The Main Thing

So said Pat Riley, quoting Steven Covey, author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” while speaking at the 2013 PLANADVISER National Conference, September 9 through 11 in Orlando, Florida. Though that quote sounds somewhat ridiculous if repeated enough times, it resonated with me throughout the conference as I listened to so many highly successful advisers discuss what works for them in running their practices and keeping clients happy.

It is very difficult to live by that Covey quote. There are many distractions in business and in life, and all of them can be reason to shift attention away from what is important to you—or to your client. But in the retirement plan marketplace, there should be a main thing.

What is your main thing? There are so many factors to balance in the world of advising retirement plans, even if you ignore for a minute the broader sense of the home/personal life and work balance. There are client service, investment oversight, fiduciary concerns, practice management and participant outcomes. With all of these in play, it is too easy to lose track of the nuances of each task and have your core focus—whatever it may be—no longer at the center of your day to day.

What is each of your plan sponsor clients’ main thing? Is it mitigating fiduciary liability? Is it retirement readiness, or is it maximizing outcomes?

To remain focused on your main thing takes energy and determination—and the same goes for helping your plan sponsors with their main thing.

This clarity of purpose, and commitment to helping clients remain focused, is one of the qualities that differentiate our 2013 PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year winners, profiled in this issue (beginning on page 34). I offer my congratulations to Jeb Graham, Capital Investment Strategies and Pensionmark Retirement Group, who have won the awards in the individual, team and multioffice team categories. As always, it was a challenge to choose from the impressive group of finalists (all of whom were featured in the March–April issue earlier this year), and this year’s selections join an impressive group of previous winners.

Speaking with all of them, it became clear that they exemplify what we as an industry look for in a “best” adviser. Our judges seek those advisers who put client needs first, who view plan sponsors and participants individually, and who take careful consideration of their clients’ needs when developing a custom plan for their services. We consider other factors, such as industry reputation and activity helping other advisers, from participating in conferences to writing articles or otherwise sharing knowledge. And we expect the same of our winners: to be part of our community, to act as judges for the future nominees, and to speak at industry events or contribute articles and columns to our websites.

Speaking of judging, the Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year awards would not exist without the expertise, insight and dedication of a very skilled panel of judges, and I’d like to acknowledge how much we appreciate all they contribute to improving the awards program each year. You’ll find the names of those in each category, listed after the profiles of the winners.

I look forward to working with these advisers in the future. For those of you interested in being considered for the 2014 PLANADVISER Top 100 or the 2014 PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year, please visit the planadviser.com home page for the nomination links. I hope to see many new names on the lists next year. Congratulations again to the winners!