PLANADVISER - Fall 2023 - 28

Roundtable
the resources to make what we'd call a 100-year investment
in our firm. That means bringing in a development program
that's truly a development program for new advisers.
They come to Omaha for two years. They learn the business
through rotating through our Advanced Solutions team,
which includes our retirement plans division, our trust team,
our tax team, our planning team. They work as a pair, with a
senior adviser, for some of the tax and wealth advisers, both
here and around the U.S., and they're paid a salary.
They get their CFP [certified financial planner designation],
they get their [Series] 65 license, and that attracts a
certain sort of person too-somebody who says, " I'm ready
for finishing school. I'm ready for two years of a fellowship
to learn this business. " But it's also a tribute to where we
are as a firm in terms of our ability to make these kinds
you could be a great resource, not only for the new prospective
startups but for your more seasoned clients and more
seasoned advisers at the firm. You can update the team as
these things are coming out because maybe you have more
time to be getting those updates, to be sitting on those
calls to get that information.
The startup and small plans are the hardest plans to
work with. They're by far the most labor intensive because
usually they have people working on them who don't have
much experience. Typically, you have somebody coming
from a larger organization, but they now have more limited
staff and potentially limited experience dealing with that.
So you're helping them through that, and it's a great way for
young advisers to learn. They'll get very good at saying, " Let
me look that up for you. "
" I do think there's kind of a TV
version of what an adviser does.
And I tell them, 'We're not traders.
You'll be scheduling as much as
you'll be looking at the market
from day to day.' " SARA MATLOCK
of investments and long-term plays. It's the resources, the
commitment and frankly a long-term point of view that can
make a difference, [along with] maybe thinking outside the
box in terms of training and development.
PA: SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement
Enhancement] 2.0 and state mandates have the country
poised to bring on new startup and small plans. Is there
an opportunity there for cultivating a new generation of
advisers?
Matlock: Anytime there's something new or changed, that
will be an opportunity, especially for somebody new coming
into the industry. We have to balance that with making
sure we're not asking somebody new to do something that's
beyond their skill set and will set them up to fail.
But as to the implementation of the SECURE Act, we're
all starting this race together. It's over 90 provisions, and it's
constantly being updated, whether you're hearing new guidance,
something about petitions or about groups of recordkeepers
now attempting to delay things. So if you're new
and looking for something to be an expert in, this is where
Ellisor: I'd say advisory organizations
[historically] ignored this market. Startup
plans were mostly not
something we
wanted to do. But they do provide a
learning ground for junior advisers.
What we've done as a firm, or a group
of firms, is we're saying, " Let's not make
you do this one-on-one. We'll create a
small-market solution where you can
use that platform to run this business
through our pooled employer plan. " Ten
years ago, could we have done this? Probably
not. So I think SECURE has helped us,
from that perspective.
Now a junior adviser can say, " Here are
some solutions that make sense in these instances. Let's
work through that and see where to go next from it. " I can
see some of our younger advisers starting to build a decent
block of business within a pooled employer plan environment,
for example. So I think there is a ton of opportunity.
PA: What are the qualities you look for in junior staff for
future leadership? And along with that, what advice would
you give someone wanting to make a career in the space?
Ellisor: What we do is we basically look at a candidate
and what they have done up to this point in their life.
Have they taken a leadership role, maybe in sports or in
other endeavors? How have they handled adversity? What
happened when something bad happened-did they take
personal responsibility [if that was warranted], or push the
buck off on somebody else? We start looking at people that
way, and we look holistically-not at one specific metric or
one specific thing.
We're trying to find people who have the criteria and the
mental makeup to be successful, but not necessarily as a
salesperson or as a plan adviser, but finding the right people
28 planadviser.com | Fall 2023 | Practice Management
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