
IRAs Today: Employee Education
Some changes to IRAs in the Secure Act 2.0 may have brought employees to think about how they may want to incorporate IRAs into their retirement savings plan. Towards that end, Plan Sponsors may want to offer employees a few key details on why IRAs can benefit their savings.
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Not the Same Old, Same Old, When It Comes to Getting Older
Recent studies may challenge assumptions on retirement planning, for clients and advisors. Taken together, the studies show a compelling conclusion that using a financial planner greatly increases the chances of succeeding saving sufficiently for retirement. Read on for three takeaways.
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A Third Option in the Struggle Between Credit Cards and 401(k)s
Credit card debt competes with saving, for retirement or emergencies, on the spreadsheet cells of your employees’ budget. This war of intentions is particularly noticeable in younger generations, like GenZ, those just entering the workforce. Here’s a review of how credit card debt impacts retirement saving.
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Ready, Set, Review: Best Practice Updating as Part of Career Development
Best practice documents can be helpful in insulating assets from risk and, since they can be used as benchmarks, limiting liability. Yet, keeping up with changes to best practices can be daunting. If your plan administrator and HR department are thinking of updating their best practices library and worry about the resources needed, you may have a secret weapon in this process: career development.
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About that New DOL ESG Rule…
Can you, or can’t you? The state of the regulations on ESG for ERISA-related and public fund fiduciaries is anything but clear. Here’s a roundup of the current activity.
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Risk Management Review: Risk Transfer Review
Financial advisors are used to keeping an eye out for risk, managing options, and avoiding potential areas for their clients. So, managing their own firms’ risk may get less attention. A new report from Deloitte on the future of risk made us ask what can be done beyond our standard risk management approaches?
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Severance Developments in 2023
If severance plans make you sweat, hang in there. Here is the latest in information about confidentiality and clear communication around how to use severance agreements to your best advantage and the increasing use of upskilling.
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Future Proofing Benefit Systems
Many plan sponsors made big moves in 2022, including changes to their plans to include more participants and to broaden their benefits. They also set their sights on incorporating the changes SECURE Act 2.0 brought.
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What Participants Should Know: Unpaid Student Loans and Retirement Income
In an effort to build benefits packages that attract workers, many employers are adding student loan repayments to their benefits lineup. This measure was often seen as part of professions requiring advanced degrees like law and health care. But a new study may add additional weight to that decision by showing that student loans impact retirement income long after employees have graduated.
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Secure Act 2.0: Clients Want to Know…
Act 2.0 is full of provisions that will benefit clients of all sizes. But what we focus on and what clients care about may be different. Here are three areas that may drive client conversations over the next few months.
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Re-Think “Real Estate” Investing
Most renters complaining that their housing payments have increased considerably over the last two years, traditional alternative investments in rental properties may seem like a limited option. Can your clients use the increased mortgage rate (possibility of further increases) to their advantage? The answer may be in changing how your clients think about real estate.
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Unretirement: Boomerang Retirees
Amidst all the talk about quiet quitting, quiet managing, and the Great Resignation, another trend may be brewing: the retirement boomerang. Retirees who don't plan for their retirement income properly may boomerang back into the workforce. Advisors can help prevent this by working on education ahead of a planned retirement date.
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ESG, Institutional Investors and SEC’s Greenwashing Rule
ESG has long been a hot topic for advisors working with individuals. Now, new research shows that institutional investors are prioritizing ESG in their decisions too. But there are concerns about what qualifies. Here’s what you need to know to help your institutional clients.
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Next Up in Prospecting - How to Delegate
Looking for a way to lighten up your stress? The experts all suggest delegating more of your to do list. We know it’s easy. But one task you can delegate to others is building your prospect database.
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Alternatives to Alternative Investments?
Alternative investments seemed like a hot take on surviving market volatility during the pandemic. With low barriers to entry and high liquidity, cryptocurrency may have seemed like a smart choice. What now for clients who may be seeking alternative investments in a post-crypto world? It may be as simple as reviewing the basics, like life insurance.
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Strategic planning approaches for plan sponsors
Changes to employee benefits may be a small part of an overall organizational strategic plan. It may seem odd, then, to consider strategic planning a benefits change. But a review of the different models of strategic planning may help plan sponsors consider how to structure the process of changing plan documents.
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Emotional Investing and Commodities
Commodities had their best year in more than a decade, but a client’s interest in them may be based on more than rate of return. Here’s what clients may need to hear about emotional investing and commodities.
