As the confetti settles and the calendar flips to 2025, it’s the perfect time to set resolutions that truly make an impact — both in your personal life and your retirement plan practice. One resolution that should be on every advisor’s list is to benchmark better. Benchmarking is — or should be — more than just a compliance checkbox; it can be a powerful tool for attracting new prospects, retaining clients and delivering greater value for plan sponsors and participants.
Ready to elevate your strategy? Here are 10 ways to level up your benchmarking in 2025.
- Benchmark annually. Ensure fees remain reasonable between the customary three- to-five-year RFP interval. Use PlanFees to conduct easy, annual benchmarking to help ensure fees remain competitive and reasonable year after year.
- Leverage fee benchmarking to grow your book. Turn benchmarking into a prospecting powerhouse by offering fast and free fee checkups in one-on-one meetings. Providing a complimentary fee benchmark can help you start conversations, establish credibility and build relationships.
- Educate plan sponsors. Prospect one to many and establish thought leadership by hosting webinars or workshops for plan fiduciaries. With PlanFees, you can run hypothetical scenarios with actual data to show how benchmarking informs real-world retirement plan decision-making.
- Scale your benchmarking solution. Whether you’re a solo advisor or part of a larger firm, scalable benchmarking solutions can increase efficiency and productivity. PlanFees benchmarking solutions grow with your practice to free up time for prospecting — and delivering more value to clients.
- Improve presentations. Bring benchmarking data to life with polished, custom-branded reports and clear data visualizations. These tools can make your sales and client presentations more engaging and effective.
- Decrease client churn. Use benchmarking as part of a proactive client retention strategy. Regular fee reviews can improve sponsor satisfaction — and help guard against other advisors from poaching your plans.
- Benchmark yourself. With tools like Prism365, you can better benchmark your own advisory fees. Document the value of your high-touch service by benchmarking all of your custom solutions, as well as your service frequency.
- Enhance your offering. You know how much fees matter to sponsors. Differentiate yourself and demonstrate your commitment to client success with robust benchmarking tools from PlanFees.
- Improve fiduciary oversight. Use benchmarking to provide actionable insights that go beyond compliance, helping committees make more informed decisions and proactively address plan risks.
- Use your benchmark data to negotiate lower fees. Fee benchmarking gives you leverage to negotiate better deals for clients — and lower fees for participants. By highlighting the measurable cost savings your fee analysis uncovers, you can reinforce your position as a trusted and essential advisor.
The new year is a great time to think about how you can raise the bar for your retirement plan practice. As an advisor, you know staying ahead of the curve can make a big difference. Benchmarking better helps keep your clients engaged, your practice competitive — and your value undeniable.
Here’s to a thriving, prosperous year ahead for you — and your plans!
