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Welcome to the GAP, a podcast designed exclusively for financial advisors and employers seeking to enhance their retirement plan offerings and bridge the gap in America's retirement security.
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We talk to change makers and dive into innovative strategies, compliance updates, and best practices to help you provide top-notch retirement solutions, stay ahead of the future, and ensure a secure financial future for all Americans.
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Here's your host, Shannon Edwards.
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Hello, I'm Stan Edwards, your host, and the owner of TriStar Pension Consulting.
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I would like to welcome all listeners to our podcast with a special welcome to those of you listening for the first time.
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I started this podcast because I have a passion for helping Americans achieve a dignified retirement.
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By sharing ideas, this podcast is just designed to help close the gaps that America has in retirement savings and coverage.
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By doing so, we can improve the lives of working Americans.
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Today we are joined by two seasoned leaders in the retirement plan space, Will Hackler and Jason Grant.
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Both of them bring decades of expertise in helping employers and advisors build better retirement outcomes.
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Will Hackler is the chairman of Integrated Pension Group and leads direct selling for the institutional sales and marketing team and integrated pension services.
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With 30 years of experience in the administration of 401k pension and profit sharing plans, Will has a deep understanding of what it takes to design, monitor, and optimize retirement plans of all shapes and sizes.
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He is also the founder of Integrated 401k, a process that aligns retirement plans with broader wealth accumulation goals.
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And on top of that, he has won Chapar Champion on the Retire Holics more than any other listener.
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Joining him is Jason Grants, CEO and Chief Revenue Officer at Integrated Pension Services.
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Jason is a nationally recognized leader with nearly three decades in the retirement plan industry.
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He is a respected speaker and author and has been widely published in many industry journals and publications.
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His main focus is providing clarity on often misunderstood retirement plan topics.
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He is the co-creator and primary author of the 401k Plan blog, a blog dedicated to clarifying complex retirement plan topics with an eye towards coaching best practices.
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He also currently serves with me on the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries Leadership Council.
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Okay, welcome, boys.
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I am so glad to have you here.
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And I know this is going to be lots of fun.
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I want to start first with your personal journeys.
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Both of you.
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What first drew each of you to the retirement plan industry and what keeps you passionate about this work today?
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Those are some impressive bios, Shannon.
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I don't know where you Well, I will say I got them off of your website, LinkedIn, and ChatGPT helped.
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But they make you sound really good, Will.
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Yeah, it's like a couple of impressive people there.
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Exactly.
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I might have rewritten some of that at some point for you.
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So I'll start with mine.
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Mine is fairly simple.
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My father suckered me into the family business when I graduated college.
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As you know, I've told the story a couple of times.
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Went and got a finance degree, was looking around for a job.
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And it's really funny because I had a couple of offers that uh of jobs that are kind of like what Jason started with, but I chose not to take those, which I don't know if that was a good decision or not, but you know, we're here anyways.
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And then uh, you know, worked in that the business with my father for a long time and just love the retirement plan side, you know, kept it was very interesting.
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You know, got the first designation for MASPA on the QKA side of it.
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And then I was like, well, I gotta do all this continuing education, so I'll just go take another test because you know that's a great way to get continuing education credits and to uh take care of that.
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So I just you know kept adding tests on and adding designations on until I realized like I can't keep up with all these designations now.
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Right.
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So you're a collector of letters too.
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So I used to collect letters, now I'm slowly like letting them fade off to kind of run the business piece of it.
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You know, but JC came on a few years ago, so we've had some great growth.
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Uh been very fortunate with a couple of uh good decisions over the years, business-wise.
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Uh great growth, and certainly enjoy having the conversations with business owners about plans, uh, the CPAs, partners that they have, uh certainly some advisors at different times when we, you know, partner up with them.
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Uh, but just trying to make every plan that we touch better.
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Jason.
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Yeah, so my journey is probably more what I would call the typical 401k industry professional journey, in that I got into this business after I graduated college by accident, like the rest of us, most of us have by accident gotten into this business.
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So I I went to Rutgers University, I finished in 1995.
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I was kind of noodling around working at you know Joe Jobs at a bookstore and waiting tables, things like that, until I was trying to find my first quote unquote real job.
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And a friend of mine, his wife was managing a call center for a group that was focused and specialized in 403B and 457B plants.
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And I uh needed a job.
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So he, you know, we got got me in there for an interview and I got my first uh professional gig and you know, got my series six, my 63, got my year of experience, uh, met a few good people in the industry who I'm still friends with today, who I still who are still in the industry today.
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One of them went to work for Alliance Capital.
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I followed them there, working in the 401k department in the operations on the record keeping side, and then worked my way up to uh internal 401k wholesaler.
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Eventually um got limited on my on the opportunity to move to the field because the only field positions would have taken me away from where I live uh and would have required us to uproot.
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And so we made a decision that we weren't going to do that and uh ended up getting my first field wholesaling job in 2005 with a company called First Mercantile Trust Company, which is now somewhere in the underneath the American Trust umbrella.
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About three years after that, I left First Merc and went to work with uh friend of ours, friend of yours, uh Pete Swisher, Dr.
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Greg Caston, uh David Blanchett, and a few other well-known industry people over at Unified Trust Company.
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And that's where I really found my success, found my feet.
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It's when I decided to um, we were an academic firm.
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It's uh when I decided to start writing, start publishing, wrote my first paper, started the blog.
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I've now done I haven't written on the blog in a little while, but it's it I wrote on it for about 15 years and really uh made my bones.
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You know, I worked my way up to from field from covering the Northeast to management, a partnership over at that firm, uh, until we also sold our company to what is now American Trust.
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And that's when I left and joined and became partners with Will, who actually up until that point had been a client of mine.
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So a little bit more of a typical story as far as uh origins, but our origin story on how we found each other is a little bit more interesting.
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In 2000, about 15 years ago, so I co-authored a paper with David Blanchett uh called Quantifying the Drivers of Retirement Success, where we wanted we had observed that when we would go to these conferences like the Aspa conference, at the time they called the Aspen 4K Sales Summit.
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Now it's called Napa.
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Back then it wasn't, but we'd observed at all these industry events that huge amounts of money were being spent trying to convince us at booth A that their mutual funds were the best mutual funds.
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And then we go to booth B and they would say, no, no, our funds are the best funds, and on and on and on and on.
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And I just looked at him and I said, you know, if we only just spent as much time, energy, and resources on impacting the things that matter the most to running successful plans, we would not have the problems that we have in our society.
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We would not have the savings gap, we would not have coverage gaps.
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And so that kind of hatched an idea.
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So I wrote this paper called Quantifying the Drivers of Retirement Success.
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And I actually had the unique experience, which I recommend highly, Shannon, of being in an audience when somebody quoted me without me knowing they were going to quote me to me.
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And people all like necturn was like, you know, it was like a record scratch from my point of view.
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You know, they all kind of turned and looked at me like, you wrote that.
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I was like, I wrote that.
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Anyway, later on in the conference, I saw Will, who I'd never met before, and he was talking to somebody else that I knew, and I just wanted to say hello to that person.
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I weap and said hello to that person, and I saw he was holding in his hand my white paper.
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And so I said to him, uh, hey, what what do you got there?
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And he starts going, Oh, it's this great white paper, you know, you know, it talks about everything that we believe in.
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And I just sort of held my name tag up at him and he went, he connected the dot.
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He went, That's you.
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And he put his arm around me and said, Come on, let's go have a beer, little buddy.
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And it was love at first sight, right?
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You guys just that's how we met.
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And then um, it wasn't long after that that we realized we were both Aspen the Benefits Council liaisons for our respective local chapters.
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We ran into each other at other events.
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We started doing business together, and 10, 12 years later, he's trying to get another grown-up in the room to help him run this thing.
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So he probably needs another grown-up in the room.
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I'm not gonna lie.
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That's been my direct experience, yes.
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That's awesome.
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That's a great story.
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So you both work with a lot of different employers and financial advisors.
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What do you love most about the work you do every day?
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Anyone?
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Uh yeah, I was waiting for him to go.
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I usually wait for him to go because I talk more than he does.
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Yeah.
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I like sort of the solving the problems, right?
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Saying, here's a situation you have, you know, how can we make it better?
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Obviously, I've been using this, you know, moniker, the 401k fix the guy.
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So I looked at all of them as how can I fix the problem?
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How can we make it better?
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And, you know, I try to do that every day in all the conversations that we have.
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Sort of sort through all the stuff that's happening there and look for the key drivers and what we can do to make that plan better.
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Yeah.
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So that is that's fun.
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Echoing what he says, I agree with all those things.
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I would say that I get a charge the most out of all of our little minor, minor victories.
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The major wins everyone gets a charge over, right?
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You close a big account, you know, you solve a real hurdle that you're experiencing in your business.
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Those are all like they charge you off because you've solved a major, a major problem for yourself where you've you've done something very good.
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But I really like it when I watch something that I sort of imparted to another team member that's like a learning lesson, or I've watched one of our younger employees do something that I know that they've seen me do, but they did it without asking for help.
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And I and it's caused us to win a small piece of business, or it's caused us to solve a small problem that is going to have big dividends.
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And so I get a charge off of all of our little wins, our minor victory laps, the things that we do in our Tuesday morning meetings that cause us all to give snaps to our to a specific teammate who we might call out because they did something that we're proud of.
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So to me, that I get a charge out of that.
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That's the business owner side of me, watching us have our little successes in celebrating them.
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And then on the professional side, I mean, I know that over 30 years, both of us have impacted thousands of people in a positive way, even mostly indirectly, candidly.
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It's by designing plans to impact higher savings rates and the higher to impact higher uh contribution rates and higher participation rates.
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Those things get done at a thousand-foot level, but they trickle down to have a real positive impact on the end user, which are the participants.
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And knowing that is what gets me up and gets me to work every single day.
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Yeah, I that's what I've said before too, is like I am truly happy when I pull up to my office, right?
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I know that I'm going to work and I'm going to make a difference in somebody's life that day.
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And that's the that's the thing that keeps me coming back to work and off the golf course during the week is knowing that we are making a difference.
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The longer that we're in this industry, the more you can see it.
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And every time, you know, I get to put in a new plan for a company that's never had one before, I think those things really make my day.
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Okay.
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Tell us about integrated pension services.
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What makes your approach to retirement plan design and administration stand out in today's market when there's so much noise around us about, you know, tech and you can put a plan in in eight days and this only takes 30 minutes and this is all hands off and automated.
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What makes you all, because I know you're not like that, but what makes your approach really stand out in the market when there is so much noise for all of the advisors and the CPAs and the business owners right now?
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You know, we have to make ourselves stand out somehow.
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Can we answer that by saying we stand out because we don't do any of that?
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Yes, you can.
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So yeah.
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One of the things that, you know, that I make sure that we always do is when we're talking plan design and we're talking recommendations for plans, you know, we put together what I've dubbed our study piece.
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And we, you know, walk those business owners and CFOs and HR people through those and CPAs, you know, through those studies to see, okay, if you do this, this is what the effect is.
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Like these are the benefits out of it, these are the you know, pluses and minuses that you can get out of it.
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And nine times out of ten, we get to the end, and somebody says to me, Well, what should I do?
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And I'm like, I don't know.
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Like you, I'm just giving you these bases, like, you know, I need to know more about like your situation to make a real recommendation for that.
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And that's where we're a little different, where we work with a lot of advisors, a lot of financial planners, and help them run plans for their clients, right?
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And you know, we have this moniker that we use in our industry that you know, or in our firm, the LIM.
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It's but and I'm not gonna go down the piece of that, it's another acronym, I'll drink for that.
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Uh but uh, you know, I always go back and say, Have you done any planning?
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Like, how much do you need to be saving?
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Because that's where the driver is behind all this.
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Like, it's great.
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Like, I could design these awesome plans for you, but if it's too much or too little of what you need to be doing, then the plan doesn't make sense, right?
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So, you know, there's times we certainly will turn stuff away and say, hey, go do the SEP or the simple or you know, something in that direction, right?
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Because you're just you that's all that is necessary for you.
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Other times we're gonna say, Yeah, hey, here's the 401k with profit sharing, and you should bolt on cash balance because you're behind the eight ball and you need to put a lot away.
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And you know, let's do something like that.
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And other times, you know, we have conversations too and say just like, hey, based on what you've told me, the the plan doesn't make sense for you in your situation.
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And I think that's a piece that's missing sometimes, you know.
