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READER POLL: The Leading Topics for the NAPA 401(k) Summit Now Are…

Conferences & Events

We’ve now given you a chance to weigh in on topics for the NAPA 401(k) Summit dealing with Practice Management, Investment Strategies, Cutting Edge Trends—and this week, we opened up a new category for consideration: Personal/Personnel Development.

As a reminder, we’ve got the location (Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas), the dates (Sept. 12–14, 2021) and we’ve begun working through a list of exciting keynote speakers, and, yes—making plans for Summit “After Dark.” But that amazing, compelling, and innovative agenda starts with you—you help set the framework for the NAPA 401(k) Summit agenda—by voting on the topic(s) you’d most like to be on that agenda, come September. And that’s where you come in!

But before we get to the Top 10 in that category, let’s catch up on the continued movement in the other three categories. 

Trends Setting Topics

As of January 14 (and after some 1,100 votes), the New Top 10 Trends Setting topics are:

1. Would a Retirement Plan Mandate Be Good for Your Business? Pros & Cons (hanging tough at #1)

2. Are Your Meeting Minutes an Asset or a Liability? (zooming up from #7)

3. Cybersecurity and Fraud Protocol—How Can Advisors/Plan Sponsors Conduct Due Diligence on Providers? (a step up from #4)

4. Next Generation of Non-Qualified Plan Designs (slipping from #2)

5. The Compliance Issues That Advisors Get Blamed For (making its first appearance in the top 10!) 

6. Reframing Your Value Around Client Goals (also making its first appearance in the top 10!)

7. Integrating a Decumulation Focus into Your Accumulation Practice (down from #5)

8. MEPs To PEPs—Impact of New Small Plan Legislation (tumbling from #3)

9. How to Run Your Practice More Effectively and Efficiently (down from #6)

10. 5 Small Tools That Can Have a Big Impact on Your Practice (new to the top 10!)

Dropping out (of the top 10)? Are your meeting minutes an asset or liability?, Social Insecurities (maximizing your impact via social media), how to turbocharge your retirement business through technology, and the future of fiduciary is not fiduciary, it’s… but they (and others) are still in the running…

Voting is still open at http://www.allourideas.org/trendsetters

Investment Strategies Topics

As of January 14 (and after nearly 4,000 votes), the (New) Top 10 Investment Strategies topics are:

1. In-Plan Spend-down Solutions (STILL #1!)

2. How to Simplify Plan Menus for Better Participant Outcomes (still #2)

3. PEP update: What has changed since January 1, 2021? (still #3)

4. How to Effectively Write and Maintain Investment Committee Meeting Minutes (up from #6)

5. The Case for Managed Accounts: will managed accounts replace target date funds? Market acceptance and how they affect participant outcomes (down from #5)

6. The Evolution of Investment Lineup Construction and Custom Solutions (down from #4)

7. What Investment Criteria Should Be Used for Monitoring Target Date Funds Within a 3(21) or 3(38) IPS? (holding steady at #7)

8. Managed Accounts as a QDIA—What Do You Need to Know? (holding steady at #8)

9. How to Mitigate Your Risk of Target Date “Performance” Lawsuit (holding steady at #9)

10. Will Technology Make Target Date Funds Obsolete? (NEW to the top 10!)

Dropping out of the top 10 was: Who Should Own the Managed Account Space, Recordkeeper or Advisor?—but it’s still available for consideration—as are other topics at http://www.allourideas.org/napa2021investments.

Practice Management Topics

As of January 14 (and after more than 3,000 votes), the (new) Top 10 Practice Management topics are:

1. Designing a Retirement Plan Within a Total Rewards Comp & Benefits Strategy (still #1)

2. Earning Our Keep: Value added services to avoid sticker shock of advisor fees (up from #4, after falling from #1)

3. What Do Plan Sponsors Look for When They Issue an RFP? (down from #2)

4. A panel on best practices that advisors need to adopt to work with recordkeepers/vendors (down from #3)

5. What Plan Sponsors Really Think (steady at #5 for the third week running)

6. Coupling Education With Plan Design to Drive Improved Participant Outcomes (still at #6…again)

7. Driving positive participant outcomes through personalization (back up to #7 after a week at #8)

8. Measuring Retirement Plan Success—Report Cards Make the Grade (back down to #8 after at week at #7)

9. Responding to RFPs, best practices and ensuring you get to round 2 of the RFP process (NEW to the top 10!)

10. What the IRS and DOL Continue to Target with Your Clients’ Plans (NEW to the top 10!)

Dropping out of the top 10 were last week’s new entrants to that list: Pooled Employer Plans and Best Practices for Annual Reviews—but voting is still open here too: http://www.allourideas.org/napa2021practicemgmt

Personnel/Personal Development Topics

Oh—and after a week of consideration (and more than 500 votes), the top 10 topics in the Personnel/Personal Development category are:

1. What Are the Daily Habits and Behaviors of the Most Successful Advisers? 

2. How to Be—Or Get—a Mentor

3. Team Building, Team Binding

4. How to Build—And Keep—A Quality Multi-faceted Team

5. If I Knew Then What I Know Now—Insider Tips

6. Generations Apart—Together at Work

7. Establishing a Peer-to-Peer Education/Coaching Network

8. How to Create an Environment Where Everyone Has a Voice

9. How to Train Employees on Retirement Benefits                      

10. Diversifying Your Practice—and Your Practices

But—as with the other categories—the voting remains open at http://www.allourideas.org/personalpersonnel.

Thanks to everyone who has participated thus far—and for your continued participation in our weekly NAPA-Net Reader Poll! Whether you’ve voted yet or not—please weigh in. And just wait till you see what we have up our sleeve for next week!

Oh—and for more information about the NAPA 401(k) Summit, go to https://napasummit.org.

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