternative investments in 401ks, like it's not super impactful to our clients. So we're freezing it, but we're like, no action needed, like don't worry, you don't have to put a Bitcoin ETF in your 401k right now. But if you ever want to talk about it, we're here. But this thing, this Roth is catch up, catch up is Roth that we just went through. This is important, and we need to make sure that you understand the nuance of that. So it's it's just yeah, it's a challenge of just keeping up as a plan sponsor right now.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna ask you, my next question was gonna be what do you think is most confusing for plan sponsors right now? But you basically already answered that, and everything is most confusing. It is confusing for plan sponsors.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Volume, right? I mean, the the catch up is Roth thing was a good example just because it was this first of all, it was fairly fast. I mean, it was everything everything's changing now. We no longer have this long, drawn-out window where we get to think about how we're gonna handle stuff. It's like, no, this is done. Like, and they and it's changed, like this is important, no, this is important, no, this is important. Oh, here's catch up is Roth. And you're like, holy goodness. And then so for what we do, we actually pause and let everybody else's flurry of activity conversation for a couple of days come in, and then we tell our clients, and then we will brief you on it. And then we come back to them and go, okay, here's what's really happening, and it's not long. And literally, like if you saw the email we sent out in the conversation, it was bullet points. Right. Because, like, you're they're getting these pages and reading the actual, you know, reg and all this stuff. Like, no, no, no. Here's what's happening, here's what you have to do, and and here's your options and how we're gonna do it. And I I do feel, I tell you, I as valuable as they are, I feel for TPAs right now, and I feel for payroll providers, even though I don't love them, because you know, that's not an easy thing to adjust. And and we've got so many different kind of deferral limits that are mixed in now, and it's probably all gonna change over the next couple of years anyway. So I I just tell plan sponsors, I'm like, listen, you cannot mail this in with people who don't know what they're doing anymore. Like, I get it, and no offense, we have some bundled plans. I get it. It sounds the sales, it's such a good sales pitch.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

The sales pitch is great.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

It is, and it I would be the same way, but like, why do I need two companies if I could only have one company? Just talk to anybody who's ever been in a situation, and not all bundled plans are bad. There's a time and a place. Right. But right now, especially if you're on a, I mean, especially if you're in any kind of mid to small market plan, the ability to have checks and balances and redundancies of people who are looking over all of this for you, it's more valuable than I can even convey to a plant sponsor. So we, it's literally the first thing we tell people, uh, plant sponsors, and TPAs think we're crazy or not advisors think we're crazy because we're like, listen, this is our first recommendation to you is to work with a TPA. Like full stop. Because number one, we need to be able to work with them. Like, we're gonna have conversations in detail about what's best for the client and listen to their perspectives and tell them our perspectives, and that's gonna create a really good situation. Whereas the alternative is the bundle person sends you a checklist and says, check what you want. And you're like, they're like, What? Like, yeah, that's not what so you've you've got to have consultants to help you walk through those things, and it starts with a specialist advisor and a TPA that work together as a team.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Yeah, I it's funny you say that because I have a specialist advisor who I love. Like he's great, he's great at what he does. And he told me one time, yeah, I just put all of my little simple safe harbor plans bundled because they don't need a TPA. I'm like, so let me let me understand. You put the doctor's wife who has no HR department, who's running the doctor's practice for him in a bundled plan, and she doesn't know what the definition of compensation is in her plan document.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a it is, and uh it's it's interesting too, because almost always that's a cost-saving scenario, right? Or it's intended to be.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Intended to be, intended to be, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Because yes, when your plan breaks, which it's gonna do, then you are gonna have to correct that with corrections and fees and fines and all the things.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

