The Magical Staircase: 4-Step Plan Design Framework | Retireholics #17

[0:11] JD: This show is all about giving value to financial advisors, industry professionals. And I learned something while at this conference that I think our audience could gain a lot from. When you are at the roulette wheel, and it has been read for, like, nine or 10 times, it is not gonna be black the next time. [0:35] Chad: Well, it could change. [0:37] JD: Not if you're there with me, and not if you put all of your money on black and convince everyone else at the table to put all their money on black. [0:45] Chad: Sorry, honey. [0:46] JD: And red comes up again. So just a little information. [0:52] Chad: The better half took care of you, though she did pocket some of your chips. [0:55] JD: I did not know my wife at all. Stashing chips on me at the table, [0:59] Justin: that would have been better than me when you're gambling. [1:02] JD: But we're all still alive. We're here. We made it to these couches. We got some great, great information to share with our audience today. Okay, cutting Justin off. Like every show, we have a beer of the show. And I want to tell you who this beer comes from. It comes from Julie. I'm gonna get her. Julie Casey. [1:23] Chad: Julie Casey. [1:24] JD: Julie Casey from the Pension Studio sent us these beers. Chad. [1:27] Chad: As you can imagine, she is from Rhode. Is. Is this beer Gray Sale Brewing of Rhode Island. Oddly enough, it's called Captain's Daughter and has one of the best descriptions we've heard yet. [1:38] Justin: Does that make you miss your daughter? [1:39] Chad: It does make me miss my daughter. It's coming up on two weeks. You can't help. [1:43] Justin: Can we just say that this is the first ever. [1:45] Chad: It is a double IPA on the show. [1:47] Justin: That's a can. That's not. [1:49] Chad: It is. I don't have to open it for everybody. [1:51] JD: Oh, good point. [1:52] Chad: Coors Light was the golf. Golf course. [1:54] JD: And thank you. And don't forget, if you're out there watching, we do accept the free beer you send to the office. Go ahead and keep doing that. [2:02] Justin: Whoa. [2:04] Chad: That'll make you shiver a bit. [2:05] Mark: It's hoping. [2:06] JD: But why does all the beer have to be so gnarly? [2:10] Chad: Because they want to send you good beer, not something light and fruity like you like to drink. At least that is a good beer. [2:16] Mark: Next time. [2:17] JD: Yeah. Something light. Something light. [2:19] Chad: Okay, thank you, J.D. [2:20] Justin: azima. [2:22] JD: We're gonna kick it off with our first segment, and it is going to be the hashtag, not your typical advisor. [2:31] Mark: No other way. Other way. [2:31] Chad: Otherwise, it's going to go left to right. They're left. [2:36] JD: Sorry, I never get involved in that. Now I get involved in it. And today the subject matter will be what we call the staircase. Or what I should say what Chad calls the staircase. We have been giving him crap for. For many years, mostly Mark and I, about the staircase. Cause he's such a big fan of his invention. It used to be called something else. [3:01] Justin: The evolution of funding. [3:03] JD: The evolution of funding. Come on. [3:05] Chad: That was always my joke. It's got a little more clever name. [3:08] JD: He. Even if you're interested in this, after he tells us more about it, he's even got great like point of sale materials with little stick figures going up staircases and. [3:17] Justin: But let's be honest, he didn't design that well. [3:21] Mark: Still, as much shit as we give you, it's pretty damn effective. [3:24] Chad: Well, so here's Craig. You have to remember why it's there. It's there for a simple reason. Advisors always reach out and ask, I'm trying to start a 401k plan for a client or what question should I be asking for a startup plan? And I tell them all the time, 80% of a plan design is dictated by what your ownership wants to accomplish. The other 20% is about what the actual census or demographics of the firm are going to allow. [3:46] Justin: Where'd you get those statistics from? [3:47] Chad: I made them up completely in my head. What do you think? But it's pretty accurate. So the staircase of funding. The staircase is really designed to allow an advisor to sit down with a client and say, I'm gonna go through a very simple exercise. It's gonna help us determine what step on our staircase. Are we gonna land on the first step, second, the third, or the fourth? [4:05] Justin: It can be an escalator. Because you're stationary. [4:08] JD: This can be very difficult. [4:10] Justin: You'll get through it. [4:11] JD: You'll get through it. [4:13] Chad: So the question that we always start off with in these initial meetings is to you sit with a plan sponsor, you're sitting with a prospect, and you're saying, if I had a magic bag and