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I mean, I I have a couple of different uh thoughts on the question too, because you know, at one level, uh there's the industry side, right?
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The industry uh is the great distraction.
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That's the way I look at it.
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The industry is constantly uh trying to uh tell us about all these, and I'll put big air quotes around the phrase, game changers.
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It's a game changer, it's a game changer.
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Nothing there is no game changer in my experience.
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Uh there are things the game is always in motion, always changing.
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There's always new things coming into the market, there's old things getting phased out.
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And so being in a practice setting, we just have to be aware of what's out there and see whether or not it has applicability to our clients or not.
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And so there are things that the industry talks about a lot that we just simply don't use.
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We just discard because we find it to be distracting from our main mission, which our main mission is to uh create and optimize our as many plans as possible.
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We design plans to maximize participation rate, we design plans to maximize savings rate.
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We are on the advisory side, we optimize the plans by making sure we engage clients in a prune process, but we don't get overly complex because we find that the more complex you get with clients, the more likely you are to lose them during the process.
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Even if you're a great communicator, which I think we're pretty good at it, we still have clients that we know we can see them on paper what they should be doing, but we still have to get them from A to B.
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And sometimes that's a step process, and you have to resist the urge to sort of like dump the entire like bucket of all your tools on top of them and just sort of say, okay, one thing at a time.
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Here's what we're gonna do first.
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We're gonna make sure that that works, we're gonna get that up and running, we're gonna make sure it works smoothly, then we're gonna do this, then we're gonna do that, and we're gonna keep evolving it so that eventually you have as close to a perfect retirement plan for you and your business as possible.
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But on the uh practice side, we've developed an approach to the business, which I think it's it's not unique, but it's uncommon.
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So Integrated Pension Group is actually two different companies.
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It's integrated pension services, the third-party administration firm, it's integrated pension advisors, the retirement plan consulting and advisory practice.
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And the two were at one point just you know started like a traditional what I call producing TPA in the sense that Will and before that, his father Bill, they ran their local TPA shop in central Massachusetts.
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And if you drew a 50-mile radius around their business, that's where all their clients were.
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Most of their business was stemmed from their own sourcing, right?
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They meet some accountants, they get some referrals, the business gets in the door and they deploy both services.
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What eventually happened was Will and I started talking about developing wholesale model.
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And this is even before I joined the practice.
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Will got uh Will was the business was originally called Hackler Associates, and he was being he was being approached by and he was approaching a firm called Integrated Partners.
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And at the time, his pitch to them was going to be if you bring me in, I'll become the 40K arm of the RIA firm.
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And so Will started doing that.
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And then what we f what he found, I think even earlier than when I was ready to hear it, was that it needed a wholesaler approach, but he was not a wholesaler.
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And so I he needed somebody, he got Will's 10,000 times better with CPAs and accountants than I am.
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Like he just is.
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He could speak tax, he could talk the business owner language that they talk.
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But when it comes to advisors, he needed a wholesaler to be part of the group.
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So I came in initially to kind of take over that side.
00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:20.319
And it was during the pandemic that with the timing was right.
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:23.599
And what eventually happened was we had exponential growth.
00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.440
First year out, we did three times more business than we'd ever done before.
00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:30.079
And it's been consistently going at that pace.
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:40.559
And it's because of the dual approach that Will can focus on the accountants, he can focus on the relationships that he's developed and built over the years in the areas that he's really good at.
00:19:40.640 --> 00:20:04.480
And I can focus on working with the advisors using this relationship-based wholesaling model, which is now including us doing a lot of splitting where we go to advisors and we say to them, Hey, you guys either A, don't know anything about retirement plans, B, know a little, but C, it doesn't matter how much you know because you don't like retirement plans, which is the majority of them.
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:16.240
And we say to them, we don't work with individuals, we don't do financial planning, we don't do wealth management, we don't sell insurance products, we're not a competitor to them for the business they want.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:23.119
And we can help them run the 401k plan and optimize it with and take away the heavy lifting from them.
00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:34.079
And so because we're we've built the facilities to do business as it's basically a it's the specialist model, but without the boundaries of a specific broker dealer ecosystem.
00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:47.039
And it's really worked well, especially with the advisors that are, you know, they have five plans, they have 10 plans, they have 15 plans, but they're not specialists, they don't want to be, and they're very happy to let us just come in and do our work.
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:56.799
And then they get to like capture all the stuff they want, which is the people that are retiring, the wealth management, the other benefits, the business owner account, whatever.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:20:57.279
Right.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:20:59.599
No, that's very interesting what you guys have done.
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:14.240
Will, can you share with me and my audience how integrated 401k, how the integrated 401k process helps align a retirement plan with broader wealth building strategies for both employers and participants?
00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:17.519
Yeah, I I touched on that a little bit already, Shannon.
00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:26.880
Like, you know, where we stop at the end and don't go through that recommendation process without knowing the financial planning end of it, right?
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:41.680
How much they need to save, what's important on that side of it, so that the plan fits what the business and do is doing, what the owner is looking for, you know, what the employees need in order, you know, to match it up.
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:50.880
And that, you know, that's the big component of it is stopping, making sure that these things are matching up before you take any further steps with it.
00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:53.200
And like Jason had said earlier, right?
00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:55.920
Sometimes it's walking before you run.
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.599
So we may start with one strategy, knowing we're going to build on it.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.759
But, you know, making sure not to put a strain on the business, right?
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:09.920
Making sure that they get through those steps and understand it before, you know, they take it on any further.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.119
So thank you.
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:18.400
Jason, you said one of your passions is simple is helping simplify complex retirement plan topics.
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:20.240
And that's you've written a lot about that.
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:29.359
What do you think are some of the most misunderstood aspects of plan design or compliance that advisors and plan sponsors need to understand better?
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:30.160
Oh wow.
00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:31.599
That's a big question.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:37.839
So I mean with the clients, I think most of it depends on where you get them and the where you meet them.
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:42.400
Do you meet them when they're starting a plan or you meet them when you're taking over a plan that already existed?
00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:53.920
So when we meet a client when they're just starting up, in order to get a client to really from A to B, you have to recognize that you're not going to be able to teach them all the things they need to know in the first meeting.
00:22:54.160 --> 00:23:02.079
And so the their fiduciary responsibilities, right, as a plan administrator or as a business owner, are many.
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:04.880
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of them.
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:09.359
We just simply say to the client, look, you don't need to know all these things.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:11.359
Here are the main things you need to know.
00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:18.880
And then make sure that they understand that, like at the end of the day, it's our job to give them the best counseling and the best advice.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:22.640
It's not our job to implement our counseling and advice.
00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:25.599
It's our job to tell them what we think.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:29.599
And then if they tell us they agree, then we help them to implement the things.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:34.559
We're helping, we're helps, we're not taking over in the process.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:48.480
Now, I know there's a lot of stuff in the marketplace now, you know, complex things like pooled employer plans and there's uh discretionary fiduciary services that are out there on both sides, you know, on the investment side and on the plan administration side, that are supposed to do those things.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:55.519
But at the end of the day, the clients still need to also have some autonomy and they still there the buck still stops with them.
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:56.000
Right.
00:23:56.079 --> 00:23:56.319
Yeah.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:02.160
And so if they don't know that, then they will eventually get it wrong.
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:03.440
Something will happen.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:18.240
And you know, recently there was an episode of another podcast that I listened to where that was discussed, where it was discussed that at the end of the day, the employer can never get away from being a named planned fiduciary over their plan, even when they adopt a pooled employer plan.
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:18.640
Right.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.319
They still have the underlying responsibility to their employees.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.920
And so that's a fairly that's kind of an old or oldie but a goody.
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:38.400
The other thing that I wanted that I make sure that I let all advisors know, because they're all going to experience this as well as the employers, is that retirement plans should be viewed as if they were machines.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:42.960
And if you don't maintain your machine, it will break.
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:49.440
And so there's got to be a you can't just we set it up and up, we never have to look at it again.
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:55.519
There has to be this constant oversight, this constant tightening of the, you know, tightening with the wrench.
00:24:55.680 --> 00:25:01.759
There's got to be this constant maintenance, otherwise, you know, that we get brought in to come and fix the plan because it broke.
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:02.720
Right.
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:03.440
Exactly.
00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:04.880
At least annually, right?
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.319
At least an annual tune-up or something needs to be done.
00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:08.720
Yeah.
00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:09.200
Agreed.
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.119
Using analogies like that, that the plan is a machine and needs to be maintained.
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:26.319
That's how we simplify our communication to get people to sort of, you know, we try to meet them where they are, not try and bring them to where we are, because we could get we could go into the very deep end of the yeah, definitely.
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:28.400
We do like to go down rabbit holes, don't we?
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:34.480
So all of us know that the retirement landscape is shifting rapidly.
00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:38.000
Our whole industry is, it feels like is changing daily.
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:51.279
What trends or changes do you all see right now that advisors and employers must pay attention to in order to stay compliant and competitive, competitive as employers, competitive as advisors?
00:25:51.599 --> 00:25:51.920
Wow.
00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:55.519
Uh there again, you have very loaded questions here, Shannon.
00:25:56.559 --> 00:25:58.480
I try, I try to keep you on your toes.
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:11.519
So, you know, one of the things we wanted to make sure we bring, you know, across, and Jason's touched on it a little bit here, is you know, the employers need to understand you someone at the company needs to take ownership and running the plan.
00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:12.480
Yeah, right.
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:15.680
You can't just set it up, you can't you just move on.
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:29.839
Someone has to take ownership, whether that's the business owner, the CFO, the HR person, your larger firms, you know, whatever, you have a committee of people, but someone needs to take ownership of it because it can't be done by us.
00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:37.440
It can't just be done by the industry, it can't just be done by you know setting it up on the website and running from there.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:42.319
There is, you know, those pieces have to be done, and someone has to take ownership with it.
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:54.480
So find someone in the company that's willing to take ownership on it, and they can, you know, communicate with service providers like ourselves, right, and get those steps done and manage the plan well.
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:59.839
On the advisor side of it, you know, I think we've talked about this a little bit too.
00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:05.839
It's like you either get into this side of it in the retirement plan space or partner with someone.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:06.559
Right, right.
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:07.279
Get a good partner.
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:15.519
Or get into it and know it and make it a, you know, a substantial piece of what you're doing.
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:21.039
And I think that that so many financial advisors would benefit from finding a good partner.
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:28.079
I mean, I have one financial advisor that I work with, and he has told me for like 10 years, I hate 401k plans, I'm never going to do them.
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:31.599
And we I actually drug him to Napa Summit one time.
00:27:31.839 --> 00:27:32.960
It was because it was in Vegas.
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:34.319
That's why he agreed to go.
00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:41.519
And we had a long talk and he was finally convinced, and now he loves them, but he has someone in his office who does them.
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:43.759
He doesn't do them because he hates them.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:52.000
And I think that that if more advisors took that approach and partnered with somebody, then I think we'd be everybody would be happier, right?
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:53.119
I fully agree.
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:54.240
I mean, that's our business model.
00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:54.960
I mean, that's okay.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:59.039
That is really what we tell advisors all the time is we know they don't like it.
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:01.119
You know, we just tell them, we're like, well, hey, we know you don't like it.
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:02.000
We're not offended by it.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:02.400
We love it.
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:02.640
Right.
00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:03.599
So we do.
00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:11.920
But if they ask me to work with like an individual client on their individual issues, I'm gonna, you know, I can I'm gonna be running as fast as I can the other direction.
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:23.119
Um so to, you know, along what Will was saying, I fully agree with the comment about either be in the space or partner with someone who's in the space or get out of the space.
00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:27.119
Like that's kind of where the where I view it from the advisor's point of view.
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:33.039
No, there shouldn't be there really shouldn't be people dabbling in it without a lot of experience or know-how.
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:36.880
It's it's too dangerous a spot uh for most advisors, but a lot of them still do it.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:49.839
When it comes to like the you know the landscape itself, secure 1.0, secure 2.0, the things that I think give me the most uh pause when it comes to like pay attention items, it's the data.
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:57.440
It's we have the most guar like most industries, like most things, garbage in, garbage out applies here in our system.
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:06.799
But because we're such a data-rich and data heavy environment and it relies almost totally on one specific set of data, which is the census data.
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:13.519
That what we try and impart very heavy, heavy-handedly, actually, is that we want all the data.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:20.400
We don't want you to do not take any license on picking and choosing who you think should and shouldn't be included.
