Prospecting 401(k) Plans in Down Markets
Chapters
- 0:00 Welcome to Season Two
- 3:51 Favorite Moments from Season One
- 7:28 Looking Ahead to Season Two
- 11:38 Staying Proactive with Existing Clients
- 12:15 Prospecting Opportunities in Down Markets
- 15:35 Helping Clients Stay the Course
- 18:04 The Wheel of Ice
- 21:28 Year End Planning for 401k Plans
- 27:01 Wrap Up and Final Thoughts
Show full transcript
[0:01] JD: Welcome to Retireaholics, episode 8. 1, 2, 3.
[0:11] Chad: Pdc.
[0:12] JD: All right, Chad, kick us off with opening up the beer of the episode.
[0:18] Chad: We've got Knee deep brewing company started in Nevada, operating out of Auburn. Never tried one of their beers. So be able to do this.
[0:30] JD: Am I here to pour my own beer?
[0:32] Chad: You are here to play.
[0:33] Mark: Chad was a bartender.
[0:34] Chad: We've got. I've got hoptologist dipa.
[0:39] JD: I've got breaking bud.
[0:49] Chad: We should all mention that. You noticed there's something. There's three here because Mark is on a no beer binge. So Mark is drinking Buzz ball tequila. Rita, I should mention it's 20 alcohol by volume.
[1:07] Mark: I didn't know you could be a
[1:08] JD: retireholic and not drink beer.
[1:10] Mark: Well, I just want to specify for the record, you know, happy 2016 to all you guys.
[1:16] JD: Yeah, not both of them.
[1:19] Mark: This was not my decision to drink this and I just taking a little break from beer. No big deal. 30 days, full challenge.
[1:27] Justin: Cheers. Cheers, fellas.
[1:28] JD: Alex, we're going to head on over to the couch.
[1:31] Mark: Like those little tablets you dissolve when you don't.
[1:35] Chad: Airborne. It looks like key to my life.
[1:37] JD: All right, let's head on over. Get started on episode eight.
[1:42] Justin: We're not bringing beers.
[1:44] JD: No, we're not bringing.
[1:45] Chad: Is that hard, Mark? A little tough for you to take?
[1:49] Mark: It's called buzz ball.
[1:50] Chad: All right.
[1:50] Mark: We poured two of them in there.
[1:53] JD: I thought we were gonna.
[1:54] Chad: You should drink beer.
[1:55] JD: With the retire holidays, a little bit about the personal.
[1:57] Mark: It's probably better if I drink stuff.
[1:59] JD: While we were over there, I was gonna bring up the fact that we played golf at pebble beach resort Spanish Bay yesterday.
[2:08] Mark: That wasn't golf, that was.
[2:10] Justin: What was that?
[2:11] JD: In the pouring down rain and 25 mile an hour gusty winds. Did it stop raining all day? Not really.
[2:17] Chad: At the time I came in the
[2:20] Mark: clubhouse when I smashed that Perfect Drive on 18 because it didn't matter at that point.
[2:24] JD: I can't believe you're bragging. When Justin and I actually won the match play tournament for the day, you
[2:29] Mark: did all the work. Hey, two holes.
[2:32] Chad: Justin held the umbrella that counts.
[2:34] JD: Welcome financial advisors, strategic partners and anyone else that stumbled upon Retireholics. Episode number eight.
[2:45] Mark: Yes. Shout out to Mike Weaver.
[2:47] JD: Mike Weaver, I want to first tell you or describe to you what this is all about. So Retireholics is our version of a boring corporate webinar. Kind of the concept here is you're going to go listen to some 45 minute financial institution webinar with a slide deck that Talks about glide paths and equity exposure or this or that. Why not come have a couple beers, hang out with us and learn some of the same things, Right? That's what retireaholics is about. Okay, so welcome to episode number eight.
[3:21] Chad: Eight, season two.
[3:24] JD: I never thought we'd get this far, but what I'd like to do is do a quick review of 2015 since this is our kickoff to season two. So do me a favor and Justin, Mark, Chad, tell me about your highlight or your favorite moment from the 2015 season.
[3:44] Justin: I think there's only one, like clear leader. I'm sure we have a lot of follow ups, but it's definitely Chad getting tased.
[3:51] Chad: I think the lead into me getting tased was better than the actual tase part itself.
[3:55] Justin: As JD said, I kind of. I jumped the gun a little too quick.