I could set this bag in front of you right now and I could ask you, knowing what your 2016 income projections are going to be, how much would you like to put in this bag knowing that the IRS can't touch it, but neither can you until you reach retirement age and you almost always get, oh, I want to put as much as I can away. All right, all right, let's go a little bit deeper. Give me a number. Are you wanting to put 20, 20, 50, 100,000 away? And once you start to go through this little exercise, they're typically going to give you a figure. They're going to say, hey, we're having a great year. We want to put away $30,000. [4:54] JD: And that's what you need to start. Right? [4:56] Chad: You need some guidance. [4:57] Mark: One of my favorite things, which actually you taught me and I think you learned from someone else to mix in with that is why pay taxes on the income you don't need to live off of. When you think about that, what you can throw into that bucket or satchel or whatever. [5:10] Chad: And that's the concept we're trying to get them to. Right? [5:12] JD: Right. [5:13] Justin: Magic bag. [5:14] JD: Okay, now you got a number. That number leads you to, to a [5:17] Chad: step, to a step. And for the sake of our exercise and conversation, I'll walk through the four steps real quick. [5:23] JD: And I want advisors to be able to use the same approach, this same [5:26] Chad: approach, ask that same question and the client says, you know what, I want to put away $15,000. This plan is really about my employees, but I want to save a little bit as well. Step one is your traditional 401K. It allows individuals to save dollars out of their personal wages in a tax qualified manner. That's the K feature of the 401k. Right? Salary deferral only plan. Now we can use some creative design like auto enroll or auto escalation things to help the testing restrictions there. But if your business owner isn't really looking to shelter a whole lot or the executives aren't looking to shelter a whole lot, the very first step is your traditional salary deferral only. So really the first bracket of what goes in that magic bag, 0 to 24,000 is going to put you in step number one. If they say, hey, I want to put away $30,000 a year, that's my goal, that's what I could justify for 16. We say, alright, we're going to get our 18 or our 24 in step one. But in order for us to do that without having the restrictions of certain discriminatory tests, ADP test. As most of us know, you need to go to step two. Step two is a safe harbor plan. So if a client is saying I want between 20 and 30k put away, we go on step one. We have our 18 there, we get a little bit more by adding a safe harbor. [6:37] JD: Mark, for you, a safe harbor is like a government template where you can put in some employer contributions and sidestep the ADP test. Just I want Mark to be up to speed. [6:47] Chad: Yeah, there's a couple types of safe harbor. We'll educate you on this quiz on this. There will be for sure. So the safe harbor allows them to bypass this step. It allows them to get their 18 or 24,000 way depending on their age. They're going to get a contribution from from the company. That's what a safe harbor is. Typically a match in this step, depending on what they're looking to accomplish. So if they're looking to say between 20 and 30,000, step one, step two takes us to a safe harbor, typically a 4% match. We'll get them past the testing restrictions and able to put away as much as they want to. My finger doesn't go straight, okay, so you ask that question to the business owner. Business says I want to go to 50,000, I want to save that money. I want to go to. Remember, you have to step on step one, step two in order to get to step three. Step one is your 401k deferral. [7:35] JD: Step two is your safe harbor. [7:37] Chad: Now if I want to get to step three, that's where we're adding profit sharing on top of steps one and two. There's some great profit sharing styles that we can use and do comparability where we can. [7:46] Justin: That's also known as cross tested. It's true. [7:48] Chad: Look at this guy. He's been studying at night. [7:52] Justin: Mind blown. I just learned that this morning. [7:55] Chad: This is an opportunity for executives, business owners to create a feature that will allow them to tier benefits in their favor without giving the same amount to their staff. Okay, you have your 401, you have your safe harbor, you utilize profit sharing. We typically say a gateway is 5%. If the demographics of the census are going to allow us to accomplish this, we give three or four in a safe harbor, depending on what we're going with. You're gonna have to get and give another sliver more in profit sharing. Typically 5% total to the staff is going to allow us to open those magical gates. I always say to AT&T park because we're going