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:41.920
Just include everybody because we need to know who the part-timers are, we need to know who the how many hours they work, we need to know all this stuff because as sure as we're sitting here, there's somebody that didn't include someone on their census and it won't get discovered for five years, and then when it does, we're gonna have to go in and do makeup contributions and get the thing corrected.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:52.880
And it was all because the person who sent in the data said, Oh, they're only gonna be here for they were only here for the summer and they don't count, and they didn't leave and they forgot that they didn't include them to us, right?
00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:54.079
So stuff like that.
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:56.400
Yeah, totally agree.
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:03.039
So, from your perspectives, where are the biggest gaps in America's retirement readiness today?
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:08.960
Is it access, band design, participant education, or something else, something completely different?
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:12.480
Well, I mean, I still think we have a big coverage problem in the United States.
00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:17.839
It's a challenge because the worker, the economic ecosystem for workers is changing.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:18.240
Right?
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:29.119
You have more people working at home, you have more people working in the gig economy where they're not working uh one full-time job, they're working for multiple part-time jobs.
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:36.000
And you have, you know, state by state, you have different requirements now for whether companies should offer a retirement plan or not.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:37.759
So I think coverage is still an issue.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.759
I don't love the solutions that have been presented at the national level.
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:51.440
I don't think that they're I don't think that I don't think you can, you know, solve the coverage gap by having a national mandatory mandate that's going to be put out there by our U.S.
00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:59.119
government and then not account for the harm they're gonna do on the other side to the private sector, to the industry that's actually been doing this for the last 40 years.
00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:00.880
So I don't love that solution.
00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:05.920
I think that to me is really the main issue is still coverage and getting more people in plan saving.
00:31:06.079 --> 00:31:10.880
But once once people do have a workplace plan, there's there's still a lot of good work that needs to be done on that side.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:12.720
Will, anything to add to that?
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:24.960
Yeah, I mean, interestingly enough, earlier this week I had you know client meeting and uh we were going over some final numbers as it was getting ready for filing, and he's like, What's really this is weird.
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:26.640
Like, what's going on here?
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:28.240
I don't really understand what's going on here.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.400
And he was asking some questions about some details.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:35.599
So I dug into the numbers and I looked at it, and I and it was very surprising.
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:42.640
Their workforce was just offered the plan, you know, the 401k plan, right, a couple years ago.
00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:54.160
They we finally talked them into putting it into a match in a large majority of the employees started to contribute right away as soon as he instilled the match last July 1st.
00:31:54.480 --> 00:32:03.759
Okay, and then as it went on, we could see the number in the percentages of what would people were contributing.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:12.720
They went from just doing small amounts, making sure they got the match to 15, 20, 18, 21 percent of contributions.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:16.799
And we're like, wow, like to see this working, right?
00:32:17.119 --> 00:32:26.079
Because we took those steps, we implemented the plan, talked to him a couple years about putting in a match, finally got him to put in a match.
00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:43.279
The employees responded immediately from that, and then over the next six months, they really like started, must have gotten their statements, gotten their paychecks, noticed that the accounts were building faster, and went, wow, we kind of like this, and started moving up their savings rates.
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:45.680
And it was pretty impressive to see as a group.
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:46.480
That's amazing.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:33:02.880
The one thing that I think that's happened in the last few years with the advent of Secure 2.0 is they by putting in the mandatory automatic enrollment to plans established uh after a certain date, and then having the auto-escalation go go all the way, be also part of that up to 10%.
00:33:03.680 --> 00:33:14.160
It's forced a lot of us that are on the plan design side that are designing these new plans to kind of look at that and go, practically speaking, this thing's gonna break with the escalation, right?
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:16.640
The clients are gonna forget to escalate people.
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:24.480
So why don't we just start everybody at 10 and escalate to 10, and then you basically handle it in the document that it's already done that way.
00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:32.720
And as long as as long as everybody fills out a form at the enrollment meeting, then they've effectively, once they tell you what they want to do, they've opted out of the negative election.
00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:40.000
But what we found, what I found very interesting as a result of all that was 10% doesn't get a lot of pushback.
00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:52.720
And years ago, when automatic enrollment was not mandatory, it was just a concept we were all touting as a good idea, and then you know, Quaca and Yaka and those things all came out, everyone was like, Why do we start them at?
00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:54.079
Well, we'll start them at 3%, right?
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:54.799
We'll do 3%.
00:33:55.359 --> 00:34:00.960
And oh, I don't want to make my employees do anything, I'll let them choose how much we just get a lot of pushback back then.
00:34:01.119 --> 00:34:08.320
And now, I mean, I think the last 50 plans I've designed with 10% automatic enrollment, and not not a single client has pushed back.
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:17.679
So I think it's interesting how when you just say to somebody, well, this is the way we do it because the law kind of mandates you get here anyway, and it's a good idea.
00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:20.480
And as long as someone fills out a form, you don't have to worry about it anyway.
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:27.679
It's just for people who don't fill out a form that, or you know, go online and fill out a you know, an online form or they sign up on their phone or whatever.
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:34.800
As long as it's only for the people who don't tell you what they want that they get automatically enrolled at that level, then the employers go, oh, that makes sense.
00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:36.639
I understand that, and they don't push back.
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:54.639
So I think like the more you have frank conversations about defaulting to a best practice, defaulting to something that leads to the better outcome, as just, oh, this is just the way we do it because this is a best practice, or this is the way we do it because the law is going to make us do it it this way anyway, so we're just getting it out of the way up front.
00:34:55.119 --> 00:35:02.159
Those kind of conversations remove the barriers, instill confidence from the clients that they're that they're in good hands.
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:04.960
And then they just implement your advice.
00:35:05.199 --> 00:35:16.000
And I think that that's been really very, very illuminating for me over the last few years since the really since Secure 2.0 kind of pushed the issue to the forefront.
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:19.119
Yeah, we do the same thing, and we don't get a lot of pushback either.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:26.079
So hopefully it's gonna start making some real difference in people's lives because they need to be contributing higher rates.
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.119
What role do you all feel like financial advisors play in helping close all of these gaps that we keep talking about?
00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:34.960
But I think that's our job, right?
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:37.280
As financial advisors is to fill the gaps, right?
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:47.360
So we and I think um if we're doing our job right, we're first and foremost, we're proactively looking for the gaps because we're trying to fill.
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:50.880
We're trying we're not just trying to solve the problems the client knows they have.
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:57.840
We're also trying to solve the problems the client don't know they do not either don't know they have or don't know they're going to have.
00:35:58.159 --> 00:36:05.440
And we're trying to do that ahead of time in a way where they'll be willing to accept the medicine as part of the meal.
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:07.360
Right.
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:10.320
So I mean, I think that that's what we try and do.
00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:17.599
And I think that good retirement plan consultants, good retirement plan advisors, that and we know a lot of them, you know a lot of the same people we know.
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:19.360
That's what they all try to do as well.
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:26.320
We don't necessarily always agree with all the things that everyone's pushing all the time, but I think we're all ultimately trying to do the same thing.
00:36:26.639 --> 00:36:27.119
Agreed.
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:29.599
I think, you know, I've said this a lot about our industry.
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:38.880
I think our industry is really unique because almost everybody I know in this industry has good intentions and wants good things, and they're very collaborative.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:43.280
Like I'm willing to share information with you all so that we can build a better system.
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:59.920
We, you know, we have roundtables with other business owners where we're sharing best practices and things, but all of us seem to be working to simply improve this industry, whether it's the financial advising side or the plan administration side and getting the coverage gap closed and the savings gap.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.639
It's a really unique industry to be able to be a part of.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:07.119
Well, Will and I don't view the world uh like we don't view the world competitively.
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:07.599
Right.
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:09.679
We do the world collaboratively.
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.920
So we don't have competitors, we just have people we do business with and people we don't do business with.
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:19.440
And as you know, on the TPA side, we trade cases all the time, right?
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:25.840
So you know, plans move around, and that's just part of the uh that's part of the business model, and we know that.
00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:33.920
So, you know, we might lose a case to the TPA down the street uh for one reason or another, and then the next month we win a case from them.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:36.639
And and so it's just it's just the way it goes.
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:37.519
Agreed.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:43.599
So looking ahead, what's your vision for the retirement plan industry over the next five to 10 years?
00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:48.800
And how are you preparing integrated pension services to lead into the future?
00:37:49.199 --> 00:38:00.480
Well, I think a lot of you know, with the Secure Act, Secure 2.0, state mandated plans, I think people are becoming more open to closing that coverage gap as you're talking about.
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:04.719
So therefore, there's going to be more plans established.
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:14.800
And I think we need to, as an industry, get better at removing some of the barriers, taking away some of the head trash, you know, for that.
00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:21.519
It's just saying the plans are good, this is how we're gonna set up, automate where you can for that piece of it.
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:27.360
A joke that I have in the office is the clients see no value in the 5,500.
00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:27.840
Okay.
00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:35.360
There's no to them, they know they have to get do it because we've told them they have to do it, but they see no value in that.
00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:57.440
And therefore, we need to get that process done as fast as we can so we can move past the 5,500 being signed as part of our job, and more is looking at it as okay, here's what the 5500 tells us, here's the consulting piece that we need to do out of the ADP test, the 5500.
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.960
What are those things telling us to make the plans better?
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:07.440
To add to what he said, and he said a good word there in the middle of his uh comments, which is automation.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:10.639
We're automating as much as we can.
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:19.920
You know, from a business philosophy point of view, our goal is to if a computer can do the task, we try and figure out how to get the computer to do the task.
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:31.360
And if a computer can't do the task, then we look to our human resources to fill that gap internally, starting, you know, uh, you know, bot in a bot as a bottom-up approach to that.
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:45.119
Ideally, long term, because of the increase in automation, AI technology, things of that nature, and because the consolidation that's been ongoing and will continue to go on, including ourselves.
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:49.280
And we've done an acquisition, we may have more down the road.
00:39:49.599 --> 00:40:03.280
Because of those two things in conjunction, you know, that's sort of why we've organized our practice the way we have, where we've sort of, so okay, we've got the third-party administration practice that can stand on its own two feet on its own as a TPA.
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:08.960
We've got the uh investment, the retirement plan advisory practice that can stand on its own on its own two feet.
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:30.480
We can do business in one or the other or both, and we embrace technology and automation to the extent that we can deploy it and that we have the ability to implement it, and try and discard the what the technologies that are not necessarily that you're gonna be you might solve problem A, but incur problem B as a result of implementing the wrong technology.
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:42.400
And that's gonna be our challenge across the industry, I think, is making sure the technologies that do come into the space are good and are not harmful as an unexpected result.
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:43.360
Right.
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:44.320
Agreed.
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:50.960
What is one fun or surprising thing most people might not know about the retirement fin industry?
00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:56.880
Besides AsphA annual.
00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:04.320
I was gonna say seeing Will do karaoke at Aspen annual is a surprisingly fun thing to do to see.
00:41:08.880 --> 00:41:10.480
I think we're a great group of people.
00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:26.400
I think the industry itself is a cottage industry within a huge financial services industry, and while there are elements of the broader financial services industry that do play their way into our space, for the most part we're just a fun bunch of nerds.
00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:27.199
Yeah.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:38.000
That just kind of geek around and you know, because there's that sort of uh base sort of willing to laugh willingness to laugh at ourselves because we all know what we are.
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:50.719
I really think that that's like a real one of the things I really love about the community of people that we know is that we all do have the ability to laugh at ourselves because you know it's kind of silly when you think about it all about what we all have.
00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:54.239
I mean, I think it's there's definitely that collaboration that we have.
00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:00.639
It's you and I sitting down and talking about what we do for the business Shannon and saying, hey, what works for you?
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:03.840
What have you had like what have you done in this situation?
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:05.039
What have you done for that?
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:10.400
And we're all so willing to share and talk to each other that you don't find that in under other industries.
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:13.679
You know, they're still closed off, they just don't go in that direction.
00:42:13.840 --> 00:42:23.119
They wouldn't even think of calling their competitor, you know, down the street across the country about what's going on, you know, in the groups that we're involved in.
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:26.960
Obviously, we have those discussions so it's surround some beers.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:28.719
Yeah, chat bar, but you know.
00:42:29.039 --> 00:42:30.800
A lot of times it's around some beers.
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:31.599
That's what you know.