[3:58] JD: If you haven't seen that, that's episode seven. In the very beginning, Tad gets tased for his lack of knowledge. Hold on.
[4:07] Mark: I keep saying tase, but it is a stun gun.
[4:10] Chad: I wanted to be tased.
[4:11] JD: Is it here today or.
[4:12] Chad: No, we just couldn't find anybody who would tase me. Maybe that. Maybe sometime we can convince an officer to tase me.
[4:17] JD: I found out that was slightly illegal or something.
[4:19] Chad: Yeah, Mark.
[4:21] Mark: I was gonna say I have a few, but one that stands out in my mind. It's not a particular moment, per se. Well, there was a moment on the show, but filming live at Aviar Golf Course was a lot of fun. Just being in it was great weather, great day. We get to play golf that day, but. And I drank Ensure, so that wasn't great. But that element of being outdoors was a lot of fun.
[4:43] JD: And we'll probably do something like that in season two for sure. I bet if not at that very
[4:47] Mark: same event, we should have tried to film yesterday in the monsoon that we played in.
[4:53] JD: Chad, favorite moment from season one.
[4:57] Chad: Well, we all know what my favorite moment wasn't, which was getting shocked.
[5:03] Mark: You enjoyed every minute.
[5:04] Chad: I did enjoy every single minute of it. Probably was starting the episode when Mark was still working in his office.
[5:11] Mark: Are they looking to get the first start without me?
[5:14] Chad: We did.
[5:14] Mark: Oh, come on.
[5:16] Chad: Only because it really did bother him as much as he downplayed it. It struck a nerve a little bit.
[5:23] Mark: I get awkward once in a while, so it just felt like, oh, this isn't good. Not a good start. So thanks, guys.
[5:31] Chad: Great start for us. Yeah, the look on your face when
[5:33] Justin: you came out was priceless.
[5:34] JD: You guys started without. I think we actually Started. How's that even possible? Was that.
[5:37] Mark: Was I annoyed or was I. Was I just really sad? I mean, that hurt my feelings probably.
[5:41] JD: Since there was a time during the year where you thought the show should
[5:44] Mark: be called Markaholics, I still firmly believe that. So anybody watching who wants us to amend our name to which way is it to go? Markaholics, please write in.
[5:56] JD: Always making the editor do stuff that's not cool. Not cool at all.
[6:01] Chad: I love that. Have you noticed, though, that that 401k jargon is part of their life now? He uses the word amend when talking about.
[6:08] Mark: I do that on purpose. See what I did there?
[6:10] Chad: Yes, I do.
[6:11] Mark: Yes.
[6:12] JD: My favorite part of season one, 2015, and I mean, this was when the editor made Paul Carlson's head come up and his mouth was open to the words that he was talking. When I saw that, I was pretty excited.
[6:28] Chad: We were going down the right path at that point.
[6:30] JD: And I definitely want to make sure that in 2016, we get the better call Paul segment in there. And I got to have the.
[6:39] Mark: Can we just. Can we just say with that element? But just in general, the editor of our show is leaps and bounds better than what we do. And thanks to him, the show is what it is.
[6:51] JD: Hats off to Brandon.
[6:53] Chad: Hats off to you, Brandon.
[6:55] Mark: Yeah.
[6:55] JD: Okay.
[6:56] Mark: You want to try this, don't you?
[6:57] Chad: I do.
[6:58] JD: I'm surprised no one.
[6:59] Justin: None of us said Mark's endings.
[7:01] JD: Well, I was about. I was about, but I knew we only chapped. Beer exploded. But I was just. So you brought that up. I was gonna say. Well, I really like the way Mark ended a lot of the shows, especially the one that I've talked about before where he says it's a repetitive cycle, taking visors to golf, beating them, winning the hat from them. I remember that was. That was definitely a highlight.
[7:24] Mark: The offer still stands as we look
[7:28] JD: back on 2015 and season one. Let's look forward into 2016 and season two. We've got some great ideas. We're going to stick to a lot of the same segments that we use. So like I mentioned, definitely going to have. Better call Paul. We're always going to have our wheel of ice. And good luck to you on that, Mark, in the new year.
[7:51] Mark: Thank you.
[7:53] JD: We are going to continue on with the quiz of death, and you will play an integral part of the quiz of Death. But we're also going to add some new segments, one of which we're calling not your typical advisor.