But the other that's the other thing. You were kind of talking about what you're looking for in a plan sponsor. We're very adamant about if you want a good benefit plan, it costs money. And it's not, to me, it's the best deal in the world, it's not super expensive. But if you're looking, if your primary driver is cost, we won't work with you. It's just it's because it won't lead to good things because you're gonna skimp on all of those functions. You're gonna, oh, bundled's cheaper. We can use the advisor down the street that works in the strip mall that doesn't have any 401ks because he'll do it for free, they say. And we're gonna use the tech record keeper that's only done this for three months. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's not us. So again, it goes back to that culture and buy-in of like, hey, it's it's not it's not super expensive, but it's not free. And and if you want to buy in, then cost cannot be your primary driver. It's definitely a factor because we've just like you, we've seen it. We know that they're probably gonna come back to us in a year or so and be like, everything's broken, everything's broken. We we had that happen. We lost we were in a finalist presentation with an entity a few months ago, and it was between us and a bank. And of course, I'm like, ugh, you gotta be kidding me. Like, but they I don't get upset about that anymore because they don't know, right? They're trying to like you have an hour to tell people what you do and how you do it, and they just don't know. And they were like, Well, they already have our corporate investments, so we'll just use them. And I was like, hey, I get it. Like, I might even do the same thing too. And here's another piece of advice for anybody like part ways as friends. Be my job is to help them and provide value. And I told them, I said, I told you my job was to help you figure out where you needed to be. And it sounds like you did based on what you're trying to do. Like, obviously, we're disappointed because we wanted to work with you, we love your team, but we're here to provide value, we're here to help. So I hope it goes fantastically. We'll check in with you and send you things as they pop up because the world's busy. And if anything ever changes, just let us know. Like, we're here to help. One month later, they call. Remember how you said you were here to help? Well, we need you because they have no idea what they're doing. And it was like, yeah, we that's it's okay. Like, no shame. But people, you will find that like I used to get really upset when we would lose because I'm I think I want everything to be a meritocracy, and I believe that our what we do is as good as it

Sponsor Overload And Broken “Solutions”

SPEAKER_02 41:20

gets or better. But I've learned that again, like, probably with age and a little bit more wisdom of I literally am here to help you. And if you make that decision, that's perfectly fine. Just know we're here to help you along the way if things change, and we're also gonna probably check in with you forever to make sure that everything's good. And oftentimes we just have to wait a little bit and then everything breaks up, and then they go, eh, I don't think they know what they're doing, and they call us.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Yeah, that's that's true. We see that too. So I want to ask you this what should plan sponsors expect from their retirement plan advisor today? And what questions should they be asking themselves if they're wondering whether or not they're getting enough from their advisor?

SPEAKER_02 42:02

That's a great question. It's probably gonna make me think a little bit because I when you do it as long as we've done this, you and I, sometimes you you know you don't know what you're not saying or what you're not conveying to clients. And so if you do lose, it can be very frustrating because you're like, wait, this is what we do. We're the best in the world. I always tell clients, number one, you want to understand first and foremost the the people that you'll be working with on a day-to-day basis, meaning that like the advisory model is so weird because we're all technically independent contractors, even if you work for a big firm, but you know, so if somebody comes in and they're like, Well, I I I work for this firm and our 30,000-person team is gonna help you. And you're like, no, that's not it. So who is who is your number one point person you're gonna be dealing with? And will they be your day-to-day contact? Or what do they have a team, like understanding how it's actually gonna work on a day-to-day? I tell them, you want to find out what percentage of their business is 401k business. Because again, you've got to have somebody like they don't have to do only 401k business, but it needs to be a substantial part of what they do. And then, but the the really all that stuff, we had all of this stuff in writing, and like we used to have people ask about, you know, fiduciary capabilities, can they do 321 or 338? Like, what's their what there's some very easy kind of questions about like how do you handle fiduciary education and training? If you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna be like, well, we, you know, how do you what's your what's your philosophy on participant engagement and financial education? Some really easy questions that you can very quickly uncover whether somebody has any idea what they're doing, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

But to me, this is what I always say. I say, you could, we're all gonna tell you how great we are. Like, I don't, I don't care, nobody's gonna come in here and be like, yeah, I'm not very good, and uh I just want you to give me a shot. I said, What you what you if I if it's me, and this is the way I buy now too, talk to their clients. Ask them for client references that you can speak with and speak to them. And we do that on every everything. I at the end of it, I say, Listen, I could tell you all day how good we are. And like, uh hopefully you can see that this. Is this what we do? It's not a side gig for us, but that doesn't mean we're good on going. The only way to verify that is here's a list of my clients, and I want you to call them. Any of them. We we'll give them a whole list. We don't care. Call them and talk to them, and you find out what it's like to work with us from their mouths. That's how we win because it happens all the time. I had one CFO call me on a Friday afternoon at like five, and I thought I was in trouble because I always think I'm in trouble. And he's like, hey, we we have no choice but to hire your team after talking to two of your clients. And so that's what I tell people is it's not even about like, yes, don't get me, don't, don't get me wrong. The technical stuff is so important. But even on record keepers, when I tell people part of the reason we choose is knowing what it's like working with them ongoing. How quickly do they respond? How knowledgeable are they? Are they nice? All that stuff really matters. And if you're going to be spending that much time together, you want to know exactly what that looks like. And if you have a client that you're serving well and will speak to that and will offer up the willingness to it, it goes so much farther. And you can very, very quickly figure out what a team is really like to work with. Same thing on the TPA side. I'd say the same thing. Like I tell people we have a TPA that we work with on almost all of our plans locally, and I say, like, talk to their clients. Like they love them, and there's a reason for that.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

Yeah, I agree. That clients are the best way. You're you're right. Where do you see the biggest shortfalls in services that many advisors provide to retirement plan clients?

