Jason Chepenik is one of the most creative (if not the most creative) advisors we know, able to increase 401k plan participation rates with difficult-to-reach employee populations using fun and engaging tactics that are truly different.
“I was most scared of losing my entrepreneurialism and that creative button inside my head, but it’s been the opposite.”
Retirement planning isn’t fun, as he’s previously said, and the activities he incorporates are the equivalent of chopping up the medicine and mixing it into food to get kids to eat it.
For example, we reported on his “Taco Bout Retirement Truck,” where he partnered with a local food truck, wrapped it in a colorful design, and took it on the road to multiple employer-client locations.
“If you have signed up for the company 401k plan, you get a free taco,” he said.
If you didn’t, you only get rice and beans. Because without retirement savings, he wryly added, you will be “livin’ la vida broke-a.”
We wondered about this creativity now that OneDigital acquired Chepenik Financial as part of the Resources Investment Advisors sale in 2020 and if he had to pull back for more standardized, corporate marketing strategies.
Not even close, he said when we looked back at all that’s happened since his original Top Advisor By Participant Outcomes (TAPO) profile in 2017.
“I was most scared of losing my entrepreneurialism and that creative button inside my head, but it’s been the opposite,” he claimed. “I’m provided a platform and do it on a larger scale.”
He’s routinely invited into other OneDigital business units to give his thoughts, which “feeds my soul and allows me to operate at my best,” he noted with typical Chepenik flourish.
Among the many benefits of the OneDigital acquisition is his loose partnership with the other high-profile advisors on its roster, including Jania Stout, David Griffin, as well as Corby and Brady Dall.
“We spend a lot more time together on what’s working and what is not concerning best practices. And there are terrific synergies when it comes to the convergence of health and wealth, so we are spending a significant amount of time with our OneDigital colleagues to learn how best to support our clients and cross-solve with new ideas.”
And OneDigital’s wealth management buildout is something else he’s excited about.
“We’ll go from $5 billion to $10 billion in private wealth this year,” Chepenik explained. “We have a new CIO, Saumen Chattopadhyay, who joined us from Carson Group. He’s a tremendous mind and knows how to build the pipes and infrastructure for us to really turn on wealth, which to me is super exciting.”
Not that it’s all sunshine and roses, and he does admit to a few disadvantages.
“When somebody is 50-plus years old and has been doing the same thing for a long time, transitioning into a corporate executive can be a challenge. I will also point out that the old adage of you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is not true, but it does take hard work, dedication and truly trusting my new colleagues at OneDigital! The best thing I have learned is to be open to new ideas, even those that have been foreign to me as we were so highly specialized in retirement and wealth. To be successful in this system you really have to take the time to learn about the other business units, so perhaps the only real challenge is dedicating the time to learn something new.
Yet he emphasizes that It’s fun to be a part of because of the best and brightest minds he gets to partner with, from OneDigital Retirement + Wealth President Vince Morris to Regional Senior Vice President David Hinderstein and more.
“My business has doubled in every aspect,” Chepenik concluded. “In two years, we doubled the number of plans we serve and the number of employees we provide services to. If you would say, ‘What kind of revenue did Chepenik Financial have?’, the revenue associated with us has doubled, and so has our profit margin.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