00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:43.679
I don't know what other industry I could have found that would have given me five other best girlfriends that I could go to the beach with once a year and do nothing but talk about nerdy stuff coming out of Washington that has to do with retirement plans, right?
00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:48.639
My golf girlfriends would tell me to shut up in the first 10 minutes of the conversation.
00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:57.039
Yeah, I mean, I I have a very like epic story of catching a cab with Eileen Ferenzi.
00:42:57.280 --> 00:42:58.159
Oh, nice.
00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:14.480
We happened to be in the line together, happened to talk at you know, we were in going to Nashville for an event, and to sit in that cab ride with her for 40 minutes, I was like, I'll pay like 10 times the cab fare to have that experience.
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:19.760
And then she's like, Oh no, I'm not even at the this hotel, I'm further down, I'm gonna pay for it.
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:20.239
What?
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:24.079
Like, you know, right, yeah, yeah, I know.
00:43:24.239 --> 00:43:25.760
It's a great industry we're in.
00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:33.119
If you all could give one piece of advice to a financial advisor looking to improve their retirement plan offering today, what would it be?
00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:34.800
One piece of advice.
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:44.079
Partner up with someone who's really good at this already, and there's no shame in there's no shame in having a mentor that could also be your business partner.
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:45.760
That's the way I view the world.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:46.960
No, I think that's great.
00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:49.119
Even though I think I'm a lot smarter than Will.
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:59.199
Yeah, I mean, like we said, this industry is willing to collaborate, so I partner up, go talk to somebody, you know.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:01.679
Meet them, you know.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.679
Yeah, I I think that's the right advice.
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:15.280
And when someone's trying to get into the space, you know, if you're gonna there's the hard way in and then there's the easy way, it's really easy to just find someone else who knows what they're doing and learn from them until you feel good about going along.
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:16.400
Exactly.
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:24.719
So for employers who want to help close the retirement gap for their employees, besides putting in a plan if they don't have one, where should they start?
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:27.119
This is my soapbox moment, Shannon.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:27.360
Right.
00:44:27.519 --> 00:44:27.840
Okay.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:29.840
You know, bring it on, Will.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:33.360
I I stand on the soapbox and say this all the time.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:39.599
So many companies want to give out like cash bonuses at the end of the year, right?
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:43.599
But or do some incentive plans with the cash.
00:44:43.920 --> 00:45:01.440
But when you let's say you have 50 grand that you decide you're giving out in cash bonuses, well, now you have payroll taxes, you have unemployment taxes, you have all those things that are tied to payroll, that it doesn't make it 50 grand, it makes it 57, 60 grand.
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:05.280
Well, why not take that 50 grand and put it in the plan?
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:19.679
And whether that's jump starting someone's retirement that hasn't done that, or adding to the piece to it, you know, for some employees, it became, you know, that time value of money can make such a huge difference for them.
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.960
And oh, by the way, you happen to get a tax deduction for it.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:23.679
Yep.
00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:24.960
I totally agree.
00:45:25.119 --> 00:45:26.320
I totally agree.
00:45:26.639 --> 00:45:32.960
So looking to the future, what excites you most about where our industry is headed?
00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:37.760
I mean, I'm excited about the direction the business has gone for the last 15 years.
00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:46.159
I mean, I think we have a great industry lobby group that helps us to identify problem areas and fill those gaps.
00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:49.920
So, like a lot of what came out at Secure 2.0, a lot of that was really helpful.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.960
So I mean it's helpful to expand coverage, it's helpful to get higher savings rates, helpful to get more, you know, higher uh contribution, you know, participation rates.
00:46:00.079 --> 00:46:02.480
Those things didn't exist 15 years ago.
00:46:02.719 --> 00:46:08.639
You know, a lot of the stuff that uh we were dealing with 15, 20 years ago when you know I've been in the business 30 years.
00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:11.360
I mean, we daily valuation was new when I started.
00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:16.639
You know, we were working with single fund family products that were in A Bay A B loaded shares, whatever.
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:17.599
Right?
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:28.079
You know, most of the pricing concerns that existed back when uh Jon Stewart did that piece, or it was John not John Stewart, I forget who it was, who did that piece about 400k plans being too expensive.
00:46:28.639 --> 00:46:30.800
Most of that stuff is largely washed out of the industry.
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:32.000
Fee compression came.
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.920
Fee you know, fees for the most part are on new business, certainly on new cases when we take over plans.
00:46:38.320 --> 00:46:38.960
Very competitive.
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:48.559
I think that there's a what I'm excited about is what I see is continuing to see what I've seen happen, which is that the industry is sharpening.
00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:50.400
It's a mature industry.
00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:55.760
The platforms, the products, the offerings of the different providers that are out there are getting better.
00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:08.079
The services are getting better, you know, and it's all towards uh getting more people in plans, getting them getting access to plans into plans and saving more money.
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:09.920
And you're seeing that.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:12.400
You're seeing the out you we're starting to see the results of that.
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:22.159
We're seeing studies come out from different places that are showing that the average savings rate for people that have access to plans is like two to three times higher than it was 10 years ago.
00:47:22.800 --> 00:47:43.920
Which is, I mean, it you know, doesn't bring a tear in my eye because I'm not that emotional about it, but it does kind of you know make me makes me like very proud of what we, the collective we have done to improve, you know, not just the industry, but the actual to improve real tangible results for the people that we serve.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:47.679
So I I mean that's what I'm excited about, is continuing to see that evolve.
00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:49.119
Yeah, I totally agree.
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:57.760
My husband and I had a conversation one time, and I was super excited about you know all that we do and talking about how important our industry is and blah, blah, blah.
00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:00.639
And he looked at me and he goes, Shannon, you're not a heart surgeon.
00:48:00.719 --> 00:48:02.000
You're not saving lives.
00:48:02.159 --> 00:48:04.000
And I snapped my head around at him.
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:05.760
I'm like, Yes, we are saving lives.
00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:07.280
We are actually saving lives.
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:11.280
I mean, we're not cutting people open and fixing their heart, but we're saving lives.
00:48:11.599 --> 00:48:12.239
I know you.
00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:14.960
I would not have wanted to be on the receiving reaction.
00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:16.719
He doesn't, he didn't get it.
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:18.000
I was like, Yes, we do.
00:48:18.079 --> 00:48:19.360
We save lives.
00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:21.199
So, yeah, totally.
00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:25.519
Okay, finally, we asked this question of everyone on the show.
00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:30.559
What does closing the gap in America's retirement security mean to you personally?
00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:32.559
Will, you first.
00:48:32.880 --> 00:48:37.599
I think it just it's a culmination of like 30 years worth of work, Janet.
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:45.920
It's like I've been working at this for a long time, and you know, we've touched, like Jason says, you know, tens of thousands of participants now.
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:52.480
It's just closing that gap is means we just we're continuing to add upon what we've done.
00:48:52.559 --> 00:49:01.840
We're continuing to get better both in our firm, in the industry, about these things, and it's helping more people save, and that's what matters.
00:49:02.400 --> 00:49:10.639
So many of us have firsthand or secondhand experiences with people that have experienced elder poverty.
00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:22.159
And elder poverty is frequently a function of exactly what we're fighting against, which is people not having money that they've saved up or accumulated up over the years.
00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:29.920
And so I kind of think of ourselves in a very corny way as you know, we're champions fighting against elderly poverty.
00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:34.400
And I think we all do our best to do that, even if we're not necessarily thinking about it that way.
00:49:34.639 --> 00:49:41.360
But when I see, you know, we all know the studies show that if when people have access to a workplace retirement plan, they save.
00:49:41.840 --> 00:49:46.960
And if the younger they have access to it, the larger their account balances are when they retire.
00:49:47.360 --> 00:50:07.679
And if we could enable people to be able to successfully retire at a reasonable retirement age, you know, somewhere you know in their 60s or you know, uh, and retire with dignity with not having to worry about financial well-being or outliving their their money, well, then I think we've done our job.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.800
You know, like I that and that's I mean, if that's is that the gap that we're trying to close?
00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:14.079
I guess it is, you know.
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:14.800
Yeah.
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:15.920
Agreed.
00:50:16.480 --> 00:50:18.880
Did we not did we cover everything you all wanted to cover?
00:50:18.960 --> 00:50:20.559
Or do you have anything else to add?
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.119
Shannon, why you know, we never covered my number one bullet.
00:50:27.599 --> 00:50:28.880
Your number one bullet, okay.
00:50:29.920 --> 00:50:31.039
RTFD.
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:32.159
Okay.
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:36.320
Read the effing document.
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:37.280
Yes.
00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:38.800
Yes, yes.
00:50:39.199 --> 00:50:45.599
From Sarah Simeno, like I, you know, she wrote that, you know, she talks about that, and man, does it come up all the time?
00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:46.400
All the time.
00:50:46.719 --> 00:50:48.719
People don't read the document.
00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:50.400
The rules are in there.
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:52.239
Just follow the document.
00:50:52.400 --> 00:51:04.639
It's a I mean, those of us who have ever encountered a plan that we know is broken, and we say to them, if I go to my ERISA attorney and I bring him your story, the first thing out of their mouths is gonna be, well, what does the document say?
00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:05.840
What does the document say?
00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:06.239
Yep.
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:07.360
Exactly.
00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:17.679
And so, you know, the document it codifies the law, uh, takes the giant law and it narrows it down to from you know 5,000 pages to 50 pages or whatever.
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:19.360
You know, what does the document say?
00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:20.559
That's what we ought to do.
00:51:20.880 --> 00:51:21.519
Absolutely.
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:31.920
Well, thank you guys so much for sharing with us today and for the work you're doing to help sponsors and advisors strengthen their plans and better serve working Americans.
00:51:32.159 --> 00:51:35.360
Your work helps close the gaps we talk about on this show.
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:42.000
For anyone who wants to learn more about the work that Will and Jason do every day, we will have their contact information in the show notes.
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:48.880
You can also catch Will every other Thursday night in the chat bar of the Retire Holic Show at 4.30 p.m.
00:51:49.119 --> 00:51:49.840
Pacific time.
00:51:50.239 --> 00:51:52.159
Thank you for joining us on The Gap.
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:53.920
Join us next time.
00:51:54.719 --> 00:51:56.079
Thank you for listening to The Gap.
00:51:56.320 --> 00:52:02.719
Be sure to check out the show notes for important links, retirement plan resources, and more at TryStarPension.com.
00:52:02.880 --> 00:52:05.599
While you're there, sign up for our information packed newsletter.
00:52:05.679 --> 00:52:10.239
And if you enjoy the conversation, follow our podcast, share it, and tell a friend about it.
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:14.880
And most importantly, rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:16.480
Thanks for listening.
00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:11.279
Welcome to the GAP, a podcast designed exclusively for financial advisors and employers seeking to enhance their retirement plan offerings and bridge the gap in America's retirement security.
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:23.519
We talk to change makers and dive into innovative strategies, compliance updates, and best practices to help you provide top-notch retirement solutions, stay ahead of the future, and ensure a secure financial future for all Americans.
00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.079
Here's your host, Shannon Edwards.
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:31.679
Hello, I'm Stan Edwards, your host, and the owner of TriStar Pension Consulting.
00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:37.520
I would like to welcome all listeners to our podcast with a special welcome to those of you listening for the first time.
00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:42.960
I started this podcast because I have a passion for helping Americans achieve a dignified retirement.
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:50.240
By sharing ideas, this podcast is just designed to help close the gaps that America has in retirement savings and coverage.
00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:53.600
By doing so, we can improve the lives of working Americans.
00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:59.840
Today we are joined by two seasoned leaders in the retirement plan space, Will Hackler and Jason Grant.
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:06.079
Both of them bring decades of expertise in helping employers and advisors build better retirement outcomes.
00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:14.879
Will Hackler is the chairman of Integrated Pension Group and leads direct selling for the institutional sales and marketing team and integrated pension services.
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:26.799
With 30 years of experience in the administration of 401k pension and profit sharing plans, Will has a deep understanding of what it takes to design, monitor, and optimize retirement plans of all shapes and sizes.
00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:34.239
He is also the founder of Integrated 401k, a process that aligns retirement plans with broader wealth accumulation goals.
00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:40.560
And on top of that, he has won Chapar Champion on the Retire Holics more than any other listener.
00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:46.159
Joining him is Jason Grants, CEO and Chief Revenue Officer at Integrated Pension Services.
00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:51.359
Jason is a nationally recognized leader with nearly three decades in the retirement plan industry.