SPEAKER_02 45:29

I think we're we're mailing it in a little bit too much on participant education and wellness. What I mean by that is it's hard because participant education is not scalable in an easy way. I think we can scale it better than we're doing now, but we are far too quick to throw an app in somebody's face or a tech tool and say, here's your financial education. And especially now in the age of AI, and I love AI, we use it all the time. It's integrated in so much of what we do, but it is not a human. And what we find, even on the wealth side, 401k participants, it does not matter. The ability to have a conversation with somebody and answer their questions is the most powerful tool you have in the tool bag. So on the advisor side, we encourage, we encourage advisors, number one, to not just assume that those employees have everything they need because they have tech tools. What we found is that they too are overwhelmed and they're overwhelmed by how much tech they have access to. So it's like, oh, you've got the record keeper website who's got 50 tools, and you have to go down a you know a psychological financial journey to even enroll. And it's like, golly, you're killing me. And then you've got this tool and that tool and this app and this app. And they're just like, I just want to know what Roth means. And so we tell them, like, you can scale that. It's always people always say, like, well, if you've got more than 10 people, like, no, no, no. We do it with big companies, you do it in a different way, but getting creative and going, what is the best strategy for educating these people based on that company? So it's obviously different if it's 3,000 people, but it doesn't mean it's mailed in. I've got a buddy, Mark, who's in Rochester, and he actually comes to Tennessee to enroll and meet with a manufacturing facility they have a couple of times a year, every single time. And it's face-to-face, it's one-on-ones, and they're one of the biggest plan producing groups in the country. So shout out to Mark and his team, but it's the stuff that is not sexy and not always scalable in the way that we like to think about it. But it's the stuff that moves the needle the most. And what I tell people is that stuff is what eventually scales your business because you you develop relationships and a reputation, and it's a longer-term thing, right? It's not the quick sale, but you are creating clients and participants that will go to bat on your behalf forever and that you get to see through. And if you know, if like for us, we do wealth and they retire and they're like, we want you to manage our money for us. And we're like, okay, we appreciate that. So I think that's the side. Everything else, we're just trying to add complexity for complexity's sake a lot of times. You know, it's like, what new everybody wants CITs? I'm like, okay, give me a break. Fundamentally, like, stick to the fundamentals and do those very, very well. Develop good relationships with your client and handle all that stuff, and then figure out the best way to get those people engaged with their benefit programs and their 401k and empower them to do so by educating them on financial planning topics in addition to the 401k.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

How do you think an advisor should help the plan sponsor um measure whether or not their retirement plan is actually working?

SPEAKER_02 48:33

I think I think the metrics that you mentioned earlier are a good place to start. I think they're absolutely you're looking at participation rates and fee benchmarks and analysis, right? Like we want to, we we kind of go in and do what we call a checkup. Like we just want to see what's the state of the union right now. And what we find is that as much as people say that you should never talk about funds, fees, or fiduciaries, like, well, that's where it starts. And usually we can go in and immediately go, okay, these fun, there's no process. We're looking for process, right? And if you know this, if you go to I I'd say eight out of 10 401k plans, you're like, just tell me about your process for how you select the investments. They're gonna be like, What? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

What?