to watch a Giants game, hopefully tomorrow night. Watch them get into the play or get into the actual. [8:37] Justin: When this airs, the Giants will already have won the World Series. [8:40] JD: Oh, good. [8:41] Chad: Yeah, we'll go go play that place. [8:42] Justin: We still need to place our beds. [8:46] Chad: I'm going to step four, fellas. Step four. [8:49] JD: Step four, here we come. [8:50] Chad: Bracket. Right now we're at 50,000 for that business owner, right? What if you're sitting down with an owner that has an established business, consistent revenue and say I want to go up to 1000-001502-00000 of sheltering. They have the income, they have the discretionary compensation. [9:05] JD: Put it on red and let it ride. [9:06] Chad: Remember, we have to step on each step. Got to step on the 401k, got to step on the safe harbor. Step on the profit sharing that gets them their 59,000 in the D.C. side. And now we strap on a cash balance plan which is in form of a pension. [9:21] JD: I can't help but he did say strap on a cash balance. Gosh, my bad. [9:29] Chad: This is why I need my own segment of me being the nerd behind the computer where you guys don't talk. [9:34] JD: So now we go cash balance. [9:35] Justin: I would still talk for. [9:36] JD: To go way up into bigger numbers. [9:38] Chad: Correct. And depending on the age of that, that owner and the demographics of that business, you might have an owner giving seven and a half percent of the staff. Now five in the dc, another two and a half on the, on the defined benefits. [9:49] JD: Take notes, take notes. Write these numbers down. [9:51] Chad: That gets you up into the 200k of funding. So let me cap it with this. It's simple. When you step in that meeting, if you don't understand the nerdiness of the design to say, hey, let's talk about what we want to accomplish with this type of vehicle, what's your budget? How much do you want to put in? They give you that number to go in that magic bag. You have a four step process. You look at which step they land on based upon what number they give you. And it's very easy in the tools that we've created to say here's where we're going to get you. [10:17] JD: And the takeaway for our audience is this is a simple, easy to consume way for your prospects or clients to understand a really complicated process. By using Chad's Magical Staircase, I've just renamed it. We went from the evolution of funding to staircase. I have now anointed it the magical staircase I can get. [10:42] Chad: I can go with that. [10:44] Justin: But the main, even a step further than that pun intended is we have a deliverable. And I think you mentioned that for our notyourtypical advisors who want to go prepared into these meetings and take something in if we can't be there by your side, which we always want to be, you take this handout in and now you can slide it across the table. And the visual is cool. It's got our PVC flow to it, it's colorful. [11:12] Chad: I position it as only being a tool for a startup. You know how often I use this in a takeover where I'm coming in to talk design and they're frustrated because they're getting corrective Distributions all the time. [11:21] JD: How many existing plants do you go in and talk to that no one's really touched on designed with them in a decade? So long. Because they just think that status quo is okay and they would love to learn some of this kind of stuff. [11:33] Chad: Especially step three when you could say, hey, right now you're in pro rata. You want to put away that 50k. You're giving 25% to every staff member. Okay. [11:41] JD: That was awesome. Love the magical staircase. It is. I will never give you crap about it again. [11:46] Chad: Yeah, you will. [11:47] JD: It'll happen like every show. We've got to spin that wheel of ice. It's the Alan Wheel of ice. [11:58] Justin: I don't understand. [12:00] Chad: We'll find out. [12:01] JD: Has it changed? [12:02] Chad: It has changed. Apparently this has been recorded. [12:06] JD: Yeah, I think I was part of this. [12:10] Chad: Let's see who it lands on. [12:13] JD: No, it's Mark. [12:18] Chad: It's Mark. [12:19] Justin: Apparently so. [12:20] Chad: Yeah, it's Mark. It's Mark. [12:22] JD: And later. No Mark. [12:23] Justin: What if I legally changed it? [12:24] Chad: Oh my gosh. [12:25] Justin: You guys don't know. [12:26] JD: I think the. The wheel would know. [12:28] Justin: It would have just a magical wheel. [12:31] Chad: Actually found that straight. I can't open that for you. No, not a chance. Not a chance. [12:39] JD: Uh oh. He's gonna have some troubles while he's opening the Smirnoff Ice. [12:42] Chad: That's a great idea. We should trick him one time and like. Okay, make that on there. It's unopenable. [12:48] JD: This has never happened. It's got to be a pop off. [12:55] Chad: Coming. What do you