00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:57.120
He is a respected speaker and author and has been widely published in many industry journals and publications.
00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:02.480
His main focus is providing clarity on often misunderstood retirement plan topics.
00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:12.479
He is the co-creator and primary author of the 401k Plan blog, a blog dedicated to clarifying complex retirement plan topics with an eye towards coaching best practices.
00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:18.639
He also currently serves with me on the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries Leadership Council.
00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:20.479
Okay, welcome, boys.
00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:22.159
I am so glad to have you here.
00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:23.919
And I know this is going to be lots of fun.
00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:26.960
I want to start first with your personal journeys.
00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:28.159
Both of you.
00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:34.479
What first drew each of you to the retirement plan industry and what keeps you passionate about this work today?
00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:36.879
Those are some impressive bios, Shannon.
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:44.240
I don't know where you Well, I will say I got them off of your website, LinkedIn, and ChatGPT helped.
00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:46.960
But they make you sound really good, Will.
00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:49.360
Yeah, it's like a couple of impressive people there.
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:50.080
Exactly.
00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:52.719
I might have rewritten some of that at some point for you.
00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:54.879
So I'll start with mine.
00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:57.039
Mine is fairly simple.
00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:01.360
My father suckered me into the family business when I graduated college.
00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:04.719
As you know, I've told the story a couple of times.
00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:08.319
Went and got a finance degree, was looking around for a job.
00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:22.800
And it's really funny because I had a couple of offers that uh of jobs that are kind of like what Jason started with, but I chose not to take those, which I don't know if that was a good decision or not, but you know, we're here anyways.
00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:33.840
And then uh, you know, worked in that the business with my father for a long time and just love the retirement plan side, you know, kept it was very interesting.
00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:38.719
You know, got the first designation for MASPA on the QKA side of it.
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:48.639
And then I was like, well, I gotta do all this continuing education, so I'll just go take another test because you know that's a great way to get continuing education credits and to uh take care of that.
00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:55.120
So I just you know kept adding tests on and adding designations on until I realized like I can't keep up with all these designations now.
00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:55.520
Right.
00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:57.439
So you're a collector of letters too.
00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:04.560
So I used to collect letters, now I'm slowly like letting them fade off to kind of run the business piece of it.
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:09.599
You know, but JC came on a few years ago, so we've had some great growth.
00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:15.039
Uh been very fortunate with a couple of uh good decisions over the years, business-wise.
00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:29.279
Uh great growth, and certainly enjoy having the conversations with business owners about plans, uh, the CPAs, partners that they have, uh certainly some advisors at different times when we, you know, partner up with them.
00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:33.199
Uh, but just trying to make every plan that we touch better.
00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:34.480
Jason.
00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:52.560
Yeah, so my journey is probably more what I would call the typical 401k industry professional journey, in that I got into this business after I graduated college by accident, like the rest of us, most of us have by accident gotten into this business.
00:04:52.639 --> 00:04:56.000
So I I went to Rutgers University, I finished in 1995.
00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:05.040
I was kind of noodling around working at you know Joe Jobs at a bookstore and waiting tables, things like that, until I was trying to find my first quote unquote real job.
00:05:05.279 --> 00:05:14.639
And a friend of mine, his wife was managing a call center for a group that was focused and specialized in 403B and 457B plants.
00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:16.560
And I uh needed a job.
00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:34.319
So he, you know, we got got me in there for an interview and I got my first uh professional gig and you know, got my series six, my 63, got my year of experience, uh, met a few good people in the industry who I'm still friends with today, who I still who are still in the industry today.
00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:37.360
One of them went to work for Alliance Capital.
00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:47.839
I followed them there, working in the 401k department in the operations on the record keeping side, and then worked my way up to uh internal 401k wholesaler.
00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:58.720
Eventually um got limited on my on the opportunity to move to the field because the only field positions would have taken me away from where I live uh and would have required us to uproot.
00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:13.120
And so we made a decision that we weren't going to do that and uh ended up getting my first field wholesaling job in 2005 with a company called First Mercantile Trust Company, which is now somewhere in the underneath the American Trust umbrella.
00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:20.959
About three years after that, I left First Merc and went to work with uh friend of ours, friend of yours, uh Pete Swisher, Dr.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:27.600
Greg Caston, uh David Blanchett, and a few other well-known industry people over at Unified Trust Company.
00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:30.959
And that's where I really found my success, found my feet.
00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:34.720
It's when I decided to um, we were an academic firm.
00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:42.399
It's uh when I decided to start writing, start publishing, wrote my first paper, started the blog.
00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:49.680
I've now done I haven't written on the blog in a little while, but it's it I wrote on it for about 15 years and really uh made my bones.
00:06:49.759 --> 00:07:01.040
You know, I worked my way up to from field from covering the Northeast to management, a partnership over at that firm, uh, until we also sold our company to what is now American Trust.
00:07:01.199 --> 00:07:06.560
And that's when I left and joined and became partners with Will, who actually up until that point had been a client of mine.
00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:16.959
So a little bit more of a typical story as far as uh origins, but our origin story on how we found each other is a little bit more interesting.
00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:35.439
In 2000, about 15 years ago, so I co-authored a paper with David Blanchett uh called Quantifying the Drivers of Retirement Success, where we wanted we had observed that when we would go to these conferences like the Aspa conference, at the time they called the Aspen 4K Sales Summit.
00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:36.720
Now it's called Napa.
00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:48.639
Back then it wasn't, but we'd observed at all these industry events that huge amounts of money were being spent trying to convince us at booth A that their mutual funds were the best mutual funds.
00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:53.680
And then we go to booth B and they would say, no, no, our funds are the best funds, and on and on and on and on.
00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:11.360
And I just looked at him and I said, you know, if we only just spent as much time, energy, and resources on impacting the things that matter the most to running successful plans, we would not have the problems that we have in our society.
00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:15.519
We would not have the savings gap, we would not have coverage gaps.
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:18.079
And so that kind of hatched an idea.
00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:22.639
So I wrote this paper called Quantifying the Drivers of Retirement Success.
00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:34.720
And I actually had the unique experience, which I recommend highly, Shannon, of being in an audience when somebody quoted me without me knowing they were going to quote me to me.
00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:39.679
And people all like necturn was like, you know, it was like a record scratch from my point of view.
00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.000
You know, they all kind of turned and looked at me like, you wrote that.
00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:43.519
I was like, I wrote that.
00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:53.840
Anyway, later on in the conference, I saw Will, who I'd never met before, and he was talking to somebody else that I knew, and I just wanted to say hello to that person.
00:08:53.919 --> 00:09:00.159
I weap and said hello to that person, and I saw he was holding in his hand my white paper.
00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:03.279
And so I said to him, uh, hey, what what do you got there?
00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:08.320
And he starts going, Oh, it's this great white paper, you know, you know, it talks about everything that we believe in.
00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:12.240
And I just sort of held my name tag up at him and he went, he connected the dot.
00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:13.840
He went, That's you.
00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.679
And he put his arm around me and said, Come on, let's go have a beer, little buddy.
00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:20.000
And it was love at first sight, right?
00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:25.200
You guys just that's how we met.
00:09:25.279 --> 00:09:33.279
And then um, it wasn't long after that that we realized we were both Aspen the Benefits Council liaisons for our respective local chapters.
00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:35.919
We ran into each other at other events.
00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:43.679
We started doing business together, and 10, 12 years later, he's trying to get another grown-up in the room to help him run this thing.
00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:46.879
So he probably needs another grown-up in the room.
00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:48.080
I'm not gonna lie.
00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:51.519
That's been my direct experience, yes.
00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:53.360
That's awesome.
00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:54.399
That's a great story.
00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:58.879
So you both work with a lot of different employers and financial advisors.
00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:02.799
What do you love most about the work you do every day?
00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:04.320
Anyone?
00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:06.399
Uh yeah, I was waiting for him to go.
00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:08.720
I usually wait for him to go because I talk more than he does.
00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:09.039
Yeah.
00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:13.360
I like sort of the solving the problems, right?
00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:17.759
Saying, here's a situation you have, you know, how can we make it better?
00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:21.360
Obviously, I've been using this, you know, moniker, the 401k fix the guy.
00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:24.399
So I looked at all of them as how can I fix the problem?
00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:25.840
How can we make it better?
00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:31.519
And, you know, I try to do that every day in all the conversations that we have.
00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:41.120
Sort of sort through all the stuff that's happening there and look for the key drivers and what we can do to make that plan better.
00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:41.600
Yeah.
00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:42.799
So that is that's fun.
00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:46.080
Echoing what he says, I agree with all those things.
00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:51.519
I would say that I get a charge the most out of all of our little minor, minor victories.
00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:54.240
The major wins everyone gets a charge over, right?
00:10:54.320 --> 00:11:01.039
You close a big account, you know, you solve a real hurdle that you're experiencing in your business.
00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:08.159
Those are all like they charge you off because you've solved a major, a major problem for yourself where you've you've done something very good.
00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:24.720
But I really like it when I watch something that I sort of imparted to another team member that's like a learning lesson, or I've watched one of our younger employees do something that I know that they've seen me do, but they did it without asking for help.
00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:32.799
And I and it's caused us to win a small piece of business, or it's caused us to solve a small problem that is going to have big dividends.
00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:49.279
And so I get a charge off of all of our little wins, our minor victory laps, the things that we do in our Tuesday morning meetings that cause us all to give snaps to our to a specific teammate who we might call out because they did something that we're proud of.
00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:51.120
So to me, that I get a charge out of that.
00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:55.840
That's the business owner side of me, watching us have our little successes in celebrating them.
00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:08.799
And then on the professional side, I mean, I know that over 30 years, both of us have impacted thousands of people in a positive way, even mostly indirectly, candidly.
00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:17.600
It's by designing plans to impact higher savings rates and the higher to impact higher uh contribution rates and higher participation rates.
00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:24.799
Those things get done at a thousand-foot level, but they trickle down to have a real positive impact on the end user, which are the participants.
00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.559
And knowing that is what gets me up and gets me to work every single day.
00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:35.759
Yeah, I that's what I've said before too, is like I am truly happy when I pull up to my office, right?
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:39.759
I know that I'm going to work and I'm going to make a difference in somebody's life that day.
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:46.960
And that's the that's the thing that keeps me coming back to work and off the golf course during the week is knowing that we are making a difference.
00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:50.159
The longer that we're in this industry, the more you can see it.
00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:56.960
And every time, you know, I get to put in a new plan for a company that's never had one before, I think those things really make my day.
00:12:57.279 --> 00:12:57.519
Okay.
00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:00.159
Tell us about integrated pension services.
00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:18.240
What makes your approach to retirement plan design and administration stand out in today's market when there's so much noise around us about, you know, tech and you can put a plan in in eight days and this only takes 30 minutes and this is all hands off and automated.
00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:29.840
What makes you all, because I know you're not like that, but what makes your approach really stand out in the market when there is so much noise for all of the advisors and the CPAs and the business owners right now?
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.399
You know, we have to make ourselves stand out somehow.
00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:35.919
Can we answer that by saying we stand out because we don't do any of that?
00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:37.759
Yes, you can.
00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:40.559
So yeah.
00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:52.240
One of the things that, you know, that I make sure that we always do is when we're talking plan design and we're talking recommendations for plans, you know, we put together what I've dubbed our study piece.
00:13:52.320 --> 00:14:02.879
And we, you know, walk those business owners and CFOs and HR people through those and CPAs, you know, through those studies to see, okay, if you do this, this is what the effect is.
00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:08.080
Like these are the benefits out of it, these are the you know, pluses and minuses that you can get out of it.
00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:14.320
And nine times out of ten, we get to the end, and somebody says to me, Well, what should I do?
00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:16.320
And I'm like, I don't know.
00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:24.399
Like you, I'm just giving you these bases, like, you know, I need to know more about like your situation to make a real recommendation for that.
00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:34.320
And that's where we're a little different, where we work with a lot of advisors, a lot of financial planners, and help them run plans for their clients, right?
00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:40.720
And you know, we have this moniker that we use in our industry that you know, or in our firm, the LIM.
00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:46.080
It's but and I'm not gonna go down the piece of that, it's another acronym, I'll drink for that.
00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:50.960
Uh but uh, you know, I always go back and say, Have you done any planning?
00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.440
Like, how much do you need to be saving?
00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:56.960
Because that's where the driver is behind all this.