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Yeah. And so really very quickly, we go, okay, well, there's just no process in place. And so we're going to take them through the process. And along the way, we talk about fiduciary education. Along the way, you're educating of why you're doing this, right? It doesn't have to be this formal training program, although those are fine. It can be like, okay, we're going to start here and we're going to start with the low-hanging fruit. So we need to do a fee benchmark analysis because you hadn't done that. You've been with XYZ record keeper for 15 years and never repriced. So we need to look at that. You know, we need to look at, we need to look at the investments, we need to look at the fees, and then we need to look at the participant education and look at, you know, your enrollment rates, your participation rates, and your deferral rates. It's kind of like to me, I tell people, you're going at first, you're it's like you're going to your GP and getting a health check. And it's all those things matter for sure. And you then you get to take that and then start to add and expand on it and develop those things out and add different types of things that you're reviewing. And planned design obviously needs to be reviewed at the beginning. So it's just baseline activity and then tracking as much of that as you can over time. Actually, though, we're we're arguably more concerned with our kind of satisfaction quotients with our clients than we are with anything of just we survey them every single year and just make sure we ask them. Because we have we have clients that the plan design is not going to be as effective because they don't have as much money and it's just not designed the way you might want it to be. And we have people that don't believe in auto-enroll or auto increase, just they have personal belief. Like it's not for me to force them to do those things. Obviously, the traditional, maybe their participation rates are gonna be a little lower or their deferral rates are gonna be a little lower. I don't necessarily mean think that means it's unsuccessful. It just

What Sponsors Should Demand From Advisors

SPEAKER_02 50:50

gives us a lot of things to work on as we have those meetings. But at the end of the year, every year, it's just like, hey, tell us what we're doing well and what we could do better and what you want more of and what you want less of. Like, let the client tell you. And for it's funny, the one thing I found is they are usually perfectly fine with fewer meetings.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

You know, it's like we always think we're like, we've got to meet quarterly, and they're like, no, we don't. We know you're doing your job. And I'm like, all right, we'll just never say we didn't offer because we'll meet if you want to.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

We can't hardly get ours to meet with us annually.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

I mean I get it, they're overwhelmed, right? Like another meeting is just another meeting. So as long as they know that you're working behind the scenes, then yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

And if the plan is clean and doesn't have any problems, you're sitting there like, yeah, your plan's in great shape. No problems. 5,500 looks good.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

Why did we meet?

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Right. On our side, it's interesting because right now there's so much that you could talk about just because of all the regulation and legislation. But again, we we've now just go, hey, here's what we would be talking about. Here's anything that's action-oriented, or if you want us to, we can just send you the info, we don't have to meet. Like, so it's again just ask the ask and they'll tell you.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

When you look at the retirement plan industry as a whole, where do you see the biggest shortfalls?

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Oh, goodness gracious. I just think when I I kind of look at the industry and think that we are the shortfall is actually by how much we're adding. We're constantly, and I don't I don't fault them for it, but we're constantly just adding stuff, tools and new investment types and new investment options and integrations and manage this and manage that, and it's just oh everything again, it makes sense because you have to grow and you have to iterate whatever company you are, that's how you drive revenue, and there's so much fee compression on the record keeper side that I don't blame them at all. But all it does is add confusion. Like if you look at the last 10 years, what I and I haven't thought about this, so I don't know the answer, but if I had to identify what the most impactful changes in our industry have been over the last 10 years, it hasn't come from product development, right? Like it's just it just hasn't maybe like potentially auto enroll features, and I don't even love auto enroll, but like they work. And if you had to get deferral rates up, the simplicity of a 401k of being like save a certain amount of money for a long period of time and you're gonna have retirement money.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Right?

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Like everything else is kind of fodder, as much as we say it's not, and we're so focused on like trying to win the participant engagement battle, but by doing so, we just keep layering tools, just more and more tools. And what I we see on the front lines is that employees, young and old, are like, no, we don't we don't even know what any of this means anymore. We don't know what button to push anymore. Right. I mean, trying to get an employee to enroll online can be a nightmare. And so we have seen a reversion to in-person meetings with paper enrollment. So if anything, I like it because uh, you know, the industry keeps yapping about whatever, and it's fine. Like we've got to know what you know the EBSA is talking about and everything like that. But in the end, it's the simplicity of conversations with people and just really impacting their lives of hey, if we can get you to a certain savings rate for a certain amount of time, the investments are probably gonna take care of themselves. Nothing's guaranteed. Uh and then you're gonna have a good retirement when you get older and you're gonna feel a lot more confident in what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

If you could change one thing about how retirement plans are designed, delivered, or communicated, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 54:16

