Defining a Retirement Plan Master
Recently a survey was conducted by the Brightwork Partners, of 100 financial consultants and advisors that are actively advising on corporate retirement plans. Actively [currently, presently, insert your favorite synonym] is the key word here because this is really telling as a quick cartography of the industry landscape.
Only 10% of these advisors received 51%-100% of their income from managing retirement plans. What the means is that out of those 100 financial consultants and advisors that were surveyed, only 10% came even close to having any kind of specialized focus on retirement plans. 90% of them make most of their money from managing and overseeing various other financial plans.
Most commonly, income from advising and retirement plans was 1%-10% of the practice. Additionally, only 31 of the 100 practices answered that they actively (there’s that key word again) advised on these types of plans, as opposed to occasionally.
The median amount of assets in defined contribution plans was $29 million. If the practice stated that they were actively managing these types of plans (21%), then the median figure jumped to $238 million in assets under management.
The average number of plans managed was 17 for the total and 33 if the practice was actively working in the space. 65% of the advisors and consultants surveyed were part of Registered Investment Advisors and mainly fee-based as opposed to commission-based. Only 30 firms reported receiving any commission from plans.
91% of these advisors/consultants think of themselves as fiduciaries to the plans they sell. 73% assist with providing financial wellness support.
We’ve all heard the idiom “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Sometimes that’s heralded as a positive trait in polymaths like DaVinci and Galileo. But they aren’t the ones managing your retirement plan. You deserve a specialist in this field, a company or an individual who actively occupy a niche within their industry.
In his New York Times best-selling book, Mastery, Robert Greene writes a lot about what it means to occupy a specialized niche and truly master that work. He writes that “Mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.” That intensity of focus isn’t reflected in these survey statistics, at all.
Retirement Planology specializes in retirement plans and fiduciary responsibilities. While we care for the same level of assets and number of clients as those surveyed, we’re one of a kind. We are actively masters at the forefront of our niche. We get 100% of of our revenue from the retirement plans we actively manage and we’re an active fiduciary 100% of the time, assisting with financial wellness and support programs.
If you’d like to learn more about our services offered to plan sponsors, click here to email us. If you want hear more by Robert Greene and his book Mastery, he recently gave a great interview in the September 8th episode of the Blanchard LeaderChat podcast, available here.