think? [12:56] Justin: You see? [12:56] Chad: Look at those. [12:58] Mark: Yeah, they're fancy. [12:59] Chad: Step it up. [13:00] Mark: Just for the show. [13:00] Chad: I like them. [13:01] JD: I'm not going to talk about Justin's wardrobe malfunctions at this event, but thank you. Let's just say there's been some malfunctions. [13:09] Chad: There's been at least 10 different wardrobes. Okay, that is horseshoe. [13:12] JD: It's kind of like like the host at the Oscars or something where it comes out in a different outfit like every. [13:19] Chad: Wow, that's slower than yesterday. Yesterday was impressive though. I'm so glad that this ended up being me. [13:27] JD: Play the slow music. [13:33] Justin: A lot of people were giving me funny looks, man. [13:34] Chad: As they should. [13:35] Mark: A lot of people were what? [13:37] Justin: Giving me looks. [13:37] JD: Funny looks. [13:38] Chad: Alright, we're on. [13:39] JD: We're on. And we are going to our next segment. The 41 1. And today what we're going to talk about is each and every year. And we've done this on a past episode. I forget which one it was. Maybe three or something. Four Four hours. That was three. Where Plant Sponsor magazine comes out with its record keeping survey. Gets a lot of eyeballs from our industry on this survey. [14:03] Chad: Great statistics. [14:04] JD: The 2016 is out. It's been out for a little while. And this is on 15 numbers. Okay, so all these record keepers have to submit, but I think it's like May of 2016. This is 1231 data. And we're gonna go through the top six record keepers based on total plans. [14:25] Justin: Why don't we pick top six? [14:27] JD: Timing. [14:28] Chad: Yeah. Could have gone with seven. [14:31] JD: I'm not a huge fan of numbers. No, nevermind. We're gonna go through the top six. And I want to be clear. This is total plans. Because there's a lot of different lists that come out. Total assets, total plans, under 10 million, [14:46] Chad: over 10, over 100. [14:47] JD: This is just the total plans. [14:49] Justin: Total followers on Instagram. [14:51] JD: You got us. [14:51] Chad: Yeah, there you go. [14:52] Mark: And can we guess who number one is? [14:54] Chad: Okay, you can. [14:56] JD: When we get there. Yeah, when we get there. [14:57] Mark: I thought we were ready to go. [14:58] JD: Let's do. Can you guess what number six is since you're so cocky? What's number six? [15:02] Mark: Whoa. I was trying to be. I was trying to be smartass rather than cocky. [15:05] Justin: Let me give you a hint. [15:09] JD: Number six rhymes with Farrakhan Huns. [15:15] Justin: I must have read along the wrong list. [15:16] JD: It's American funds. So American funds coming in at number six, and they have just over 45,000 retirement plans, which that's pretty big stuff. [15:27] Chad: Making the top six a certain fit, I would say. I mean, for years they've been trying to break that mold of saying we're a small market provider. Because their record keeper direct product is really good in the small market. Especially cost effective for most small businesses. But when you start to get into that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, they've kind of lost some of that marketplace. I imagine if you looked at the plans in the under 10 million, they would probably be even higher than, say, [15:55] JD: still a very successful startup plan product trying to get out. They've had a bad rap as a proprietary product for a long time, but apparently people don't mind it that much and don't sell them short. They do have. [16:11] Chad: The funds are good too. So that's why the proprietary doesn't hinder them too much and the cost is effective. The funds are good. [16:18] JD: Great startup. [16:19] Chad: They've grown it. [16:20] JD: Right? Number five, Orange. Orange. How do you know that? [16:27] Chad: He did research. I told you. He stayed in the room last night [16:30] JD: and studied Voya, formerly known as Ing [16:33] Chad: symbol, which is they're here. I can see their orange table over there. [16:37] JD: They're actually here and we're talking. I forget about that. We're talking to people that are standing behind us. [16:42] Chad: Should have called Blair over. He's over there. [16:44] JD: So Voya coming in at number five. I know you tend to partner with those guys a lot with your advisors and stuff. Beyond the fact that it's orange, do you have anything else to add? [16:56] Justin: No. I would say a couple of the biggest things I talk about with them is their tech. I think they're very much focused on that. And I actually think if we rewind this tape to the episode we had before we talked about it, I said the same thing. But I think that is a key, key area of theirs for success. And right now they're pricing very aggressive. [17:17] Chad: I feel like they're very billable too. [17:19] Justin: So if you work