Alongside the 2020 NAPA 401(k) Cyber Summit, we sat down (virtually) with a number of leading advisors for some insights on how they got started, what keeps them going, and what they see for the future of retirement and their practice(s).
A conversation with Beryl Ball, Principal, Financial Advisor at CAPTRUST in Richmond, Virginia.
Beryl joined CAPTRUST in 2008 and serves as a principal and financial advisor responsible for providing retirement plan advisory services to corporate fiduciaries and fiduciaries of endowments and foundations. Prior to joining the firm, Beryl served as a senior vice president at SunTrust Bank-Mid-Atlantic, and has worked in the industry since 1982.
NN: What led you to become an advisor?
BB: Having spent the first 20 years of my financial services career managing the retirement services division of a regional bank, I was seeking a way to utilize the knowledge and experience I had in defined contribution and defined benefit plan design, fiduciary management, sales, marketing, and participant engagement in a different and challenging new say. Becoming an advisor and working directly with prospects and clients, rather than managing others who did that, seemed to be a great next step. Joining CAPTRUST as an advisor allowed me to take the skills I had learned in my management career and bring them to plan sponsors and participants in a direct way. Although I greatly enjoyed my banking career, the direct ability to support retirement success for organizations and individuals has been even more rewarding, both personally and professionally.
NN: What/Who inspires you?
BB: My inspiration every day comes from my immediate family. A father who inspired me to value education and persistence when times are tough; a mother who had a caring and giving soul and inspired me in a career that allowed me to help others; a husband who gifted me the freedom and time to pursue my goals and dreams, and children who inspire me every day to be better at what I do and how I do it.
NN: What’s the biggest challenge facing you as an advisor today?
BB: The biggest challenge facing me as an advisor today is to continue to be relevant to plan sponsors in an increasingly complex world. Plan sponsors are required to navigate a constantly evolving regulatory and legal environment, new and demanding requirements related to investments, participant engagement, costs, and risk. To stay relevant to plan sponsors means an advisor must provide support in all those areas and do it while assuring they remain competitive in both services and costs.
NN: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned this year?
BB: How to conduct business and stay relevant remotely. Relationships and trust are generally built through direct, personal interaction. Making that happen remotely requires new and different skills. Acquiring those skills has been difficult, but clearly the most important thing I could have learned this year.
NN: How are you/your firm “giving back”?
BB: Many years ago, CAPTRUST established an employee-sponsored foundation to “give back” to our communities. The CAPTRUST Community Foundation was created to support and enrich the lives of children in the communities we serve. Through our national grant program, we provide donations to a wide variety of philanthropic organization committed to helping children. This year, we expanded our mission to engage families and children in need related to COVID-19. CAPTRUST employees raised over $100,000 in April to help those severely impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic. CAPTRUST also provides matching funds for all our programs.
NN: What do you love most about being an advisor?
BB: I love when my clients say “thank you” because I know then that they have value and appreciate the services we’ve provided for them and their employees. That’s a professional feeling that’s second to none, and not something that’s available in every career choice. I then know I truly helped them meet their goals for their program.
NN: What’s the best day/experience you’ve had as a retirement plan advisor—and why?
BB: My first best day was when CAPTRUST provided me an opportunity to become an advisor in 2008, with no direct advisor experience and no clients. My second-best day was that same year when my first client signed their contract and now knowing that 12 years later, they are still my client. And, that their 401(k) plan has grown in assets and value to their employees and they remain supportive of what I and CAPTRUST did and continue to do for their company and their retirement program.