I I would say I think people, I would love it if they would spend more time engaging the TPA on plan design prior to contract entry. Meaning that, like, you know, you get into these things and you just kind of a lot of advisors and even plan sponsors mail it in on the plan design. And I think it, I don't think it's I don't, I don't think it's their fault. I don't think they realize how much is available to them in terms of really digging into a beauty, I call it a beautiful plan design that really matches what they're trying to accomplish. And then and then adjusting that along the way, right? It's not this stagnant thing. It's one of the reasons we have the TPA in, if possible, on at least a meeting a year, is to be like, let's read, let's revisit it. Is the plan design in the current form still functioning? What might we want to look at? And a lot of times it's as simple as if you're not a safe harbor plan, looking at your match or profit sharing situation and getting creative with it, right? They don't realize that you could, hey, if we're trying to encourage enrollment, we could stretch the match out. And because we know that most people are gonna save up to that match level. So maybe let's not just keep it at 3%, maybe let's stretch it out and do a lower portion of the dollar so that encourages people to put in six instead. So just having that. I love, I love sitting in there with those groups and the TPA and just going, let's just dream a little bit. Like, what what do you all love? What do you not love? We had a client this week that had, you know, had a three-year vesting schedule, and they're like, we really wish we could change that to one. And we were like, you can. You can. You can. Guess what? Good news, you can. It's really easy. So it's just a lack of, I think, on the front end, being able to have that conversation together of going, hey, there's a lot you can do here. And we're gonna help you figure out where a good place to start is, and then we're gonna provide you with ideas. That's to me, value add, right? It's not reactive. It's hey, have you thought about this? You don't have to, but have you thought about this? It might make sense for you.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

What do you think is the most underused strategy in the retirement plan world today?

SPEAKER_02 56:07

I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I would probably say auto enroll. Okay. Um, and as much as I hate to say that, and I say that because I I just I'm I'm a personal responsibility guy, so I'd love, I I've had to be, I want to have strong convictions loosely held. And what I mean by that is like when I, you know me, if I believe in something, I'm like, no, no, no, we're gonna fight about it. Auto enroll is one of those things early on, I was like, no, like if they want to save, let them save. And we have a lot of clients who are still like that. But I was repositioned a little bit when you understand the nature of how other benefit plans

Fix Plan Design And Keep It Human

SPEAKER_02 56:40

work and how so often we live in an opt-in or opt-out society. Uh it it, I just realized like there's a different perspective on that of it, does make sense in a lot of ways. Um, especially if you do to me, I think it requires that you do really good communication of you don't have to be in this, right? I don't want, I don't want people to feel like they were tricked into getting into a 401k. So when we have it, it's like, no, no, no, this is complete, you are in, but you don't have to be. So you're more than, and you know, people just don't do action either way. So it works. And when we're trying to get coverage for everybody, and honestly, it's sometimes, you know, when you're for me, when I was younger, you just don't know what you don't know, and you're not thinking about 40 years from now. And so having somebody that was like, like I remember they my dad told me he was like, sign up, six percent. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but okay. But okay, I'll do it. Yeah. Right. So I think that that is a is just the simplicity of it is to me a beautiful thing. And when it works, it works really well.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

So as we wrap it up, what message would you like to leave with plan sponsors, advisors, or policymakers who want to help more American workers prepare for retirement?

SPEAKER_02 57:51

Keep the end goal, the end goal. Here's what I mean. The end user is the employee, the participant. Always. Everything we do, we should be thinking about them. That's and and I and the the business, obviously, but those all of the functionalities, fiduciary investments, like all the stuff, CITs and management, like everything is just like to me, they're people's faces in my mind. Every conversation that we have. And that's why we require culture buy-in, is because I just have had too many of them. And when you have really hard ones, and then you have people that get older and pass away, it's just life is short, and these you know the impact you can have on Sally, who's 21, or John, who's 64. And so everything, everything for us comes down to that. So I just tell anybody who's doing this like, one of the things I love about 401k plans is the complexity of it. I love that you and I are part lawyer and part accountant and part investment advisor and part educator. And like, I love that. Yeah. And all of that wraps up to impact that person who works at that manufacturing facility. That's that's what we're going for, right? So we can do all of this extremely well, but just keep those people in your mind because everything we're doing is really about them.

SPEAKER_03 59:01

Yep. Totally agree. Grant, thank you so much for sharing your time and your insights and your perspective with us today. It is so inspiring to hear from someone as passionate about the retirement plan industry as you are. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of The Gap. If you believe that you have an innovative approach to closing the gaps in retirement savings for Americans and you would like to share your ideas, let me know. My contact information is in the show notes. If you want to get in touch with Grant, his contact information will be in the show notes as well. Don't forget to follow, share, and leave a review if you've enjoyed this conversation. Together, we can keep closing the gap. One plan, one policy, and one participant at a time.