with someone that's price focused and you want a good product, they're. They're extremely. They're fitting extremely well. [17:25] JD: Pretty flexible product in terms of investment options. Yeah, they offer different target dates and stuff. [17:31] Chad: They do. They have an institutional product all the way down to the startup market, which is nice. Institutional funds. That is one of the areas I talk about often with them is their, their orange money and their individual kind of financial planning software that's in their program for folks that don't want to sit with the financial advisor or bigger companies that kind of be spread and the advisor is not going to have an opportunity to sit with everybody. The financial planning tools on their site are strong, very strong. [17:57] JD: And we talked about this last time, I would say, very popular brand with consumers, you know, because they put a lot of dollars towards TV ads and whatnot. [18:07] Justin: That, yeah, you see them a lot. [18:09] Chad: Well, that was part of the reason why they separated from the Dutch entity. Right. Is that the money was being spread a lot to the insurance side of the business and they wanted to really focus on the case side, which is where Voya came about. And now they got money to reinvest in tech and commercials. The orange money's hopping around. [18:24] JD: It makes a lot of sense. [18:26] Justin: It's like origami now. The money like folds up into a bunny and it's like moving. [18:30] JD: Pretty cool. [18:30] Justin: They got some celebrities doing stuff. [18:32] JD: Yeah, celebrities. [18:33] Justin: A guy from Modern Family. [18:35] JD: Oh, he does Voya stuff. I didn't know that. Learn something new every day. Number four, principal. Principal. They're a big shop. They have been for quite some time. [18:50] Chad: They do a lot of upper market business, though. That surprises me that they're in total plan count that high. [18:56] JD: Sorry. They have 51,262 plans. [19:01] Justin: We were talking to an advisor yesterday who's from Iowa where they're based and he was just saying everyone there is just like drink, drinks the Kool Aid. It is principal, principal, principal and huge [19:15] Chad: in the 403B space. This is, this includes the non profit world. [19:20] JD: I would say because of their big market, up market exposure and also being a player in the smaller market. That's a positive too. They're a very flexible model in that sense for advisors. [19:33] Chad: And they call it their total plan suite where they say, you know, we can help with the 401K. We can help with the 403B. We can help with the 457, we can help with the non qual. So they pretty much have everything siloed. [19:43] Justin: Well, we hook a lot of advisors. [19:45] JD: They get rid of their little car. Cartoon dude. [19:48] Chad: Eddie. [19:48] JD: Eddie. I think they got rid of Eddie. [19:50] Chad: I think they got rid of Eddie. They rebranded the new logo. [19:53] Justin: It's pretty good. [19:55] Chad: I had Eddie on my desk. He was one of those stress figures. [19:58] JD: You could squeeze number three. [20:00] Chad: I'm stressed. [20:01] JD: Number three with 55,015 plans. John. ADP. So ADP is number three on the list. [20:13] Chad: That's gotta be two. [20:14] Justin: And I'm gonna refer back to the list you sent me. [20:19] JD: Well, I'm just looking at the list right here on the live on the website. [20:23] Justin: Go on. [20:24] JD: Did I get it right on the list? Did I send you for study? [20:28] Chad: Absolutely not. [20:29] JD: What the heck? How many numbers on there? Those are different. [20:39] Mark: I feel like I need to be [20:39] Chad: doing something right now [20:43] JD: going with the actual list. Man. This is the list. [20:46] Justin: Yeah. First of all, I was right on. [20:48] JD: All right. [20:48] Chad: You need to keep, we need to keep moving. [20:51] JD: So ADP 55,000 plans. [20:53] Chad: Doesn't surprise me at all. [20:54] JD: Doesn't surprise me. The payroll companies continue to be successful in their sales. Again, small market. Probably the most of them are small market. They talk about ease, they, they talk about the payroll bridge. I'm not going to go into, you know, bashing the negatives that go with it. [21:12] Justin: I think we've done that on a separate episode. [21:14] JD: We've done that on separate episodes. They even are considering working with GPAs and keeping comfortable some VA stuff. So maybe that's the answer to some of their not so good compliance. [21:26] Chad: That's what I was going to say. The concept behind what they do and how they do it is ideal. It's fantastic. [21:32] JD: Right? [21:32] Chad: It goes back to the all what we discussed yesterday, having a MEP that has payroll integration, so forth. The problem is they just don't have a specialist in each area and they