7 Things Advisors Should Do Before 401(k) Plan Selling Season

The retirement plan selling season is about to start. More than half of 401(k) plans are sold from July through year-end, according to Josh Forstater, Vestwell senior vice president of national sales. In this time period, "many small businesses, midsize and large businesses think about their benefit cycles and they want to make changes going into the following year," he said at the recent webinar "5 Things Advisors Should Do Before Selling Season." "It's also something that's very tactical because of all the different considerations business owners need if they want their employees to put away money for 401(k)s before year-end," he added. "Starting probably in September, people get back from vacations, [so] it does get to be game time and kind of prime selling season" for retirement plans, according to Josh Itzoe, Fiduciary Wor(k)s CEO and founder. "But right now is what I would consider the preseason. And so there's a lot of things that you can do to get prepared so that when the game starts, you can play your best." Despite the title of the webinar, Forstater, Itzoe and Jake Rushton, Strategic Retirement Partners managing director, pointed to seven things advisors selling 401(k) and other retirement plans to companies should be doing now and, in a few cases, should have already started doing. See the slideshow above for details.