[8:10] Chad: I'm excited about that.
[8:11] JD: And this is going to Be several segments throughout the year where we talk about advisors building a better business practice. Right. Cool things like, you know, perfecting their the modern day elevator pitch, which we don't really call elevator pitch anymore, but a quick, you know, 15 words or less or 30 seconds or last pitch of what they do, how to build a one page brochure, a more in depth services agreement or company overview, I should say, how to hold successful events and things like that. So we're super excited.
[8:47] Chad: Yeah, I think the goal is let's break down those pieces to building a practice into, you know, six, seven segments and really deliver something that they can utilize.
[8:57] JD: And hopefully it's got a PDC retireholic spin on it and that it's not the same type of information that you're gonna get from everyone else out there in the industry, which is why we
[9:09] Mark: call it your hashtag thing, not your typical advisor. Well, I think it's, it's really taking advantage of what we've done here as a tpa. Right. So we've tried to break the mold and stand out and the success we've had with that and we get questioned about it often by advisors and I think now we can push back a little bit and say, hey, if we can both come in and have that approach together, be very atypical, if you will. I think it's going to work out great and we're just going to work that much better as a team. And I think for their practice, it's just going to set them apart.
[9:46] Chad: Cool.
[9:47] JD: So that's going to be fun. We look forward to that. One other new segment we're going to do is we're going to call it the 41 1K. I don't know. Hopefully our editor will create some cool or whatever. And the 411k is about current events within the retirement plan industry. Things that are happening now that we can share with our audience. And so today let's kick it off with the 411.
[10:18] Mark: Okay.
[10:20] JD: And let's talk about the volatility, or can I call it volatility, when every day is down, the going down of the stock market spiral that we've experienced Friday. And there's been very few days, but there's been a few. But it has been the worst start to a year, I've been told in the history of the world.
[10:45] Mark: Yeah.
[10:45] Chad: 8% in the first two weeks and that's never happened.
[10:47] JD: I think we're at beyond a 10% loss after today. Today is January 20th.
[10:53] Justin: Yep.
[10:53] JD: And the stock market was down over 500 points this morning. It's bounced back a little bit since then, but. Okay, Bullets and Kramer.
[11:00] Mark: Bye bye. Bye, bye, bye. I'm just kidding.
[11:02] JD: Markets are down. Markets are volatile. This is an opportunity for financial advisors in a huge way. A lot of them know this if they do personal money management. But let's fixate on retirement plan advisory work, okay? And some of the same analogies apply. So when markets are down or volatile, this is a great time to use retention with your clients, right? Be proactive with your clients. Reach out to them, let them know that you're available to answer questions and to help them. Right? So that's rule number one.
[11:38] Chad: Think about it from your client's perspective. What is happening in their day to day operations of their capelan. Right now the returns are doing this and employees are doing this and they're asking questions. And so for advisors to reach out and be a resource for those plan sponsors and say, hey, send your questions my way, or even what I see many of them do right now, which is effective, is to produce one of the, the deliverables that their broker, dealer will provide regarding what's happening in the market and send that on to the plan sponsor and say, hey, forward this out to your participants and my contact information is at the bottom in case
[12:15] JD: they want to chat, whatever it is, stay proactive because a lot of your competitors are not. Which brings us to the second point is this is a great prospecting opportunity. When the markets are unstable or spiraling down, this is the time that you get out there on your prospecting horse, so to speak, knock on those doors, make those phone calls, revisit the people that you talked to in the past. Because the bottom line is they're susceptible now, right?
[12:47] Chad: They're, they need help and they're, they're interested. Often when the market's doing well, we're creating the interest by finding hooks, right? I mean, we're trying to find education or service or fiduciary responsibility, something to really hook them and get them excited about reviewing the plan. Now they're interested because the market is volatile, it's moving.
[13:10] JD: Yeah. I have made the analogy before that if you made 10 cold calls a year ago, we're in a period when the markets are somewhat stable or going up and you get 10 no's. If you called those 10 prospects in a down market or a volatile market, you'd probably get two or three of them to say, actually, I do want you to come down and talk to me because I haven't heard from My existing advisor. And here's the next thing is that, and this is no offense to plan sponsors or human resources people or CFOs or the people in charge, but many times they're uneducated. I shouldn't say uneducated.
[13:49] Justin: They're unaware.