tend to fall down with the service team. [21:41] JD: Well, to me the problem is I get the concept of having the data and what that can mean to efficiency and making it easy for the plan sponsor. But I'll say this a million times over, the data's gotta be a plus, accurate. And unfortunately, when you work with a payroll company that puts the onus on human resources, I can tell you through experience, they're not always using it the way it should. You funnel that data over to the 401k and weird things happen. So that's it. Number two on this list. I'm not even number three on that list. [22:19] Mark: Was Chad wrong for once? [22:21] Justin: No, no, I was right the whole time. [22:23] Chad: The list is something different. [22:25] Justin: Sean Hancock there said it. [22:27] JD: Maybe I like typed that list. I don't think so. No, you copy and pasted John Hancock, formerly Manulife. [22:34] Justin: That was a long time ago there. [22:37] JD: John Hancock. Give me some feedback on good old John Hancock. [22:43] Justin: You want like the historical figure? They have a wonderful signature, very nice [22:49] Chad: signature, great tools, very user friendly. Color coding is always a big thing. Educational. [22:54] Justin: They all started National TPA Day. [22:58] JD: Wow. [22:59] Chad: Did they start that? [23:00] Justin: And that was on September 16th. And this year there was really nothing that went on. No big parties for us. No nothing. [23:09] Mark: Yeah, what the hell? [23:10] JD: What's that? What the hell? [23:12] Mark: No parties. National Day off for us. [23:14] JD: I've always seen this product as one of the most robust in terms of all the things they have. The websites, the videos, the enrollment materials. They have a website just for plant sponsors to build their educational campaign. They've got electronic proposals that will blow your mind. [23:34] Justin: I mean, Coach's corner. [23:36] JD: Coach's corner. These guys got a lot of stuff. [23:39] Chad: Two things that nobody leverages that they have. One being that educational calendar. An advisor that has a Hancock plan could sit down with a plan sponsor and say, all right, we're going to go into the website, we're going to build a calendar that has dedicated drips. And if you have for example, email addresses for all the employees and they're in the Hancock site, you can say, I want this drip to go out to email addresses on this date. It'll happen. And then the second would be the ips, the investment policy statement. An advisor can go on and create their own criteria in the Hancock site. And based upon that criteria, it will give you the best recommended lineup and then it will continue to move through as you have funds that are underperforming, perhaps, and say, based upon the IPS you created, here's the replacement. [24:19] JD: So why do I think that's important for an advisor? An advisor that partners with that product has so many tools, so many ways to impress a decision maker. [24:31] Justin: Are we still talking about John Hayden? [24:33] JD: But that's to their advantage. Number one on this list is Paycheck. [24:40] Chad: Oh, you should have let Justin guess, see if he could, he wouldn't have known it. I think we all knew it. [24:45] JD: It's paychecks. They have 72,000 plans. [24:50] Justin: Damn, Gina. [24:52] Chad: So I. I did have to research this because if you recall, part of [24:57] JD: the research, when he does something like that, put like, nerd alert, Nerd alert. Nerd alert. Nerd alert. [25:01] Justin: When he says research too. He doesn't know what Google is yet. He goes to the library and searches periodicals. [25:08] JD: I do. [25:09] Justin: In the basement or what's under. That's not a basement. [25:13] Chad: The thought was back in the past that they often lost plans so quickly that their net growth rate was small. Right. They're bringing on so much. We all get that they're bringing on so much. But the service tends to lack, and so they lose a lot, which I do think is a true statement. But if you look back to 15 survey, 14 survey, which I did, you're seeing some real significant growth. [25:38] JD: I mean, you can't argue. 