Client Service October 8, 2020

15th Anniversary of RPAY: Pensionmark

Given the firm’s forward-thinking attitude, not all that much has changed since Pensionmark was recognized as the 2013 PLANSPONSOR Multi-Office Adviser Team of the Year, apart from the size of the firm.
Reported by

Troy Hammond

Since Pensionmark Financial Group won the PLANSPONSOR Multi-Office Adviser Team of the Year award in 2013, the practice’s focus has largely remained the same, says Troy Hammond, founder and CEO.

“What I mean is that we have always tried to be at the forefront of many trends,” Hammond says. “We started a call center in 1991 as a move towards a focus on participant outcomes and holistic financial wellness. I wish I had trademarked that, given how the industry has developed. Taking care of participants has been in our DNA. What is also important to us is how we deliver our service.”

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Another theme continued since 2013 is that Pensionmark remains an “aggregator” firm, meaning the firm is interested in bringing other independent advisers into its brand.

Hammond says that making Pensionmark an aggregator stemmed from his background in technology. It occurred to him that by leveraging collective resources, Pensionmark advisers could together serve sponsors and participants more efficiently.

“I said to myself, ‘There is a better way to do this.’ By building the infrastructure and scaling technology, we have been able to deliver better service to clients at a better price point. This scale has allowed us to grow exponentially since 2013,” Hammond says.

Hammond notes that he joined Pensionmark in 1990. Between that year and 2008, Pensionmark operated as a single advisory firm with a wealth management division on the side. But in the years leading up to 2008, Hammond started exploring the possibility of becoming an aggregator by speaking to advisers about the firm’s scalable infrastructure and how, by tapping into this, other advisory practices could be free to seek additional business. The reception was so strong, Hammond says, that Pensionmark started its aggregation model in 2008.

Looking back at how this has enabled the firm to grow, Hammond says the numbers are “breathtaking.” In 1990, for example, Pensionmark served a mere five plans and onboarded five additional plans that year. By 2008, the practice had 100 clients. Today, Pensionmark serves 3,600 plans from 71 offices across the country. 401(k) plans remain the core business in each of these offices, but the Pensionmark network of advisers includes many specialists in such areas as cash balance plans and nonqualified plans, Hammond notes.

In terms of assets under advisement (AUA), in 1992, Pensionmark first crossed over the $1 million mark.

“Today, we are closing in on $50 billion,” Hammond says.

Even this year, with the world facing the coronavirus pandemic and so many businesses being locked down, Hammond notes, Pensionmark attracted five new offices in the second quarter. Hammond believes that more advisory practices realize the value of joining an aggregator with so many resources, and the pandemic is just accelerating that trend.

“Today, we have efficiencies in every area,” Hammond says. “For example, we have a whole team of people handling investments, and within that, quantitative and qualitative specialists and people who specialize in vendor management. While our core DNA has not changed, our sub-specialization has.”

As far as Pensionmark’s relationship with strategic partners is concerned, Hammond says, one thing that really sets his firm apart from other aggregators is that it takes no soft dollars from other service providers. Rather, Hammond says, because his practice has nearly $50 billion in AUA, Pensionmark operates from a position of great strength to be able to negotiate better prices from investment managers, recordkeepers and third-party administrators (TPAs) for its clients.

“We offer something many other advisers cannot,” he says. “In all cases, we deal with key account people at our strategic partners and can have much better conversations with them than smaller companies can. As a result, we can bring in a target-date fund or a recordkeeper in five basis points lower. Leveraging those relationships not only to get better prices, but better services, is a big part of what we do.”

As to how the industry has evolved since 2013, when Pensionmark won the PLANSPONSOR award, Hammond says there has been consolidation in all areas of the business—be it among asset management firms, recordkeepers or advisers.

Hammond believes the fee compression that has affected all of the players in the retirement plan industry has prompted companies to look for additional ways to generate revenue, and that this has only made fee compression worse.

“Everyone doing everything is a little much, and this also creates confusion for plan sponsors,” he warns.

Practice Management October 8, 2020

Why LinkedIn Premium Reigns Supreme for Financial Advisers

Putnam executives Mark McKenna and Rene Taber explain why LinkedIn has emerged as the social media platform of choice for financial advisers—and why many advisers are now paying for LinkedIn’s premium features.
Reported by


Putnam Investments has published an update to its Social Advisor 2020 Study, leveraging new pulse data generated in a second survey of advisers taken this year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The research shows that 55% of advisers who have initiated new client relationships during 2020 say they had increased their use of social media during the pandemic. In an interview with PLANADVISER, Mark McKenna, head of global marketing at Putnam, and Rene Taber, Putnam’s research director, highlighted just how much the times have changed in terms of advisers’ social media use.