00:14:57.120 --> 00:14:58.320
Like, it's great.
00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:07.279
Like, I could design these awesome plans for you, but if it's too much or too little of what you need to be doing, then the plan doesn't make sense, right?
00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:16.159
So, you know, there's times we certainly will turn stuff away and say, hey, go do the SEP or the simple or you know, something in that direction, right?
00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:19.919
Because you're just you that's all that is necessary for you.
00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:29.519
Other times we're gonna say, Yeah, hey, here's the 401k with profit sharing, and you should bolt on cash balance because you're behind the eight ball and you need to put a lot away.
00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:32.240
And you know, let's do something like that.
00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:40.639
And other times, you know, we have conversations too and say just like, hey, based on what you've told me, the the plan doesn't make sense for you in your situation.
00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:44.480
And I think that's a piece that's missing sometimes, you know.
00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:51.519
I mean, I I have a couple of different uh thoughts on the question too, because you know, at one level, uh there's the industry side, right?
00:15:51.679 --> 00:15:54.080
The industry uh is the great distraction.
00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:55.279
That's the way I look at it.
00:15:55.519 --> 00:16:02.879
The industry is constantly uh trying to uh tell us about all these, and I'll put big air quotes around the phrase, game changers.
00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:04.559
It's a game changer, it's a game changer.
00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.519
Nothing there is no game changer in my experience.
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:10.960
Uh there are things the game is always in motion, always changing.
00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.279
There's always new things coming into the market, there's old things getting phased out.
00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:23.039
And so being in a practice setting, we just have to be aware of what's out there and see whether or not it has applicability to our clients or not.
00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.440
And so there are things that the industry talks about a lot that we just simply don't use.
00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:37.440
We just discard because we find it to be distracting from our main mission, which our main mission is to uh create and optimize our as many plans as possible.
00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:43.200
We design plans to maximize participation rate, we design plans to maximize savings rate.
00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:57.840
We are on the advisory side, we optimize the plans by making sure we engage clients in a prune process, but we don't get overly complex because we find that the more complex you get with clients, the more likely you are to lose them during the process.
00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:08.559
Even if you're a great communicator, which I think we're pretty good at it, we still have clients that we know we can see them on paper what they should be doing, but we still have to get them from A to B.
00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:19.759
And sometimes that's a step process, and you have to resist the urge to sort of like dump the entire like bucket of all your tools on top of them and just sort of say, okay, one thing at a time.
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:21.359
Here's what we're gonna do first.
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:36.000
We're gonna make sure that that works, we're gonna get that up and running, we're gonna make sure it works smoothly, then we're gonna do this, then we're gonna do that, and we're gonna keep evolving it so that eventually you have as close to a perfect retirement plan for you and your business as possible.
00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:43.119
But on the uh practice side, we've developed an approach to the business, which I think it's it's not unique, but it's uncommon.
00:17:43.359 --> 00:17:46.319
So Integrated Pension Group is actually two different companies.
00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:54.319
It's integrated pension services, the third-party administration firm, it's integrated pension advisors, the retirement plan consulting and advisory practice.
00:17:54.720 --> 00:18:07.200
And the two were at one point just you know started like a traditional what I call producing TPA in the sense that Will and before that, his father Bill, they ran their local TPA shop in central Massachusetts.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:11.680
And if you drew a 50-mile radius around their business, that's where all their clients were.
00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:15.519
Most of their business was stemmed from their own sourcing, right?
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:20.559
They meet some accountants, they get some referrals, the business gets in the door and they deploy both services.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:26.319
What eventually happened was Will and I started talking about developing wholesale model.
00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:28.720
And this is even before I joined the practice.
00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:38.240
Will got uh Will was the business was originally called Hackler Associates, and he was being he was being approached by and he was approaching a firm called Integrated Partners.
00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:46.480
And at the time, his pitch to them was going to be if you bring me in, I'll become the 40K arm of the RIA firm.
00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:48.720
And so Will started doing that.
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:57.920
And then what we f what he found, I think even earlier than when I was ready to hear it, was that it needed a wholesaler approach, but he was not a wholesaler.
00:18:58.799 --> 00:19:04.960
And so I he needed somebody, he got Will's 10,000 times better with CPAs and accountants than I am.
00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:06.160
Like he just is.
00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:09.440
He could speak tax, he could talk the business owner language that they talk.
00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:13.200
But when it comes to advisors, he needed a wholesaler to be part of the group.
00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:17.119
So I came in initially to kind of take over that side.
00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:20.319
And it was during the pandemic that with the timing was right.
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:23.599
And what eventually happened was we had exponential growth.
00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.440
First year out, we did three times more business than we'd ever done before.
00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:30.079
And it's been consistently going at that pace.
00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:40.559
And it's because of the dual approach that Will can focus on the accountants, he can focus on the relationships that he's developed and built over the years in the areas that he's really good at.
00:19:40.640 --> 00:20:04.480
And I can focus on working with the advisors using this relationship-based wholesaling model, which is now including us doing a lot of splitting where we go to advisors and we say to them, Hey, you guys either A, don't know anything about retirement plans, B, know a little, but C, it doesn't matter how much you know because you don't like retirement plans, which is the majority of them.
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:16.240
And we say to them, we don't work with individuals, we don't do financial planning, we don't do wealth management, we don't sell insurance products, we're not a competitor to them for the business they want.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:23.119
And we can help them run the 401k plan and optimize it with and take away the heavy lifting from them.
00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:34.079
And so because we're we've built the facilities to do business as it's basically a it's the specialist model, but without the boundaries of a specific broker dealer ecosystem.
00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:47.039
And it's really worked well, especially with the advisors that are, you know, they have five plans, they have 10 plans, they have 15 plans, but they're not specialists, they don't want to be, and they're very happy to let us just come in and do our work.
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:56.799
And then they get to like capture all the stuff they want, which is the people that are retiring, the wealth management, the other benefits, the business owner account, whatever.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:20:57.279
Right.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:20:59.599
No, that's very interesting what you guys have done.
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:14.240
Will, can you share with me and my audience how integrated 401k, how the integrated 401k process helps align a retirement plan with broader wealth building strategies for both employers and participants?
00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:17.519
Yeah, I I touched on that a little bit already, Shannon.
00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:26.880
Like, you know, where we stop at the end and don't go through that recommendation process without knowing the financial planning end of it, right?
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:41.680
How much they need to save, what's important on that side of it, so that the plan fits what the business and do is doing, what the owner is looking for, you know, what the employees need in order, you know, to match it up.
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:50.880
And that, you know, that's the big component of it is stopping, making sure that these things are matching up before you take any further steps with it.
00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:53.200
And like Jason had said earlier, right?
00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:55.920
Sometimes it's walking before you run.
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.599
So we may start with one strategy, knowing we're going to build on it.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.759
But, you know, making sure not to put a strain on the business, right?
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:09.920
Making sure that they get through those steps and understand it before, you know, they take it on any further.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.119
So thank you.
00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:18.400
Jason, you said one of your passions is simple is helping simplify complex retirement plan topics.
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:20.240
And that's you've written a lot about that.
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:29.359
What do you think are some of the most misunderstood aspects of plan design or compliance that advisors and plan sponsors need to understand better?
00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:30.160
Oh wow.
00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:31.599
That's a big question.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:37.839
So I mean with the clients, I think most of it depends on where you get them and the where you meet them.
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:42.400
Do you meet them when they're starting a plan or you meet them when you're taking over a plan that already existed?
00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:53.920
So when we meet a client when they're just starting up, in order to get a client to really from A to B, you have to recognize that you're not going to be able to teach them all the things they need to know in the first meeting.
00:22:54.160 --> 00:23:02.079
And so the their fiduciary responsibilities, right, as a plan administrator or as a business owner, are many.
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:04.880
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of them.
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:09.359
We just simply say to the client, look, you don't need to know all these things.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:11.359
Here are the main things you need to know.
00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:18.880
And then make sure that they understand that, like at the end of the day, it's our job to give them the best counseling and the best advice.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:22.640
It's not our job to implement our counseling and advice.
00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:25.599
It's our job to tell them what we think.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:29.599
And then if they tell us they agree, then we help them to implement the things.
00:23:29.759 --> 00:23:34.559
We're helping, we're helps, we're not taking over in the process.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:48.480
Now, I know there's a lot of stuff in the marketplace now, you know, complex things like pooled employer plans and there's uh discretionary fiduciary services that are out there on both sides, you know, on the investment side and on the plan administration side, that are supposed to do those things.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:55.519
But at the end of the day, the clients still need to also have some autonomy and they still there the buck still stops with them.
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:56.000
Right.
00:23:56.079 --> 00:23:56.319
Yeah.
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:02.160
And so if they don't know that, then they will eventually get it wrong.
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:03.440
Something will happen.
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:18.240
And you know, recently there was an episode of another podcast that I listened to where that was discussed, where it was discussed that at the end of the day, the employer can never get away from being a named planned fiduciary over their plan, even when they adopt a pooled employer plan.
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:18.640
Right.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:22.319
They still have the underlying responsibility to their employees.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.920
And so that's a fairly that's kind of an old or oldie but a goody.
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:38.400
The other thing that I wanted that I make sure that I let all advisors know, because they're all going to experience this as well as the employers, is that retirement plans should be viewed as if they were machines.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:42.960
And if you don't maintain your machine, it will break.
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:49.440
And so there's got to be a you can't just we set it up and up, we never have to look at it again.
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:55.519
There has to be this constant oversight, this constant tightening of the, you know, tightening with the wrench.
00:24:55.680 --> 00:25:01.759
There's got to be this constant maintenance, otherwise, you know, that we get brought in to come and fix the plan because it broke.
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:02.720
Right.
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:03.440
Exactly.
00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:04.880
At least annually, right?
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.319
At least an annual tune-up or something needs to be done.
00:25:08.400 --> 00:25:08.720
Yeah.
00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:09.200
Agreed.
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.119
Using analogies like that, that the plan is a machine and needs to be maintained.
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:26.319
That's how we simplify our communication to get people to sort of, you know, we try to meet them where they are, not try and bring them to where we are, because we could get we could go into the very deep end of the yeah, definitely.
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:28.400
We do like to go down rabbit holes, don't we?
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:34.480
So all of us know that the retirement landscape is shifting rapidly.
00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:38.000
Our whole industry is, it feels like is changing daily.
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:51.279
What trends or changes do you all see right now that advisors and employers must pay attention to in order to stay compliant and competitive, competitive as employers, competitive as advisors?
00:25:51.599 --> 00:25:51.920
Wow.
00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:55.519
Uh there again, you have very loaded questions here, Shannon.
00:25:56.559 --> 00:25:58.480
I try, I try to keep you on your toes.
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:11.519
So, you know, one of the things we wanted to make sure we bring, you know, across, and Jason's touched on it a little bit here, is you know, the employers need to understand you someone at the company needs to take ownership and running the plan.
00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:12.480
Yeah, right.
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:15.680
You can't just set it up, you can't you just move on.
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:29.839
Someone has to take ownership, whether that's the business owner, the CFO, the HR person, your larger firms, you know, whatever, you have a committee of people, but someone needs to take ownership of it because it can't be done by us.
00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:37.440
It can't just be done by the industry, it can't just be done by you know setting it up on the website and running from there.
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:42.319
There is, you know, those pieces have to be done, and someone has to take ownership with it.
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:54.480
So find someone in the company that's willing to take ownership on it, and they can, you know, communicate with service providers like ourselves, right, and get those steps done and manage the plan well.
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:59.839
On the advisor side of it, you know, I think we've talked about this a little bit too.
00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:05.839
It's like you either get into this side of it in the retirement plan space or partner with someone.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:06.559
Right, right.
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:07.279
Get a good partner.
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:15.519
Or get into it and know it and make it a, you know, a substantial piece of what you're doing.
00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:21.039
And I think that that so many financial advisors would benefit from finding a good partner.
00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:28.079
I mean, I have one financial advisor that I work with, and he has told me for like 10 years, I hate 401k plans, I'm never going to do them.
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:31.599
And we I actually drug him to Napa Summit one time.
00:27:31.839 --> 00:27:32.960
It was because it was in Vegas.
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:34.319
That's why he agreed to go.
00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:41.519
And we had a long talk and he was finally convinced, and now he loves them, but he has someone in his office who does them.
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:43.759
He doesn't do them because he hates them.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:52.000
And I think that that if more advisors took that approach and partnered with somebody, then I think we'd be everybody would be happier, right?