[13:51] JD: They just don't understand retirement plans and investments that well. And so when the stock market's down huge, they tend to blame it on their vendor and or the actual mutual funds they have. As an example, I've heard clients say, geez, these John Hancock Target date funds really suck, or these Fidelity funds really suck when all those types of asset classes are struggling now. So I say that under the premise that if they're not so sure how that stuff works and you can take advantage of it by getting in and being proactive and teaching them some stuff.
[14:24] Mark: By the way, my S and T fund really sucks.
[14:27] JD: Right?
[14:27] Chad: Yeah, exactly.
[14:29] JD: My S and P index fund is performing horribly lately. Can I.
[14:33] Chad: It's so relevant right now. We drove up this morning, the three of us sitting in the car listening to CNBC was on By Choice, by the way. I was driving. So that's.
[14:43] JD: What did you want to listen to?
[14:45] Mark: Just some good music. You know, Phil Collins, maybe.
[14:48] Chad: I don't think music has actually been on in my car in like five years. Probably.
[14:52] JD: Justin does Phil Collins.
[14:54] Mark: It's the coffee house.
[14:55] JD: So I have visited Justin on a few occasions down in Southern California, and he takes me around in his car to meetings. And I can attest that he has Phil Collins. Pandora.
[15:06] Justin: Oh, yeah, I did you set it up for this guy?
[15:09] Chad: Let me. Sorry, let me finish that thought. CNBC brought on an analyst to specifically talk about what people should be doing right now in a vault market. And the topic that our ears all perked up while we were chatting was he said what 401k investors should be doing. And his whole thing is. Well, he used some different terminology, but he's saying that you need to keep investing because it's about dollar cost averaging. He wasn't using the terms, but that's what he was trying to get out of.
[15:35] JD: Don't stop putting money in.
[15:36] Chad: No. So it's a relevant topic right now in terms of the 411. This is relevant. People are talking about it. So you're selling yourself short. If you're not spending time reaching out to prospects, reaching out to people that you talk to within the last 12 months that maybe you didn't get a full opportunity to go in and spend time with, now's the time to knock on Those doors.
[15:58] Justin: So why is. Why has the mindset always been especially for participants too when in a down market just for you sell or whatnot, instead of not looking at as an opportunity, be like, hey, fear so slow.
[16:08] JD: They get scared, man.
[16:10] Chad: And understanding like JD said, I mean it's fear. Number one, they're looking at their balance doing this. And number two, they don't understand the concept behind dollar cost averaging. And so their thought is I should be putting less in right now because things are bad or moving it all
[16:27] Mark: to fixed or cash or something.
[16:29] JD: I also understand that people live with the kind of a scrutiny of Wall street too, that your typical worker in America doesn't necessarily trust Wall Street. And so as soon as the stock market starts to go down in a big way, their fears get escalated.
[16:45] Mark: You know, they think things, they've been through it. Some people have and maybe they didn't have the correct reality reaction in 08. So they're taking kind of a proactive approach to say I'm just gonna do it now. Pull out. I don't know. Right.
[16:59] JD: It's all reactive anyways. Our, our viewers know this as advisors and industry people. I mean that's why they need to
[17:07] Mark: be talking to their advisor.
[17:08] JD: Pulling out in that type of scenario can create a lot of problems.
[17:12] Mark: Yeah.
[17:13] JD: You don't know when to get back in.
[17:14] Chad: So wrapping that thing into a nice bobble is now is a great thing. Time to do some marketing, to do some client retention, to spend time thinking about these things. And that's the point of this segment is to really find something relevant that's going on right now that can make an impact in your day to day business life. Yeah.
[17:33] JD: Volume markets. Work on being proactive with your existing clients and get out there in that.
[17:38] Mark: Let's be honest, right now they're busy
[17:40] Chad: responding, responding private wealth folks. Oh my goodness.
[17:44] Mark: But at the same time, if you can, if you have the ability to. Yeah. Try to get in front of new people.
[17:49] Chad: That's a good one.
[17:49] JD: This is the time to get new clients. It's time for everyone's favorite part of the show, the wheel of ice. I'm not gonna sing it because I've noticed the editor has already clipped my singing.
[18:02] Mark: Come on.
[18:04] JD: The wheel of ice. The wheel of ice. The wheel of ice. All right, let's spin it. Hand spin it. Oh, by the way, when we get this result, I'd like the camera to focus in and show that our names are indeed on the wheel.
[18:23] Chad: That looked like it did.
