The Ask
Our client recently launched his RIA business in the suburbs of Chicago. He is determined to grow by prospecting as much as possible and using every opportunity to approach various plan sponsors. He had scheduled a meeting with a prospect and wanted to use that meeting as a pretext to get meetings with other prospects in the immediate area. He reached out to us for guidance on how to accomplish his plan.
The Problem
It is a challenge to set up an appointment with a plan sponsor, especially when you are new and actively looking to grow your business. There are many ways to generate interest among the plan sponsors to contact adviser for retirement planning advise. It can be either drip campaign, direct mailing, email blast, etc. Eventually, the long-desired appointment is materialized, and it is time to prepare an initial review of the plan and a better solution to discuss with the plan sponsor.
However, when your meeting occurs, you would like to use that opportunity to reach out to other potential prospects in the areas. How can you find all plan sponsors in the vicinity of your appointment and specifically target them to set up additional meetings? You need to know what other companies are in the area and their specific information like number of participants, potential plan savings, service providers, etc. to prepare a good pitch to call them to set up a meeting.
The Solution
We created Map Search in the new Larkspur Executive to allow our clients to easily seize prospecting opportunities. For example, using our search criteria the adviser is looking for potential prospects in Aurora, Illinois, specifically around West Galena Boulevard. He can enter number of total participants, total plan assets, overall plan rating among other more specific criteria like industry, availability of investment menu and/or key executives to come up with the visual map to see how close or disperse potential appointments can be. Then, selecting a few prospects to call and set up an appointment. When you call you want to be well prepared and know enough to show yourself knowledgeable about the plan and offer best possible solutions that can be of interest to the prospect.
Using our most up to date analysis of the Form 5500 (read more in “How to be the First to Analyze Your Prospects Latest 5500 Filing”), the adviser can generate a comprehensive summary report by selecting the company on the map, then checking quick summary on the left side of the screen that has key metrics like overall plan rating, admin fees, rate of return, plan performance, expense ratio. These metrics are color coded for convenience (red is below average and blue is above average). If the plan looks like a suitable prospect the adviser can proceed by selecting the plan to look at it in the greater detail before reaching out to the prospect and generate a PDF summary report to take to appointment or to email in advance of the meeting to highlight potential discussion points.
