PLANADVISER - September/October 2018 - 49

dealing with, " he says. " You have two clients here. You have
that partner and the potential client, and you really have to
sell both of them, not just one. Even if you lose the potential
client in a finals presentation, or you don't even get there,
you want to do a good job, because the next time the wealth
adviser calls, it could be to your advantage.
" He has to be aware of your experience-that you
specialize in this business and your history of success,
especially with other partners, " Catanella continues. " You
want him to call up your partners and know your reputation
and any awards you have won, such as the PLANSPONSOR
Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year or the myriad others,
not only outside the firm but inside the firm-that you have
that recognition. "
Your potential partners in wealth management are
unknowledgeable about the retirement plan business
because they do not practice in it, but they likely know it
is very specialized, he says. By reassuring them of your
specialist skills and statistics-e.g., how long you have
been practicing, the average size and tenure of clients,
your fiduciary expertise and the percentage of your business
that is institutional retirement plan consulting-and
that you can answer any question a potential plan sponsor
client asks, you can make them feel comfortable about
starting a relationship.
What he does next is explain to these advisers that if they
give him referrals and his group is successful in attracting
new clients, it will share its fee with the wealth adviser for a
period of time, Catanella says. He adds that these arrangements
vary, but that wealth advisers are generally more
than happy to receive the annuity stream.
Building trust with the advisers is also key, he adds. " We
do zero individual business. No rollover business, no one-onones.
'That's all yours, my partner, and we want no part of
the split.' That's important because we have seen teams on
our side of the business that try to do everything-including
wealth management, rollovers and estate planning. As a
fiduciary, we view that as a conflict, and we do not think it
builds trust. "
As a further way to win UBS private wealth managers'
trust, Catanella assures them that he will not pitch any UBS
products or services.
Additionally, he tells the managers they will be invited
to conduct " seminars with us, by themselves or with the
recordkeeper. That will help them create a deeper relationship
with the company because, by bringing us in to
manage its retirement plan, it will lower the company's
liability and increase the private wealth manager's value
with that client. " By being present, the wealth managers
can potentially pick up large participant accounts, if they
are interested.
Catanella then asks the wealth advisers for the names
of three to five companies where they " have a connection
with someone of influence, such as the CEO, the chief financial
officer [CFO], the head counsel or the head of human
resources [HR]. " The key, Catanella says, is getting to the
right potential plan sponsor.
" We then look at the public data from the Form 5500s on
the company to determine if it's a possible candidate for our
401(k) consulting services, " Catanella says. Specifically, he is
interested to see whether the plan has automatic enrollment
and automatic escalation; whether it has the right share
classes and what the investment lineup is; and whether it
is working with an adviser or consultant. " Once you have
done that, you look for what I call negative markers-things
such as proprietary fund lineups, expensive share classes,
no adviser, an adviser not acting as a fiduciary, low participation,
no auto-enrollment and no auto-escalation, " he says.
" The idea is to cultivate
relationships with 10 to 12
financial advisers who don't
do retirement planning. "
Once he has done that, he writes a summary of his
analysis of the retirement plan, which he gives the wealth
adviser to go over with his client. He also asks the adviser
to send the client his bio, to stress that he is a retirement
plan specialist. " We want the adviser to tell them they are
not going to be speaking with a generalist adviser but a
very successful expert in this field who can give them some
insight into their plan, " Catanella says.
If the client indicates that it wants to speak with the
Catanella Group, the practice then sets up a conference call
with it, where introductions are made and Catanella offers
to send a free benchmarking report. Once he has that report
in hand, for which the team contracts an outside firm, he
schedules a face-to-face meeting to go over the findings.
Catanella says that, for retirement plan advisers working
at large wealth management firms such as UBS, this
approach is consistently successful. But, he adds, " the key
ingredient is trust. It begins with building trust in the relationship,
trust in the experience of the partner, trust in the
process and trust in the guidance of the partner. If you do
those things and you do them in steps, you will find that,
over time, you will be successful. " -Lee Barney
KEY TAKEAWAYS
* Advisers working at wealth management firms have the
opportunity to turn to wealth advisers to ask them for
C-suite referrals at companies whose retirement plan
could use improvement.
* The key when starting a relationship with a private
wealth adviser is to stress deep experience and expertise
in retirement planning.
* The wealth adviser can make the introduction to his client,
positioning the specialist adviser in a favorable light.
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