Winner's Circle

I have had the privilege of working through this process since its inception in 2004, and I continue to be impressed with how you are helping your plan sponsor clients and their employees prepare for retirement. You can “meet” the winners, the finalists, and our popular “best of the rest” listings beginning on page 28.

Further, many of the advisers nominated for the Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year provide a range of solutions that go beyond 401(k) plans, including 457, 403(b), defined benefit, and nonqualified plans. For the first time, we highlight adviser practices where those “other” plan types represent a noticeable component of their business in the Best of the Rest list. You can learn how to fit some of these other plan design offerings into your practice in the aptly titled “More Than 401(k)s” on page 52.

For those advisers serving the micro-market, “Size Wise” (page 56) offers ideas of how to build your business in that arena. Traditionally, smaller employers have been seen as having fewer retirement plan options than programs with larger asset bases. However, when it comes to sheer flexibility in plan design, smaller programs have an abundance of choice.

“Why should I hire you?” is, spoken aloud or not, the most common plan sponsor objection to hiring an adviser. However, the second-most-common question surely has to be “Why should I hire an adviser?” In “Where Advisers Add Value,” we have statistics drawn from sister publication PLANSPONSOR’s industry-leading Defined Contribution Survey that answer that question, by illustrating the impact retirement plan advisers have on their clients’ plans.

Plan sponsors most frequently turn to advisers when they need help performing a retirement plan provider search. In “Cutting Through the RFP Clutter” (page 64), you will find tips that can help make that process more manageable, help you be more productive, and provide a better match between the plan and the providers vying for that business.

Finally, one of the hottest investment selections currently touted to advisers is asset allocation funds. In this issue, we discuss what the proposed qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) regulations mean for your practice (see “Opportunity Knocks,” page 62).

We also present our first lifecycle/lifestyle fund buyer’s guide. With it, you’ll be able to get a sense for the latest offerings to the market, as well as those with established track records. Soon, we’ll launch an interactive version on www.planadviser.com that will provide you with even more information, as well as the ability to sort, filter, and customize it to your needs.

Once again, we strive to offer you articles to help you provide superior service to your clients—as the award winning advisers do. I wish you luck in applying the ideas presented here to your business.