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New Plan Designs: Expanding on Auto-Enrollment Features
If 87% of employers agree that auto-enrollment in a 401(k) plan has a favorable impact on employees’ retirement readiness, why not try other stumbling blocks for retirement readiness? Results from a retirement readiness survey seem to suggest that many plan sponsors are considering just that.
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Buyer Beware!
It’s time to revisit spending—and budgeting. Especially given the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are turning to “buy now pay later” loan programs which can be downright predatory.
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New Roth IRA Rules?
It might sound like the changes proposed to Roth IRAs over September 2021 and October 2021 are cause for a lot of concern by many investors. Your clients may already be peppering you with questions. A quick deep dive into those proposed changes may answer some of that concern.
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TV Land: What to Watch
What are your employees reading/watching that could help you convey retirement savings and investing information? Here are three wildly different picks that may resonate with employees.
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Beat Your Client’s Zoom Fatigue
Clients are, shall we say, tired of Zoom. How can you or other advisors on your team still produce effective client seminars? There’s no quick answer, but a few solid tips from professionals discussed below may help.
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Ready, Set, GO GO GO! Talking to Clients about Post-Covid Spending and Travel
It’s worth revisiting the basics with clients now, as the urge to splurge on travel, or any other “normal” activity. But the thought of stepping out is hard to step away from. With the behavioral finance of planned splurges and the following information, you can have a productive conversation with your clients, even if they are cabin-feverish.
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Why You Need a Content Plan
Content plans (aka content calendars) will help your client communications stay organized, consistent, and on-brand. Here’s what they are and why you need one.
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Is the doomsday clock still ticking on Social Security?
Social Security is primarily funded through payroll taxes; however, due to the significant layoffs caused by COVID-19, 10.7 million fewer workers are paying into social security, plus many others have had their hours cut. Taken together, this means that Social Security contributions have slowed down significantly.
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Not Just Death and Taxes: Millennial Caregivers of Aging Parents
More and more adults are becoming caregivers to aging and elderly relatives, and the number of young caregivers is increasing disproportionately. What resources can plan sponsors offer employees who are trying to plan for these emotionally and financially challenging circumstances—or may already be facing them?
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Working Retirement: When Its Time to Call it Quits
Not everyone wants to retire. Whatever the motivation, many older investors may have been planning on a working retirement. Those older investors probably didn’t plan on a contagious pandemic that makes them feel unsafe returning to work.
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Security Issues In the AC – After Corona
Financial advisors have a complex web of security issues to consider on a calm day. Has coronavirus made that more complicated? Maybe. Here are a few key issues to consider when reviewing your security plans while we continue to work from home at least part of the time.
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Should You YouTube?
With anything hands-on miles away from the current reality and so much perceived chaos over financial matters, advisors may feel frustrated. How can they use YouTube to help calm confusion?
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Your Time Management Misses the Target
With marketing, networking, and budget balancing tasks fighting for space in your Google calendar, you may feel that your time management skills need a tune up. Not so fast! Instead of managing your time, manage your attention.
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Up Your Presentation Game: Alternatives to Powerpoint
Not only are other options out there for communicating with your clients besides the boring PowerPoint slides but your competition may be using them. Here’s a run through of a handful of the best alternatives to Powerpoint and also how the other game in town can help you communicate with new audiences.
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Colors in Communications
Want to increase your email newsletter's open rate? Adding color may seem like a great option. But before you go tossing handfuls of brights across your page, you may want to stop and read a few key tips on color theory.
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Hiring Outside the Box
The key to finding the right people might be to focus more on how you find them and less on your job description or interview process. Letting go of what you’ve always tried and trying these ideas might help you find your client’s new favorite staff person.
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Electronic Signatures and State Laws
FINRA’s new rule on electronic signatures highlights the differences between state and federal law. What do advisors need to know about e-signatures and how that might impact their work?
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Managing and protecting your reputation
Clients choose advisors based on factors other than costs. Advisors who meet their client’s needs consistently have clients who are less likely to jump ship. Word of mouth may be the best form of advertising, but in the age of the Internet, can you control it?
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What FAs need to know about behavioral science in finance
Financial theory holds that people, as investors, will be rational thinkers, moving towards wealth maximization. Yet, often, investors, as people, make irrational choices. Behavioral finance explains why investors make bad choices and how to encourage better choices.
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Do they even have an account?
In 2016, Time Magazine reported that 1 in 3 Americans did not have any retirement accounts. How can employers work with this statistic to encourage more employees to save for retirement?
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The Longevity Gamble
Are your plan participants betting that they’ll live a long time? Do their retirement savings and goals match that enthusiasm?
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