00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:53.119
I fully agree.
00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:54.240
I mean, that's our business model.
00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:54.960
I mean, that's okay.
00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:59.039
That is really what we tell advisors all the time is we know they don't like it.
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:01.119
You know, we just tell them, we're like, well, hey, we know you don't like it.
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:02.000
We're not offended by it.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:02.400
We love it.
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:02.640
Right.
00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:03.599
So we do.
00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:11.920
But if they ask me to work with like an individual client on their individual issues, I'm gonna, you know, I can I'm gonna be running as fast as I can the other direction.
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:23.119
Um so to, you know, along what Will was saying, I fully agree with the comment about either be in the space or partner with someone who's in the space or get out of the space.
00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:27.119
Like that's kind of where the where I view it from the advisor's point of view.
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:33.039
No, there shouldn't be there really shouldn't be people dabbling in it without a lot of experience or know-how.
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:36.880
It's it's too dangerous a spot uh for most advisors, but a lot of them still do it.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:49.839
When it comes to like the you know the landscape itself, secure 1.0, secure 2.0, the things that I think give me the most uh pause when it comes to like pay attention items, it's the data.
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:57.440
It's we have the most guar like most industries, like most things, garbage in, garbage out applies here in our system.
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:06.799
But because we're such a data-rich and data heavy environment and it relies almost totally on one specific set of data, which is the census data.
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:13.519
That what we try and impart very heavy, heavy-handedly, actually, is that we want all the data.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:20.400
We don't want you to do not take any license on picking and choosing who you think should and shouldn't be included.
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:41.920
Just include everybody because we need to know who the part-timers are, we need to know who the how many hours they work, we need to know all this stuff because as sure as we're sitting here, there's somebody that didn't include someone on their census and it won't get discovered for five years, and then when it does, we're gonna have to go in and do makeup contributions and get the thing corrected.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:52.880
And it was all because the person who sent in the data said, Oh, they're only gonna be here for they were only here for the summer and they don't count, and they didn't leave and they forgot that they didn't include them to us, right?
00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:54.079
So stuff like that.
00:29:54.319 --> 00:29:56.400
Yeah, totally agree.
00:29:56.720 --> 00:30:03.039
So, from your perspectives, where are the biggest gaps in America's retirement readiness today?
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:08.960
Is it access, band design, participant education, or something else, something completely different?
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:12.480
Well, I mean, I still think we have a big coverage problem in the United States.
00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:17.839
It's a challenge because the worker, the economic ecosystem for workers is changing.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:18.240
Right?
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:29.119
You have more people working at home, you have more people working in the gig economy where they're not working uh one full-time job, they're working for multiple part-time jobs.
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:36.000
And you have, you know, state by state, you have different requirements now for whether companies should offer a retirement plan or not.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:37.759
So I think coverage is still an issue.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.759
I don't love the solutions that have been presented at the national level.
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:51.440
I don't think that they're I don't think that I don't think you can, you know, solve the coverage gap by having a national mandatory mandate that's going to be put out there by our U.S.
00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:59.119
government and then not account for the harm they're gonna do on the other side to the private sector, to the industry that's actually been doing this for the last 40 years.
00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:00.880
So I don't love that solution.
00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:05.920
I think that to me is really the main issue is still coverage and getting more people in plan saving.
00:31:06.079 --> 00:31:10.880
But once once people do have a workplace plan, there's there's still a lot of good work that needs to be done on that side.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:12.720
Will, anything to add to that?
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:24.960
Yeah, I mean, interestingly enough, earlier this week I had you know client meeting and uh we were going over some final numbers as it was getting ready for filing, and he's like, What's really this is weird.
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:26.640
Like, what's going on here?
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:28.240
I don't really understand what's going on here.
00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.400
And he was asking some questions about some details.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:35.599
So I dug into the numbers and I looked at it, and I and it was very surprising.
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:42.640
Their workforce was just offered the plan, you know, the 401k plan, right, a couple years ago.
00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:54.160
They we finally talked them into putting it into a match in a large majority of the employees started to contribute right away as soon as he instilled the match last July 1st.
00:31:54.480 --> 00:32:03.759
Okay, and then as it went on, we could see the number in the percentages of what would people were contributing.
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:12.720
They went from just doing small amounts, making sure they got the match to 15, 20, 18, 21 percent of contributions.
00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:16.799
And we're like, wow, like to see this working, right?
00:32:17.119 --> 00:32:26.079
Because we took those steps, we implemented the plan, talked to him a couple years about putting in a match, finally got him to put in a match.
00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:43.279
The employees responded immediately from that, and then over the next six months, they really like started, must have gotten their statements, gotten their paychecks, noticed that the accounts were building faster, and went, wow, we kind of like this, and started moving up their savings rates.
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:45.680
And it was pretty impressive to see as a group.
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:46.480
That's amazing.
00:32:47.119 --> 00:33:02.880
The one thing that I think that's happened in the last few years with the advent of Secure 2.0 is they by putting in the mandatory automatic enrollment to plans established uh after a certain date, and then having the auto-escalation go go all the way, be also part of that up to 10%.
00:33:03.680 --> 00:33:14.160
It's forced a lot of us that are on the plan design side that are designing these new plans to kind of look at that and go, practically speaking, this thing's gonna break with the escalation, right?
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:16.640
The clients are gonna forget to escalate people.
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:24.480
So why don't we just start everybody at 10 and escalate to 10, and then you basically handle it in the document that it's already done that way.
00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:32.720
And as long as as long as everybody fills out a form at the enrollment meeting, then they've effectively, once they tell you what they want to do, they've opted out of the negative election.
00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:40.000
But what we found, what I found very interesting as a result of all that was 10% doesn't get a lot of pushback.
00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:52.720
And years ago, when automatic enrollment was not mandatory, it was just a concept we were all touting as a good idea, and then you know, Quaca and Yaka and those things all came out, everyone was like, Why do we start them at?
00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:54.079
Well, we'll start them at 3%, right?
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:54.799
We'll do 3%.
00:33:55.359 --> 00:34:00.960
And oh, I don't want to make my employees do anything, I'll let them choose how much we just get a lot of pushback back then.
00:34:01.119 --> 00:34:08.320
And now, I mean, I think the last 50 plans I've designed with 10% automatic enrollment, and not not a single client has pushed back.
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:17.679
So I think it's interesting how when you just say to somebody, well, this is the way we do it because the law kind of mandates you get here anyway, and it's a good idea.
00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:20.480
And as long as someone fills out a form, you don't have to worry about it anyway.
00:34:20.559 --> 00:34:27.679
It's just for people who don't fill out a form that, or you know, go online and fill out a you know, an online form or they sign up on their phone or whatever.
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:34.800
As long as it's only for the people who don't tell you what they want that they get automatically enrolled at that level, then the employers go, oh, that makes sense.
00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:36.639
I understand that, and they don't push back.
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:54.639
So I think like the more you have frank conversations about defaulting to a best practice, defaulting to something that leads to the better outcome, as just, oh, this is just the way we do it because this is a best practice, or this is the way we do it because the law is going to make us do it it this way anyway, so we're just getting it out of the way up front.
00:34:55.119 --> 00:35:02.159
Those kind of conversations remove the barriers, instill confidence from the clients that they're that they're in good hands.
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:04.960
And then they just implement your advice.
00:35:05.199 --> 00:35:16.000
And I think that that's been really very, very illuminating for me over the last few years since the really since Secure 2.0 kind of pushed the issue to the forefront.
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:19.119
Yeah, we do the same thing, and we don't get a lot of pushback either.
00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:26.079
So hopefully it's gonna start making some real difference in people's lives because they need to be contributing higher rates.
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.119
What role do you all feel like financial advisors play in helping close all of these gaps that we keep talking about?
00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:34.960
But I think that's our job, right?
00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:37.280
As financial advisors is to fill the gaps, right?
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:47.360
So we and I think um if we're doing our job right, we're first and foremost, we're proactively looking for the gaps because we're trying to fill.
00:35:47.519 --> 00:35:50.880
We're trying we're not just trying to solve the problems the client knows they have.
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:57.840
We're also trying to solve the problems the client don't know they do not either don't know they have or don't know they're going to have.
00:35:58.159 --> 00:36:05.440
And we're trying to do that ahead of time in a way where they'll be willing to accept the medicine as part of the meal.
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:07.360
Right.
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:10.320
So I mean, I think that that's what we try and do.
00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:17.599
And I think that good retirement plan consultants, good retirement plan advisors, that and we know a lot of them, you know a lot of the same people we know.
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:19.360
That's what they all try to do as well.
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:26.320
We don't necessarily always agree with all the things that everyone's pushing all the time, but I think we're all ultimately trying to do the same thing.
00:36:26.639 --> 00:36:27.119
Agreed.
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:29.599
I think, you know, I've said this a lot about our industry.
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:38.880
I think our industry is really unique because almost everybody I know in this industry has good intentions and wants good things, and they're very collaborative.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:43.280
Like I'm willing to share information with you all so that we can build a better system.
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:59.920
We, you know, we have roundtables with other business owners where we're sharing best practices and things, but all of us seem to be working to simply improve this industry, whether it's the financial advising side or the plan administration side and getting the coverage gap closed and the savings gap.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:02.639
It's a really unique industry to be able to be a part of.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:07.119
Well, Will and I don't view the world uh like we don't view the world competitively.
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:07.599
Right.
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:09.679
We do the world collaboratively.
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.920
So we don't have competitors, we just have people we do business with and people we don't do business with.
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:19.440
And as you know, on the TPA side, we trade cases all the time, right?
00:37:19.519 --> 00:37:25.840
So you know, plans move around, and that's just part of the uh that's part of the business model, and we know that.
00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:33.920
So, you know, we might lose a case to the TPA down the street uh for one reason or another, and then the next month we win a case from them.
00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:36.639
And and so it's just it's just the way it goes.
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:37.519
Agreed.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:43.599
So looking ahead, what's your vision for the retirement plan industry over the next five to 10 years?
00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:48.800
And how are you preparing integrated pension services to lead into the future?
00:37:49.199 --> 00:38:00.480
Well, I think a lot of you know, with the Secure Act, Secure 2.0, state mandated plans, I think people are becoming more open to closing that coverage gap as you're talking about.
00:38:00.719 --> 00:38:04.719
So therefore, there's going to be more plans established.
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:14.800
And I think we need to, as an industry, get better at removing some of the barriers, taking away some of the head trash, you know, for that.
00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:21.519
It's just saying the plans are good, this is how we're gonna set up, automate where you can for that piece of it.
00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:27.360
A joke that I have in the office is the clients see no value in the 5,500.
00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:27.840
Okay.
00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:35.360
There's no to them, they know they have to get do it because we've told them they have to do it, but they see no value in that.
00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:57.440
And therefore, we need to get that process done as fast as we can so we can move past the 5,500 being signed as part of our job, and more is looking at it as okay, here's what the 5500 tells us, here's the consulting piece that we need to do out of the ADP test, the 5500.
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.960
What are those things telling us to make the plans better?
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:07.440
To add to what he said, and he said a good word there in the middle of his uh comments, which is automation.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:10.639
We're automating as much as we can.
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:19.920
You know, from a business philosophy point of view, our goal is to if a computer can do the task, we try and figure out how to get the computer to do the task.
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:31.360
And if a computer can't do the task, then we look to our human resources to fill that gap internally, starting, you know, uh, you know, bot in a bot as a bottom-up approach to that.
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:45.119
Ideally, long term, because of the increase in automation, AI technology, things of that nature, and because the consolidation that's been ongoing and will continue to go on, including ourselves.
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:49.280
And we've done an acquisition, we may have more down the road.
00:39:49.599 --> 00:40:03.280
Because of those two things in conjunction, you know, that's sort of why we've organized our practice the way we have, where we've sort of, so okay, we've got the third-party administration practice that can stand on its own two feet on its own as a TPA.
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:08.960
We've got the uh investment, the retirement plan advisory practice that can stand on its own on its own two feet.
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:30.480
We can do business in one or the other or both, and we embrace technology and automation to the extent that we can deploy it and that we have the ability to implement it, and try and discard the what the technologies that are not necessarily that you're gonna be you might solve problem A, but incur problem B as a result of implementing the wrong technology.
00:40:30.559 --> 00:40:42.400
And that's gonna be our challenge across the industry, I think, is making sure the technologies that do come into the space are good and are not harmful as an unexpected result.
