This is a perfect time to actively think about what to do differently in your marketing plan to drive better results. During this two-part webinar we'll discuss the marketing opportunity, business requirements and a realistic budget for six things that can help you grow.

This is a perfect time to actively think about what to do differently in your marketing plan to drive better results. During this two-part webinar we'll discuss the marketing opportunity, business requirements and a realistic budget for six things that can help you grow.

The Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA) offers valuable research, information and materials that focus on helping better decision making leading to improved retirement readiness.

A business development plan is like a road map. It provides you with direction and becomes your guide as you move through the year(s). You begin by looking back in order to understand where you have been and what will be required to move forward. It would be considered a best practice to have one, to document it, and then review and monitor it on a regular basis.

In the last article we discussed developing a plan, taking stock of your history and putting a road map in place for the future by considering what has worked and has not worked. This article is about the next step, the importance of a focused strategy and the consistency of execution.

In the last two articles, we covered developing a business development plan and the importance of a strategy and consistency of execution. This article will focus on your referral network: identifying the right partner and establishing service models that work.

The first step in the development of a strategy is to fully understand where your new business came from in the past and what you did to get it. This will require you to gather a few years of data, because many times what we think happened may be a bit different than what actually occurred.

Best practice dictates that companies have a business development policy in place. It provides the guidance needed to ensure successful growth of the company. It also helps to mitigate risk. Once a policy is established a process for implantation is the next step to drive consistency in execution and messaging. The following are some of the questions you should be asking and answering as you put your plan into place.

Successful business development for any firm requires dedication. This final article in the series on business development practices will focus on dedicated sales models that work. The definition of “dedicate” is to commit to a course of action, so when referring to dedicated sales models and staff, I am suggesting targeted, exclusive responsibility for sales-related activity, including the development of existing, as well as finding new, referral sources.

When employees are automatically enrolled into the plan, the plan’s fiduciaries must select an appropriate Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) for participants who fail to provide direction over the investment of their individual accounts.