72,000 is. [25:41] Chad: What was number two again? What was Hancock? [25:43] JD: 53, 55. [25:44] Chad: 55 to 72. [25:46] Mark: They grew, what, 3,000 over last year? [25:47] Chad: 4,000 each year over the last two years. [25:50] JD: So Paychex continues to bring on a ton of plans and you're saying manages to retain. [25:57] Chad: How does that happen? Obviously, they've got a good story with the integration, but for those that do payroll with paychecks but not 401k, you know, they're rather relentless. Like every. Every payroll period, you're getting something that says, we can do your 401k. They're putting it in the actual paycheck deliverables at times. Like it's. It's every. [26:15] Mark: How many people ask me about Safe harbor coming up the last two months. [26:18] JD: Am I. [26:19] Mark: Seems like their marketing just. [26:21] Chad: Am I. Oh, because of drips from Paycheck? [26:22] Mark: Yeah, the drips are like, hey, my clients ask about Safe Harbor. They got something from. From Paychex. [26:27] JD: What's going on? Talking about it. Yeah, they got. They do have an audience. But here's the deal. I have to look at myself in the mirror. Am I a hater? [26:33] Justin: That's a scary sight if you ask me. [26:35] JD: What's the crappiest 401k record keeping solution? I would have said paychecks here they are dominating at the top. Am I just a hater? [26:45] Chad: Am I just a. I think, I think your verbiage there might be wrong haters. I don't think they're doing bad on the record keeping side. I think the issue is the, the admin. [26:54] Mark: Right. [26:55] JD: That's. [26:56] Chad: I mean 80% of the. I'm throwing out numbers again. But of the plans that we look at tend to be. [27:01] Mark: Let's take it to 70 just to be safe work. [27:04] JD: We're. [27:04] Chad: We're deconverting a plan over right now from paychecks. I walked in, I sat with the client. He handed me his testing. I looked at it and I said, according to this, you have no key employees and no highly compensated employees. [27:14] JD: Because they're not coding. [27:15] Chad: Because they're not coding. And I looked and I said, don't you own this business? Isn't your wife the other person right here? How are you both considered non highly compensated? And it's because they're pushing on HR to say who they are. [27:26] JD: Shame on me. [27:26] Justin: That's a whole other conversation. [27:28] JD: But kudos to them. They're number one. So I guess we should learn from what the heck they're doing to get all that success. [27:34] Justin: Are they here this week? [27:35] JD: Paychecks? I don't know. [27:37] Justin: It's too bad. [27:38] Chad: Because of the advice. The advisors that are here are producers. Most of them aren't writing small markets which remember when you look at the average participant balance for paychecks, they're not even in the top 20. [27:51] JD: So it's little plan. [27:52] Chad: Because they're doing little plans. [27:54] JD: Little plans. Okay, so that's your top six. A couple other mentions nationwide was at eight. The power was at nine. Trans Am as I like to call them. [28:05] Justin: Why do you refuse to say seven? Yeah. [28:07] Mark: Lucky number. [28:10] JD: Oh, I don't have any major. That's. [28:12] Chad: That has to jump big since the relationship with Vanguard. [28:14] JD: With Vanguard, they're at 44,000. A couple other names throughout there. So check that out. It's online. It'll be down in our show notes. And you know something to used to use that when I was out in the market. Oh, these guys are number three. And that plan sponsor goes. Oh, that feels good. [28:31] Justin: I'm sure they the wholesalers. [28:35] JD: That is a wrap for episodes 17. [28:38] Justin: Speaking of rap, that guy last night on the Strip. [28:41] JD: There is a rapper out in front of. [28:43] Chad: He's A freestyler. Yeah. It was unbelievable. He would look at the audience, pick out hats. He was picking out name badges on [28:54] JD: rappers. [28:55] Chad: He talked about my beard four or five minutes straight. I don't even know how he was breathing. He was so talented. And he did a really cool. [29:02] Justin: And he said he doesn't like. [29:04] Chad: I don't swear in any of my stuff because I believe there's better ways to connect with the younger generations, older people, you know. It was really cool. That guy was amazing. We're gonna try to get him to record. [29:14] Justin: So check out intro. The unknown rapper wearing a Chicago Bulls hat standing outside of the outside of Burger. Is that a google.com sign? [29:26] Chad: I bet you they can find something [29:28] Justin: saying the words that are coming out of my mouth with that. [29:34] JD: We are the Retireholics. [29:35] Mark: Thanks for watching. [29:36] Justin: We are, we are, we are, we [29:38] JD: are changing the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. Live. [29:43] Justin: Just one. [29:43] JD: Did anyone finish this here at the Excel 401k conference? Check it out next year. And remember two things. One, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Unless you're a fiduciary. [29:58] Justin: Unless we just told you everything that happened. [29:59] JD: And number two, when the roulette wheel goes red nine times, pick red again. The next time, it's not for sure gonna be black. [30:08] Justin: It's gonna be green. [30:09] JD: Son of a bitch. I lost some money. [30:14] Justin: You know what you gotta do now? How hot am I on a scale [30:26] Chad: of 1 to 10? Like 30. [30:29] JD: Swipe right or swipe left. All right.