By far, the coolest thing we experienced with Mike Kane since his August 2017 Top Advisor By Participant Outcomes (TAPO) profile happened aboard—of all places—the USS Midway in San Diego Bay.
In 2019, GRP Advisor Alliance (GRPAA) held its annual conference in the sunny SoCal city, and the evening’s entertainment took place aboard the famous ship. Attendees respectfully explored the carrier’s decks and passageways, and Kane noticed one plane among many on the flight deck—a Grumman A-6 Intruder, the type he flew while serving in the Navy.
Our growth up until that time was completely organic. But that organic growth got much more difficult in 2017, 2018 and beyond.”
Mike Kane
“It was the Marine Corps’ version,” he emphasized, “but, yeah, that was it.”
Watching him get reacquainted with the aircraft was an added memory for the night. Employing a schmalzy metaphor, one could say his business “took off” in the time since. It received a turbo boost from Hub International’s acquisition of Plan Sponsor Consultants, his Atlanta-based firm, in April 2021.
“It’s been very good; we’re very happy that we did it,” Kane said. “We decided on HUB’s Retirement and Private Wealth division. I was very happy with the deal that we negotiated.”
As with a number of 401(k) advisors in the current M & A atmosphere, his reasons for doing so were many, beginning with succession planning and the fact that his daughter, Addie Kane George, works in the business.
Another reason, unsurprisingly, was lead generation and growth, in which leads began to wane in 2017 which hampered growth. A veteran email marketer since 2011, he put more resources toward that, as well as seminars and referrals from local CPA firms, but they were sporadic.
“I started hearing about large cases that other firms were closing and asked how they were getting them,” he explained. “They’d say, ‘Oh, our employee benefits division gave us the lead. I’d been saying for some time we needed to partner to get more growth. Our growth up until that time was completely organic. But that organic growth got much more difficult in 2017, 2018 and beyond.”
He realized that consistent and quality leads would come from employee benefits and property/casualty shops in the future, and he decided to partner with Hub.
“The referrals have been excellent, and other Hub divisions promote us,” Kane added. “In terms of our long-term future and long-term growth, we think it was a really good decision.”
With the firm’s three offices in Mobile, Birmingham, and Atlanta, he said his pipeline of prospects has “been the biggest in years. We have a major case we’re closing next week that came from a referral.”
A major proponent of behavioral finance and financial wellness, he uses the latter to create an atmosphere to motivate individuals to ensure successful participant outcomes, one reason he was chosen for the 2017 TAPO recognition.
“And we do that with financial wellness,” he concluded at the time.
With all the pieces now in place, we see nothing but continued success.
Michael Kane is Managing Director of Atlanta-based Plan Sponsor Consultants.
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.