READER RADAR: The Summit Topics Trending at the End of Week #3 Are…

Once again there was a lot of activity in our topic cage match this week—and some jostling among the leaders in our week #1 and week #2 topics!

As a reminder, we’ve got the location (Tampa Bay, Florida), the dates (April 3-5), and we’ve (already) begun working through a list of exciting keynote speakers, and, yes—making plans for Summit “After Dark.” 

Which brings us to that amazing, compelling, and innovative agenda that 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! We use a unique mechanism to suss out our topics, after all—one replete with its own dynamic logarithm—and, of course your perspectives in a “cage match” format. 

The list is a living thing—it works like a topics “cage match” of sorts. You’re presented with two different session topics—they rotate—all you have to do is pick your favorite or add your own idea for others to vote on. Then you’ll get two more choices—vote or add one of your own. If you don’t like either of the suggestions (though that’s not likely)—there’s even an option for that. Every time you suggest an idea, it’s added to the pool of ideas that others vote on.

You can vote as often as you’d like—and we’ll keep you posted as to which topic(s) are leading, as we near the opening of registration for the 2022 NAPA 401(k) Summit.

Practice(s) Management

So—what’s going on? Well, for this week #3 series, readers were voting among topics focused on Practice Management. And nearly 4,000 votes later, the leading topics are:

1. Earning Your “Keep”: Value added services to avoid sticker shock of advisor fees            
2. Reframing Your Value Around Client Goals 
3. Round “About”: Ensuring you get to round 2 of the RFP process 
4. How to Run Your Practice More Effectively and Efficiently
5. Coupling Education With Plan Design To Drive Improved Participant Outcomes 
6. How are advisors handling fiduciary duties and management of details for their 401(k) clients?   
7. Retirement plans 101 – what EVERY advisor should know and do to protect their clients and their practice.         
8. How to Develop/Determine a Reasonable Fee for Your Services 
9. How do we as Advisors justify our fees to our customers when investments are a commodity?    
10. Designing a Retirement Plan Within a Total Rewards Comp & Benefits Strategy 
11. What Are the Daily Habits and Behaviors of the Most Successful Advisers? 
12. How to Turbocharge Your Retirement Business Through Technology      
13. Guiding And Driving Plan Committees 
14. Technology for practice management
15. Establishing a standardized retirement plan data feed. Junk in junk out

You can still weigh in at http://www.allourideas.org/2020practicesays.

As for our Business “Developments” topics from week #3, another 600 votes did a bit of shuffling in the top topics:

1. Compensation Trends, Compliance and different revenue streams from managed accounts, rollovers, etc. (moving to the top from #2 a week ago)
2. As clear as the nose on your face—trends you’re completely overlooking (steady at #3)
3. How to open doors; How to win a plan with no advisor; How to win larger plans; How to use LinkedIn to grow your business (still #4)
4. What will a virtual/hybrid environment mean for fees/fee compression (no in-person meetings) (yes, still #5)
5. What the IRS and DOL Continue to Target with Your Clients’ Plans (up from #7 last week)
6. Driving positive participant outcomes through personalization (down from #6)
7. Evolution of financial wellness to “financial engagement.” Why fin wellness programs have not delivered on promises. (zooming up from #12)
8. PEPs successes, failures and trends (plunging from #1)
9. Retirement Income: How tto Navigate the Investment Choices & Have Conversations with Plan Sponsors (a new entry!)
10. Plan Sponsor Perspectives (down from #9)
11. (Much) More Than 401(K) (down from #10)       
12. Advisor technology – what is needed most for efficiency and margin expansion (down from #8)
13. More Than Nudges – Behavioral Finance 2.0 (up from #14)
14. Lessons Learned From Litigation (down from #13)          
15. Cyber security—the Labor Department has furnished questions—but what are the “right” answers? (steady at #15)

You can (still) weigh in at http://www.allourideas.org/2022bizdevelopment.

And as for week #1’s product/services categories, another 100 votes moved the priorities as follows:

1. Things we hate about you – Plan Sponsor confessions about their retirement plan advisors (climbing another rung from #2)
2. Why everybody wants—and nobody takes—in-plan retirement income options (down from #1)
3. The Fad of Financial Wellness (up from #4)
4. Managed Accounts – Just an Expensive Target-Date Fund? (down from #3)
5. Industry trends ­– being prepared for what's next (steady at #5)
6. Rollover Realities (up from #7)
7. In-Plan Spendown Solutions (up from #10)
8. Building the ROI Case for Financial Wellness (new to the top #10)
9. Will Technology Make Target Date Funds Obsolete? (steady at #9)
10. Retirement Income Solutions (new to the top 10)

You can (still) weigh in at http://www.allourideas.org/productset

Thanks to everyone who has weighed in (and still may) on our topics for the NAPA 401(k) Summit!