[18:24] JD: All names are on the wheel.
[18:24] Mark: A Tight. Close.
[18:25] Chad: Stop there.
[18:26] JD: Who is it? It's on Mark.
[18:29] Chad: It looks like it's in Mark's area. I think it might be in Mark's region somewhere.
[18:35] JD: Do we have Smirnoff Ice ready to go?
[18:38] Mark: No, I've got my buzz ball.
[18:41] JD: It's all the way. Oh, there we go. We got one right over here.
[18:44] Mark: Can I. Can you at least assist me with
[18:46] Chad: Mark, do you purchase these and have them at your house yet?
[18:49] Mark: I invest in smearnoffice.
[18:51] Chad: As you should.
[18:52] Mark: Yeah.
[18:53] JD: Thank God it's not me.
[18:54] Mark: And yes, I have a. I have
[18:55] Chad: a whole refrigerator full.
[18:57] JD: Last time, I think I trailed you guys by at least 20 seconds or more.
[19:02] Chad: Which, by the way, if we're going back to our favorite clips of 15, that's definitely.
[19:05] Mark: We were talking.
[19:06] JD: Start drinking while we talk.
[19:07] Mark: The idea is you drink when we talk. We. We were talking over under for the NSC and AFC Championship game. So maybe just an over under of how fast I can do this.
[19:14] Justin: You say seven seconds.
[19:16] JD: I can't do that.
[19:16] Mark: I'll go over 12.
[19:18] JD: Let's take 12 seconds. Here we go.
[19:20] Chad: I got it right here.
[19:20] JD: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Gotta open your throat. 10, 11. Oh, 12. 13.
[19:36] Chad: Right on it.
[19:36] JD: Strong.
[19:37] Justin: I gotta say, JD, I was timing the entire time and you were every time they hit the second.
[19:41] JD: Nice. I got skills.
[19:43] Chad: Hey, Mark.
[19:44] JD: Pay the bills. Very good. Very good, Mark.
[19:47] Chad: It's getting more and more difficult with your old age, isn't it?
[19:50] Mark: Much better than I can do. Yeah.
[19:52] JD: Let's see if we can move that bottle over there somewhere. Toss it out into the audience like
[19:58] Mark: some target date funds. I've become more conservative as I've gone through my life.
[20:03] Chad: Drink makes you rather good.
[20:05] JD: The next segment, and this is one that's even part of our marketing material, we call it get to Know pdc. Kind of smashing. One word. The two being a numeric, if you will, keep it cool. And this will be a segment where we won't do it all the time, but a small advertisement of our firm. And I'd like to say maybe not an advertisement so much as just kind of letting our audience check in with some reminder that we're doing around here some things that have changed. It could be we've hired a new employee. It could be we've come out with something new that you guys are talking to advisors about. But today what I'd like to do is combine it with what we call our three pillars. We're still calling them pillars until we can come up with A better word for that.
[20:54] Chad: We've been struggling with that for a couple of years now.
[20:57] JD: Factors, pillars, three things. But it's what differentiates PDC from our competition. Three things. And they're called Easy Speak, Edutainment and Advisor Love. We're not going to bore our audience with all three today, but I want to talk a little bit about Edutainment and Easy Speak as we discuss a current thing that we're doing around here and most TPAs are doing, which is our census collection.
[21:28] Chad: It's the first time of year for almost every 401k plan in the industry.
[21:33] JD: January. And this is when you know, most plans are calendar year end plans where we are reaching out to these clients and all TPAs are saying, hey, we need your stuff to do our compliance work, we need your census and we need you to answer a bunch of these questions about your company so we can do good work.
[21:52] Chad: Help me help you.
[21:53] JD: Right? Help me help you.
[21:55] Mark: Well, funniest thing you've ever said, waiting
[21:59] Chad: for you to say, figuring like this
[22:00] JD: is a mark here. 1. And I don't want to get too long winded with this, but a lot of time and effort and thought from our staff went into developing a process that's, that's very easy and efficient and user friendly. And that might sound kind of cliche, but I want our audience to know that we stopped on a lot of things, put ourselves in the shoes of the clients and said, what's the best way to go about this? How do we make this question easier for them? How can we make this technology? Because we use online technology for the prq. The plan reporting questionnaire should be thrown around. Yeah, well, I think a lot of
[22:45] Mark: people say they make things easier. You hear that? Used a lot. You said it cliche, but this is really easy. I mean we've got a lot of feedback. Yeah, I went through it. I just, I loved it. I'm talking about it a lot.