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McKenna and Taber say one of the crucial findings of the study is that advisers have proven adept at managing their practices through the public health crisis by finding additional ways of engaging their clients, including greater use of social media. Notably, 84% of respondents expect that the changes made to their communications methods will largely be kept intact moving forward, even after the pandemic is conquered.

“It is encouraging that some of the changes advisers made to how they use social media in their practices during the pandemic will become foundational for their communications with clients on a go-forward basis,” McKenna says.

The study shows that nearly three-quarters of advisers (74%) rely on direct messaging through key social network platforms to communicate with clients and prospects. Of this group, 94% report gaining new assets. The survey shows 50% now use direct messaging on LinkedIn, with 92% gaining assets; 38% use Facebook for direct messaging, with 98% reported gaining assets; 33% use Twitter for direct messaging, with 98% gaining assets; and 26% use direct messaging on Instagram, with 98% gaining assets.

“This is an interesting development because there had for a while been this idea that social media is a place to build your brand and get your name out there, but increasingly, it is a direct communication platform for advisers to reach their clients and prospects,” Taber says.

“It speaks to an evolving level of engagement,” McKenna agrees. “We’ve always seen a highly active, though small, group of advisers using social media in this way. I think the real shift we are seeing right now is that the industry has truly acknowledged the power of direct messaging on these platforms, and particularly on LinkedIn.”

The Putnam pair say that advisers who have taken the extra step of paying for LinkedIn’s premium services have become big advocates of the platform. Their success building referral networks and sourcing prospects cannot be ignored, McKenna and Taber explain.  

“A significant number of advisers have really embraced InMail messaging via LinkedIn,” McKenna says. “With so many people experiencing some degree of email clutter or even email fatigue, advisers see this direct communication pathway as being highly effective in terms of reaching clients and prospects. They can also use Facebook messenger for this purposes, but that is not as common or seemingly as effective.”

Putnam’s data shows there is a real payoff for advisers who embrace direct social media communications.

“I have spoken with one adviser who said he recently won five new clients based on a Facebook referral and his subsequent outreach,” McKenna says. “It’s remarkable to see the success. We can see that 94% of advisers using direct messaging say they have won new clients this way.”

Atlanta Retirement Partners, a financial services firm based in Atlanta and the 2019 PLANSPONSOR Plan Adviser Small Team of the Year, heavily relies on LinkedIn for research and prospecting, says David Griffin, founder of the firm. Whether searching for background details on prospective clients, deciphering who has the real authority when it comes to potential benefits decisions, or figuring out who may have a working relationship with a client or center of influence, LinkedIn is very powerful, he says.  

“We do almost everything through LinkedIn, it’s the easiest way to target those people who are decisionmakers for institutional type plans,” Griffin adds. “We find that this preparation strengthens your relationship with your prospects and customers. You can talk about things that are important to them or their business.”

LinkedIn InMail has proven to be particularly effective for his firm, Griffin says.

“If you look at your LinkedIn and you see you have a message, you feel fairly compelled to respond to it,” he suggests.  

Taber and McKenna speculate that LinkedIn is the preferred platform for a number of reasons, some more obvious than others. Particularly important has been LinkedIn’s focus on helping people build networks that are defined in terms of “layers” or “levels” of connection.

“To their credit, LinkedIn provides a robust and evolving set of tools and services, including Sales Navigator, which is very popular among successful and growing advisers,” McKenna says. “You can use their paid services to really look at all your 2nd and 3rd level connections and strategically build out a network of potential clients, referrals, prospects, etc.”

The Putnam data underscores all these points. The survey shows nearly half of advisers (48%) who initiated new relationships during the pandemic reported using the platform’s InMail feature to contact out-of-network prospects. At the same time, 36% say they have hosted or participated in a LinkedIn Live session. Additionally, 80% of advisers who initiated new relationships since late February used one of LinkedIn’s premium memberships.

Taber says the other major trend identified in the post-pandemic survey update is that nearly 90% of advisers now report that support from their home offices ranges into the realm of social media.

“Importantly, advisers pointed toward specific areas where their home offices have laid the groundwork for their social media efforts,” Taber explains, including providing timely content to post (55% of advisers); expanding the number of social networks approved for business use (48%); providing access to support resources (45%); and offering training from partner firms (40%), home offices (37%) and third parties (27%).

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