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:43.360
Right.
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:44.320
Agreed.
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:50.960
What is one fun or surprising thing most people might not know about the retirement fin industry?
00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:56.880
Besides AsphA annual.
00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:04.320
I was gonna say seeing Will do karaoke at Aspen annual is a surprisingly fun thing to do to see.
00:41:08.880 --> 00:41:10.480
I think we're a great group of people.
00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:26.400
I think the industry itself is a cottage industry within a huge financial services industry, and while there are elements of the broader financial services industry that do play their way into our space, for the most part we're just a fun bunch of nerds.
00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:27.199
Yeah.
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:38.000
That just kind of geek around and you know, because there's that sort of uh base sort of willing to laugh willingness to laugh at ourselves because we all know what we are.
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:50.719
I really think that that's like a real one of the things I really love about the community of people that we know is that we all do have the ability to laugh at ourselves because you know it's kind of silly when you think about it all about what we all have.
00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:54.239
I mean, I think it's there's definitely that collaboration that we have.
00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:00.639
It's you and I sitting down and talking about what we do for the business Shannon and saying, hey, what works for you?
00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:03.840
What have you had like what have you done in this situation?
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:05.039
What have you done for that?
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:10.400
And we're all so willing to share and talk to each other that you don't find that in under other industries.
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:13.679
You know, they're still closed off, they just don't go in that direction.
00:42:13.840 --> 00:42:23.119
They wouldn't even think of calling their competitor, you know, down the street across the country about what's going on, you know, in the groups that we're involved in.
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:26.960
Obviously, we have those discussions so it's surround some beers.
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:28.719
Yeah, chat bar, but you know.
00:42:29.039 --> 00:42:30.800
A lot of times it's around some beers.
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:31.599
That's what you know.
00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:43.679
I don't know what other industry I could have found that would have given me five other best girlfriends that I could go to the beach with once a year and do nothing but talk about nerdy stuff coming out of Washington that has to do with retirement plans, right?
00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:48.639
My golf girlfriends would tell me to shut up in the first 10 minutes of the conversation.
00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:57.039
Yeah, I mean, I I have a very like epic story of catching a cab with Eileen Ferenzi.
00:42:57.280 --> 00:42:58.159
Oh, nice.
00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:14.480
We happened to be in the line together, happened to talk at you know, we were in going to Nashville for an event, and to sit in that cab ride with her for 40 minutes, I was like, I'll pay like 10 times the cab fare to have that experience.
00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:19.760
And then she's like, Oh no, I'm not even at the this hotel, I'm further down, I'm gonna pay for it.
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:20.239
What?
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:24.079
Like, you know, right, yeah, yeah, I know.
00:43:24.239 --> 00:43:25.760
It's a great industry we're in.
00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:33.119
If you all could give one piece of advice to a financial advisor looking to improve their retirement plan offering today, what would it be?
00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:34.800
One piece of advice.
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:44.079
Partner up with someone who's really good at this already, and there's no shame in there's no shame in having a mentor that could also be your business partner.
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:45.760
That's the way I view the world.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:46.960
No, I think that's great.
00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:49.119
Even though I think I'm a lot smarter than Will.
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:59.199
Yeah, I mean, like we said, this industry is willing to collaborate, so I partner up, go talk to somebody, you know.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:01.679
Meet them, you know.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.679
Yeah, I I think that's the right advice.
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:15.280
And when someone's trying to get into the space, you know, if you're gonna there's the hard way in and then there's the easy way, it's really easy to just find someone else who knows what they're doing and learn from them until you feel good about going along.
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:16.400
Exactly.
00:44:16.639 --> 00:44:24.719
So for employers who want to help close the retirement gap for their employees, besides putting in a plan if they don't have one, where should they start?
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:27.119
This is my soapbox moment, Shannon.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:27.360
Right.
00:44:27.519 --> 00:44:27.840
Okay.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:29.840
You know, bring it on, Will.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:33.360
I I stand on the soapbox and say this all the time.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:39.599
So many companies want to give out like cash bonuses at the end of the year, right?
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:43.599
But or do some incentive plans with the cash.
00:44:43.920 --> 00:45:01.440
But when you let's say you have 50 grand that you decide you're giving out in cash bonuses, well, now you have payroll taxes, you have unemployment taxes, you have all those things that are tied to payroll, that it doesn't make it 50 grand, it makes it 57, 60 grand.
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:05.280
Well, why not take that 50 grand and put it in the plan?
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:19.679
And whether that's jump starting someone's retirement that hasn't done that, or adding to the piece to it, you know, for some employees, it became, you know, that time value of money can make such a huge difference for them.
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.960
And oh, by the way, you happen to get a tax deduction for it.
00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:23.679
Yep.
00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:24.960
I totally agree.
00:45:25.119 --> 00:45:26.320
I totally agree.
00:45:26.639 --> 00:45:32.960
So looking to the future, what excites you most about where our industry is headed?
00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:37.760
I mean, I'm excited about the direction the business has gone for the last 15 years.
00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:46.159
I mean, I think we have a great industry lobby group that helps us to identify problem areas and fill those gaps.
00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:49.920
So, like a lot of what came out at Secure 2.0, a lot of that was really helpful.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:58.960
So I mean it's helpful to expand coverage, it's helpful to get higher savings rates, helpful to get more, you know, higher uh contribution, you know, participation rates.
00:46:00.079 --> 00:46:02.480
Those things didn't exist 15 years ago.
00:46:02.719 --> 00:46:08.639
You know, a lot of the stuff that uh we were dealing with 15, 20 years ago when you know I've been in the business 30 years.
00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:11.360
I mean, we daily valuation was new when I started.
00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:16.639
You know, we were working with single fund family products that were in A Bay A B loaded shares, whatever.
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:17.599
Right?
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:28.079
You know, most of the pricing concerns that existed back when uh Jon Stewart did that piece, or it was John not John Stewart, I forget who it was, who did that piece about 400k plans being too expensive.
00:46:28.639 --> 00:46:30.800
Most of that stuff is largely washed out of the industry.
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:32.000
Fee compression came.
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.920
Fee you know, fees for the most part are on new business, certainly on new cases when we take over plans.
00:46:38.320 --> 00:46:38.960
Very competitive.
00:46:39.679 --> 00:46:48.559
I think that there's a what I'm excited about is what I see is continuing to see what I've seen happen, which is that the industry is sharpening.
00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:50.400
It's a mature industry.
00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:55.760
The platforms, the products, the offerings of the different providers that are out there are getting better.
00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:08.079
The services are getting better, you know, and it's all towards uh getting more people in plans, getting them getting access to plans into plans and saving more money.
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:09.920
And you're seeing that.
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:12.400
You're seeing the out you we're starting to see the results of that.
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:22.159
We're seeing studies come out from different places that are showing that the average savings rate for people that have access to plans is like two to three times higher than it was 10 years ago.
00:47:22.800 --> 00:47:43.920
Which is, I mean, it you know, doesn't bring a tear in my eye because I'm not that emotional about it, but it does kind of you know make me makes me like very proud of what we, the collective we have done to improve, you know, not just the industry, but the actual to improve real tangible results for the people that we serve.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:47.679
So I I mean that's what I'm excited about, is continuing to see that evolve.
00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:49.119
Yeah, I totally agree.
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:57.760
My husband and I had a conversation one time, and I was super excited about you know all that we do and talking about how important our industry is and blah, blah, blah.
00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:00.639
And he looked at me and he goes, Shannon, you're not a heart surgeon.
00:48:00.719 --> 00:48:02.000
You're not saving lives.
00:48:02.159 --> 00:48:04.000
And I snapped my head around at him.
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:05.760
I'm like, Yes, we are saving lives.
00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:07.280
We are actually saving lives.
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:11.280
I mean, we're not cutting people open and fixing their heart, but we're saving lives.
00:48:11.599 --> 00:48:12.239
I know you.
00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:14.960
I would not have wanted to be on the receiving reaction.
00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:16.719
He doesn't, he didn't get it.
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:18.000
I was like, Yes, we do.
00:48:18.079 --> 00:48:19.360
We save lives.
00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:21.199
So, yeah, totally.
00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:25.519
Okay, finally, we asked this question of everyone on the show.
00:48:25.760 --> 00:48:30.559
What does closing the gap in America's retirement security mean to you personally?
00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:32.559
Will, you first.
00:48:32.880 --> 00:48:37.599
I think it just it's a culmination of like 30 years worth of work, Janet.
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:45.920
It's like I've been working at this for a long time, and you know, we've touched, like Jason says, you know, tens of thousands of participants now.
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:52.480
It's just closing that gap is means we just we're continuing to add upon what we've done.
00:48:52.559 --> 00:49:01.840
We're continuing to get better both in our firm, in the industry, about these things, and it's helping more people save, and that's what matters.
00:49:02.400 --> 00:49:10.639
So many of us have firsthand or secondhand experiences with people that have experienced elder poverty.
00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:22.159
And elder poverty is frequently a function of exactly what we're fighting against, which is people not having money that they've saved up or accumulated up over the years.
00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:29.920
And so I kind of think of ourselves in a very corny way as you know, we're champions fighting against elderly poverty.
00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:34.400
And I think we all do our best to do that, even if we're not necessarily thinking about it that way.
00:49:34.639 --> 00:49:41.360
But when I see, you know, we all know the studies show that if when people have access to a workplace retirement plan, they save.
00:49:41.840 --> 00:49:46.960
And if the younger they have access to it, the larger their account balances are when they retire.
00:49:47.360 --> 00:50:07.679
And if we could enable people to be able to successfully retire at a reasonable retirement age, you know, somewhere you know in their 60s or you know, uh, and retire with dignity with not having to worry about financial well-being or outliving their their money, well, then I think we've done our job.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.800
You know, like I that and that's I mean, if that's is that the gap that we're trying to close?
00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:14.079
I guess it is, you know.
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:14.800
Yeah.
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:15.920
Agreed.
00:50:16.480 --> 00:50:18.880
Did we not did we cover everything you all wanted to cover?
00:50:18.960 --> 00:50:20.559
Or do you have anything else to add?
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.119
Shannon, why you know, we never covered my number one bullet.
00:50:27.599 --> 00:50:28.880
Your number one bullet, okay.
00:50:29.920 --> 00:50:31.039
RTFD.
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:32.159
Okay.
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:36.320
Read the effing document.
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:37.280
Yes.
00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:38.800
Yes, yes.
00:50:39.199 --> 00:50:45.599
From Sarah Simeno, like I, you know, she wrote that, you know, she talks about that, and man, does it come up all the time?
00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:46.400
All the time.
00:50:46.719 --> 00:50:48.719
People don't read the document.
00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:50.400
The rules are in there.
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:52.239
Just follow the document.
00:50:52.400 --> 00:51:04.639
It's a I mean, those of us who have ever encountered a plan that we know is broken, and we say to them, if I go to my ERISA attorney and I bring him your story, the first thing out of their mouths is gonna be, well, what does the document say?
00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:05.840
What does the document say?
00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:06.239
Yep.
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:07.360
Exactly.
00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:17.679
And so, you know, the document it codifies the law, uh, takes the giant law and it narrows it down to from you know 5,000 pages to 50 pages or whatever.
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:19.360
You know, what does the document say?
00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:20.559
That's what we ought to do.
00:51:20.880 --> 00:51:21.519
Absolutely.
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:31.920
Well, thank you guys so much for sharing with us today and for the work you're doing to help sponsors and advisors strengthen their plans and better serve working Americans.
00:51:32.159 --> 00:51:35.360
Your work helps close the gaps we talk about on this show.
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:42.000
For anyone who wants to learn more about the work that Will and Jason do every day, we will have their contact information in the show notes.
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:48.880
You can also catch Will every other Thursday night in the chat bar of the Retire Holic Show at 4.30 p.m.
00:51:49.119 --> 00:51:49.840
Pacific time.
00:51:50.239 --> 00:51:52.159
Thank you for joining us on The Gap.
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:53.920
Join us next time.
00:51:54.719 --> 00:51:56.079
Thank you for listening to The Gap.
00:51:56.320 --> 00:52:02.719
Be sure to check out the show notes for important links, retirement plan resources, and more at TryStarPension.com.
00:52:02.880 --> 00:52:05.599
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00:52:05.679 --> 00:52:10.239
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00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:14.880
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00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:16.480
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