[22:59] Chad: We broke it down to its core too, which is what do we need to do our job, which is what we've been hired to do. And then how can we gather that information in a, a painless, efficient fashion and an enjoyable. I mean it's hard to say, enjoy giving a sense of a sense.
[23:16] Justin: Well, compared to what they're used to.
[23:18] Chad: Well, that's, that's the key.
[23:20] JD: So let's talk about, let's talk about easy speak with that and what we did and, and we talked about this earlier, but in our request for it, which is via email, we did Use fun. We did use humor. We kicked it off with a, hey, Happy New Year. It's a new year. You're probably all set to lose weight, eat more healthy, go to the gym and work out. Drake said, beer. Right? And we said, how about adding census completion to that list? And used other humor throughout that request. And I want you guys to know that as the reminders go out, because not all clients get it back right away.
[24:00] Chad: What?
[24:00] JD: Our reminders that go out are very fun and friendly. So instead of what a classic TPA would write as saying, hey, we sent this to you in January. We show our records show that you haven't returned it.
[24:13] Chad: Deadline, deadline.
[24:14] JD: Deadlines could apply. Penalties could apply. You need to get this back. Bold, all caps, underlined. Kind of intimidating stuff.
[24:22] Mark: Probably in Times New Roman. Italics, bold.
[24:26] JD: Right. What fonts do we use?
[24:27] Mark: What font is that?
[24:28] JD: We use friendly stuff.
[24:29] Chad: I guarantee you, you all have thought about what font we have.
[24:33] Mark: That's how far we take it.
[24:34] JD: But our reminders are very fun. They actually poke fun at ourselves as retirement plan administrators saying, here we are again, your pesky TPA bothering you, you know, for this. So we poke fun at it. We try to put a smile on their face, and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from it. Yeah.
[24:52] Chad: And I would.
[24:53] Mark: Happy questionnaire. That's the end.
[24:54] Chad: That's my favorite part. Happy questionnaire. And I'll take it even a step further, is that the response has been stronger than it's ever been. I mean, you guys have enhanced this process last year.
[25:04] Mark: True dad.
[25:04] JD: True dad.
[25:05] Chad: And that's because of how easy you've made. It is not only is the content and the way it's delivered good, but we've made it intuitive. It's simple. And that's led to much greater response, which allows us to get data back and results back to clients sooner and make us all more efficient. I'll give you one more example before we jump off this topic. I was on a conversation with an advisor this week, and he was looking through our retainer, which is our service agreement, you know, once we've agreed to proceed with the client. And it was interesting because the first nine pages are about legal. Legalese. And he said, I could tell the first nine pages were written by the legal team, but that second to last page is clearly written by the sales team because it's all easy speak. That second last page. It's fun.
[25:53] Mark: We have a legal team.
[25:55] Chad: We have a legacy team.
[25:55] JD: Paul Carlton.
[25:56] Mark: Yeah, Right.
[25:57] Chad: But it's going back to easy speak. And how even in something as dry as maybe a service agreement, we can really change the way people feel about a document or a process or a service by just talking to folks like we're having this type of conversation.
[26:13] JD: That's a full beer.
[26:14] Mark: Well, fact of the matter is, I think we back up what we say by what we actually put out there. We're not just saying, hey, we're super easy, super simple here. And here's a 38 page PDF for you to fill out.
[26:25] Justin: Now.
[26:26] Mark: It truly is part of what we've done to become not your typical tv.
[26:31] Chad: We're even making webinars easy.
[26:34] JD: Well, let's wrap on that a little bit. I mean, what's edutainment? We talked about easy speak. You're kind of looking at edutainment. I mean, this is our version of a webinar. This is what edutainment is. We're trying to entertain our partners at the same time. And we're gonna communicate with our clients in a similar fashion. It might not include beer, but it'll include some fun. It'll put a smile on their face and. And like you said, try to make them enjoy the 401.
[27:01] Justin: This is so much better overall service.
[27:06] Mark: JD, you've officially put Frijole to sleep. By the way, he's been sleeping from the start.
[27:12] Justin: I think we need to incorporate a.
[27:14] JD: We're actually gonna go into the wrap up of the show while Chad and I have completely full beers.
[27:20] Mark: Cheers again, buddy.
