Products September 19, 2011

Invesco Adds Consulting Series to PlanForward Program

Invesco is adding a consulting series to its PlanForward program, designed to help advisers and consultants build a compelling value proposition and enhance their brand recognition.
Reported by

Invesco’s PlanForward Consulting Series: Developing Your Value Proposition has been designed from a customer perspective, which includes a survey advisers can use with their clients. Advisers will also receive assistance from sales personnel with expertise on Invesco’s language research. 

The program include: 

Want the latest retirement plan adviser news and insights? Sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters.

  • Client Survey:  The PlanForward Consulting Series provides an electronic survey that is easy for financial advisers to send, easy for plan sponsor clients to answer, and simple to convert into meaningful feedback about the clients’ perceptions of the adviser’s value. 
  • Assessment and Messaging: The program includes a step-by-step process for building a value proposition and integrating findings from the client survey. The process walks the adviser through determining their defining attributes as a firm, crafting benefit statements that correspond to those attributes, and adjusting the message depending on the nature of the presentation (Request For Proposal, PowerPoint presentation, etc.). 
  • Delivery Assistance: The PlanForward Consulting Series program will be supported by Invesco’s Retirement Plan Consultants, who will lead clients through the entire process – from survey to value proposition development to effective and efficient presentation of the value proposition. 

In March, Invesco rolled out PlanForward Foundations, a series of toolkits designed to help financial advisers grow their defined contribution (DC) business (see “Invesco Unveils PlanForward Project“).

Products September 19, 2011

GuidedChoice Rolls Out Savings Tool for Participants

GuidedChoice has launched Retirement Readiness, a solution that allows retirement plan participants to see how prepared they are for retirement and helps them take action to improve their savings and investment strategies. 
Reported by

GuidedChoice reports that it used its expertise in behavioral finance when designing the personalized assessment tool.  To make it easy to read and understand, the tool focuses on a few key facts drawn from retirement plan data: projected retirement income (in today’s dollars), savings rate, and portfolio diversification.

To provide next-step actions appropriate for all participants, it offers both access to professional advice and management through the company’s flagship GuidedSavings solution, and a streamlined option to implement simple savings and investment changes immediately.

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

Research from GuidedChoice has shown that while participation rates in 401(k) plans are at historically high levels, contribution rates and average balances are still too low to provide adequate retirement savings for many investors.  The company hopes its Retirement Readiness offering can help at-risk participants to plan more prudently.

«