FreeERISA.com has introduced an economical new service, Premium ERISA, that can create a prospecting edge for any financial advisor working in the retirement plan market. For an introductory cost of $30 for a six-month subscription or $49 for a 12-month subscription, you can use the Fund Finder Database of Premium ERISA to quickly identify plans in your market that offer specific mutual funds. In this article, I'll offer several ideas for how to use Fund Finder.
The best way to understand the database is to conduct a quick search of a familiar fund group. Let's use Putnam in an example. For the search criteria, you will type in "Putnam" and specify whether your search "starts with" or "contains" the name entered. In either case, the search will return Putnam Fiduciary Trust Company, the entity in which Putnam holds retirement plan assets. You will see that the database currently contains 1,361 "customers" of Putnam. Each customer is a retirement plan that holds at least one Putnam-managed fund.
In total, Fund Finder includes more than 200 fund managers, over 1,000 individual mutual funds, and more than 150,000 plans. It's by far the largest online database ever developed for searching plans by investment offerings.
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Next, you click on the Putnam link to reveal a list of the group's individual funds contained in the database, with the number of customers identified for each fund. In this example, 19 Putnam funds are included. The one with the most customers is Putnam Stable Value Fund with 587.
Clicking on the Putnam Stable Value Fund link takes you to a multi-page listing of all 587 plans that hold the fund. You can sort this list by sponsor, plan name, state or zip code. To find plans in your market holding Putnam Stable Value Fund, sort by state or zip code. For example, there are 16 plans in Connecticut holding this fund. To research any of these plans further, you simply click on the EIN/Plan # link in the far left column. (You may need to click on the EIN/Plan # column header once to generate active links in this column.) The link will take you directly to the online Form 5500 filing for that particular plan. From the Form 5500 filing page, use the link in the top left corner to return to your Fund Finder results.
Fund Finder Applications
Fund Finder has many applications in the 401(k) and small plan market. For example, you can quickly see how popular any given fund group, or individual fund, is with plans in general. Or, you could tell a prospect the types of funds other companies in the same market are offering.
One idea for stirring up new business is to start with three or four fund groups that you know best, based on the counseling you are doing with existing clients (retirement plan or non-qualified). Use Fund Finder to identify plans in your market that offer funds of the same group. Conduct Form 5500 research to identify a decision-maker for each of those plans, and send those people a letter. The letter should contain this type of message:
"I am a financial advisor working in your market. My research of public filings indicates that your plan [plan name] includes mutual funds offered by [fund group]. For several years, clients of my firm have held funds offered by this group, and it is my job to monitor these funds and counsel clients on appropriate investment choices and decisions. I would like to spend about 30 minutes with you and share with you current information about these funds, their investment styles, and their recent performance. Perhaps this information will be useful to you personally, or in making decisions for your plan. If you then feel this meeting is productive, I would be willing to spend time with other managers or employees of your firm who would like to learn more about funds offered by [fund group]. There is no charge for the initial meeting. It's my way of introducing myself to your company and its plan."
Make sure to follow up each letter with a phone call within about a few days.
Market Research that Is Quick and Easy
Another idea is to monitor financial headlines in your local newspaper. Whenever a fund group is prominently mentioned, do a quick Fund Finder search to see what plans in the same market hold funds of that group. Contact decision-makers at those plans and offer to help them interpret the news and its impact on their plan and its participants.
Some plan decision-makers may be amazed that you know these details about their plans, down to the individual fund level. Tell them this is publicly-filed information that you have obtained through creative research.
What I like most about Fund Finder is its simplicity and speed. It takes less than 30 seconds to click through from the "first screen" of the search process to the Form 5500 of an individual plan. You can find and research dozens of companies that hold a particular fund in 15-20 minutes. Better yet – show your assistant how to use Fund Finder!
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