It’s a Buyer’s Market

Although we are not in the business of selling clothes, I think Sy Syms was right with his slogan: “an educated consumer is our best customer.”
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In the retirement plan market, whether you are the consumer (buying from a provider or investment manager) or the salesman (selling to clients), I am sure you agree—buying the wrong product or service doesn’t lead to anything but unhappiness—and maybe a new RFP.

As an adviser focused on the retirement plan space, you know how challenging it can be to keep up with all the new offerings coming to market, not to mention all the updates, refinements, and enhancements. Even then, filtering through the “pitch” to determine if there is a fit with the needs of your plan sponsor clients—and then helping them understand the opportunities (and risks)—can be a more than full-time focus, even for the most adept multitasking time manager.

With that in mind, we are here to continue to do our part in helping make you a more educated consumer (or seller)—not to mention your plan sponsor clients and/or prospects—with PLANADVISER’s annual Adviser Buyer’s Guide. Once again, it is not a buyer’s guide in terms of listings of service providers—I assume most of you know how to find them (hint: the PLANADVISERdash newsletter and PLANADVISER.com are great resources)—but a “guide” in which we discuss the products and investments that are essential to the retirement plan industry and, therefore, the practice of a successful retirement plan adviser.

In this year’s guide, in honor of the fifth anniversary of PLANADVISER, we have structured each article to provide you five points—whether five ideas, five misperceptions, or five things to know—about each topic. Within that structure, you will garner a better sense of what’s happening with these critical offerings, along with ideas and insights to help you evaluate them as a buyer, and/or recommend as a consultant.

Whether you are looking for some insights about investments, plans other than 401(k)s, or products and tools, we’ve got you covered.

For those prepping for investments reviews, we cover QDIAs (page 42), collective trusts (page 62), stable value (page 64), and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) (page 72). We’ll help you look beyond the “accumulation phase” with coverage of retirement- income offerings (page 46) and rollovers (page 76). If your practice extends beyond 401(k) plans—or you’re thinking you’d like to—check out the articles about 403(b) plans (page 30) and nonqualified deferred compensation plans (page 34). Looking for ways to improve your practice? We have you covered with features on practice management (page 50), plan benchmarking (page 54), investment analytics (page 68), and search tools (page 74).

It is admittedly a very brief space in which to describe a very large marketplace, but I think you will find it useful and effective in your business.

Take Your PANC Participation to a New Level

We are now accepting information from those interested in speaking or moderating during the three-day PLANADVISER­ National Conference, to be held September 12-14, 2011, at The Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida. We will be accepting “applications” for speakers and moderators though June 20 and then will begin to place people on panels. This is not first-come, first-serve.

Those interested in participating as a panelist may do so at www.research.net/s/5VY3BXT.

More information about the conference can be found on the conference Web site at: www.planadviser.com/Event/PANC2011/

Before I sign off for the issue, I want to take few moments to recognize the loss of a member of the PLANADVISER family, Fred Schneyer, who passed away in late April. He was passionate about the retirement plan industry and, being at Asset International before I was, I leaned on him quite a bit when I was starting out—asking plenty of questions that he was always patient enough to answer.

More than just a colleague, Fred was a good friend. He had a way of listening intently, so you knew he was really hearing what you were saying. Not many people take the time to care about all the mundane details of someone’s life, but Fred did—and he had a memory like a steel trap. If you ever wanted to remember something that was escaping you, Fred was there to help. He will be missed.

—Alison Cooke Mintzer, Executive Editor