[27:22] JD: So this is episode number eight, the first one of C season two, the retireholics changing the 401k industry. One beer at a time.
[27:37] Chad: Good.
[27:37] Justin: All right, I think we all end with one beer.
[27:43] Mark: We'll get our flow real quick. This is a limited time offer. Like, you have 30 seconds to react to this. There will be a number on the bottom of the screen or a website or a Twitter handle or. I don't know what's gonna happen here because my editor is gonna do something. This picture. If you want this in your office, me every day, look at. I would want it. You want this up? And we will autograph it all four to mark I don't know the other guy's three names. So if you want me to autograph it and you want in your office $29.95. That's literally we're losing money by selling this to you. If you want it, call, email, what have you order it.
[28:24] Chad: Jesus.
[28:24] Mark: What are you waiting for?
Show notes
When markets drop 8-10%, plan sponsors panic, and that's your opportunity. JD Carlson and the Retireholics crew reveal the counterintuitive prospecting and retention strategies that turn market volatility into advisor gold.
Down markets aren't a disaster, they're a door opener. In this Season 2 kickoff (recorded January 20, 2016, during a sharp early-year downturn), JD Carlson and the Retireholics team break down exactly how advisors should respond when markets tank.
You'll hear why plan sponsors automatically blame their vendors and recordkeepers when markets drop, how to educate them instead of losing the relationship, and why this is the perfect moment for both cold outreach and proactive retention calls. The crew also covers the psychology of dollar-cost averaging messaging, how to talk to participants so they stay calm and keep contributing instead of jumping ship.
Beyond prospecting strategy, the show introduces two new segments: The 4-1-1 (quick industry news and takeaways) and Not Your Typical Advisor (actionable practice-building tips for solo and small-team advisors). You'll also get an inside look at PDC's approach to census collection, proving that even compliance-heavy work can be engaging and user-friendly enough to boost response rates.
If you advise 401(k) plans, this episode is your playbook for turning market chaos into client conversations and new business.
MORE FROM RETIREHOLICS
Full episode notes & transcript: https://retireholics.com/episodes/prospecting-401k-plans-in-down-markets-retireholiks-8/
All past episodes: https://retireholics.com/episodes/
Live every 1st & 3rd Thursday at 4:30pm PT: https://retireholics.com/live/
Get show reminders: https://retireholics.com/get-reminders/
SUBSCRIBE
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Retireholiks
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retireholics/id1490618217
Podbean: https://retireholiks.podbean.com/
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Retireholics is the show changing the retirement industry one beer at a time. Hosted by JD Carlson and co-hosts, covering 401(k) plan design, fiduciary responsibility, fees, investments, and industry news for retirement plan advisors and professionals.
Down markets aren't a disaster, they're a door opener. In this Season 2 kickoff (recorded January 20, 2016, during a sharp early-year downturn), JD Carlson and the Retireholics team break down exactly how advisors should respond when markets tank.
You'll hear why plan sponsors automatically blame their vendors and recordkeepers when markets drop, how to educate them instead of losing the relationship, and why this is the perfect moment for both cold outreach and proactive retention calls. The crew also covers the psychology of dollar-cost averaging messaging, how to talk to participants so they stay calm and keep contributing instead of jumping ship.
Beyond prospecting strategy, the show introduces two new segments: The 4-1-1 (quick industry news and takeaways) and Not Your Typical Advisor (actionable practice-building tips for solo and small-team advisors). You'll also get an inside look at PDC's approach to census collection, proving that even compliance-heavy work can be engaging and user-friendly enough to boost response rates.
If you advise 401(k) plans, this episode is your playbook for turning market chaos into client conversations and new business.
MORE FROM RETIREHOLICS
Full episode notes & transcript: https://retireholics.com/episodes/prospecting-401k-plans-in-down-markets-retireholiks-8/
All past episodes: https://retireholics.com/episodes/
Live every 1st & 3rd Thursday at 4:30pm PT: https://retireholics.com/live/
Get show reminders: https://retireholics.com/get-reminders/
SUBSCRIBE
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Retireholiks
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retireholics/id1490618217
Podbean: https://retireholiks.podbean.com/
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Retireholics is the show changing the retirement industry one beer at a time. Hosted by JD Carlson and co-hosts, covering 401(k) plan design, fiduciary responsibility, fees, investments, and industry news for retirement plan advisors and professionals.