How have top 401k advisors adapted to the COVID environment of digital client meetings in place of in-person, one-on-ones?
Very well, thank you, according to the panelists in Monday’s kickoff session of the Excel 401(k) 2020 Digital Series.
401k Specialist Editor-in-Chief John Sullivan moderated this first session of the series, which will feature daily ½-hour sessions into late November, by interviewing three advisors who are finalists for the 2020 Top Advisor by Participant Outcomes award along with Kilie Donahue of TAPO award sponsor J.P. Morgan Asset Management, offering the plan provider perspective.
The panelists included Tom Brown of Blue Water Capital Management, Jonathon Schultheiss of Gate City Advisors and Jania Stout of Fiduciary Plan Advisors at HighTower.
The session, titled, “3 Digital Drivers of Employee Education & Engagement Success,” explored how advisors can truly stand out in the age of Zoom by ensuring the needs and objectives of plan sponsors and participants are met.
J.P. Morgan’s Donahue said that from a provider perspective, most of the issues she heard advisors were having trouble with centered around technology.
“The biggest thing that I heard, is that when they would do their client reviews with their advisor or partner, was that in the beginning there was a lot of mistakes,” Donahue said, noting many advisors didn’t confirm what type of technology the plan sponsor had, so there was a lot of hiccups. By finding out in advance what platform clients are using and comfortable with, be it Zoom, WebEx or whatever, the transition to virtual meetings can be a lot more effective.
In talking with retirement education consultants, she noticed using WebEx for a typical presentation didn’t effectively engage plan participants. But once they made the move over to Zoom, the visual aspect, the slides, and the chat feature made all the difference.
“Now 85% of all the engagement is actually coming through the chat feature—that’s where most of the questions come from,” Donahue said. “Now they feel like it’s working a lot more smoothly; they’ve been more impactful. They can do a lot more meetings virtually than they can do in person.”
That has definitely been Jania Stout’s experience. To date, Stout says her company is up past 600 one-on-one virtual meetings with plan participants after embracing the chance to engage with them online.
“What we recognized was that this was a great opportunity to highlight the education that we do,” Stout said, noting they had been doing both in-person and “virtual advice day” meetings, but the pandemic catapulted the virtual meetings to the forefront.
To solve the problem of how to get participants to sign up for the virtual one-on-ones, she and her company created a couple of different videos.
“The one that really helped is we created an invite to that virtual advice day, and there’s a video embedded in it,” which she said was just something simple she recorded right in her own house. “Mainly we just kind of walked through, ‘why would you sign up for virtual advice, and what are the things that you’re going to get out of this consultation?’ We saw a huge uptick in the number of people that were signing up for them.”
Schultheiss said his company has blended new technology with some old-school approaches, but also emphasized the importance of video.
“We’ve gone to using a lot of video,” Schultheiss said. “With our videos we use tools that allow us to embed a call to action.”
If the participant is interested they can simply click on a link and schedule a meeting right there on the spot.
“We’ll shoot a video around a concept, an education piece, and allow them to schedule a meeting with us.”
Realizing not all plan participants are in front of a computer all day or are interested in virtual meetings, he says they also use a more blue-collar approach of simply picking up the phone and calling participants. Social distancing works over the phone, too, after all.
For Brown’s part, he says he wanted to portray consistency throughout this year’s necessary transition to digital first.
“I think what was very important during this transition was to remain very consistent. Our model really didn’t change much,” Brown said. When you look at engagement prior to vs. during this COVID era, really nothing’s changed—maybe a slight uptick in the amount of participant meetings.
He added that technology has always been a huge focus for his company, and noted that they’ve been engaging plans sponsors and HR personnel digitally for a long time.
“As a 401k fiduciary you really have to be ready anyway—physically, digitally. It was a very easy transition.”
Now a veteran of a couple hundred one-on-one Zoom meetings, he had a couple of helpful tips for fellow 401k advisors. He said having a digital background with your company’s logo is really important for keeping participants focused. He also advised having multiple computer monitors at your disposal during calls so you can access different information without having to bury the Zoom screen.
“Simple things that make a huge difference when being efficient in a digital meeting,” he said.
More nuggets from the session
- Look into a technology called mmhmm, Stout advises, sharing one of her “secret sauces” that she said is “so, so cool!” The technology is being called the “next generation of videoconferencing,” that, according to “The Verge, “can turn your boring Zoom call into a ‘Weekend Update’-style TV show.”
- Jonathon Schultheiss: “A lot of our clients are kind of paternalistic… They are very interested to know what kind of concerns are we hearing from participants,” he said, adding that committees often suggest webinar topics.
- “I’m huge on hiring young people right now,” Stout said, adding that she had a wakeup call when someone asked what her succession plan was a while back. “I have been just blown away with how awesome these young folks are.” To keep them excited about being in this business, she emphasizes having them work to integrate new technology into the business. Her young employees are tasked with bringing up some new technology on weekly team calls (leading to the “mmhmm” discovery), and they are also starting a podcast that is a value-add to help plan participants.
Monday’s complete 30-minute session from the Excel 401(k) 2020 Digital Series can be accessed on-demand at this link. You can also watch below:
On Wednesday, Sullivan will be back with another TAPO panel discussion, titled, “The Fight for Financial Wellness: How to Overcome Plan Sponsor Objections.” Free registration can be completed here.
SEE ALSO:
- 401(k) Specialist Reveals 2020 ‘Top Advisor by Participant Outcomes’ Finalists
- 401(k) Specialist TAPO Panel Descriptions and Participants
Veteran financial services industry journalist Brian Anderson joined 401(k) Specialist as Managing Editor in January 2019. He has led editorial content for a variety of well-known properties including Insurance Forums, Life Insurance Selling, National Underwriter Life & Health, and Senior Market Advisor. He has always maintained a focus on providing readers with timely, useful information intended to help them build their business.
