Omaha-based Securities America, a network of 1,900 advisors, and Wealth2K, the Massachusetts-based multi-media company, have released “Retirement Time,” a web-based retirement risk assessment tool designed to help the firm’s financial advisors seize the burgeoning retirement income opportunity-and hinder “big brand” intruders from poaching their client base.
Retirement Time builds on one of the capabilities of a Wealth2K product called The Income for Life Model, which uses a refined “bucket system” to provide income in retirement and which is an element of Securities America’s NextPhase Income Distribution System, which supports advisors.
“To attract more investors to their retirement products and services, advisors must introduce high-end, high-impact communications tools that convey rich and motivational educational experiences,” said David Macchia said, founder and CEO of Massachusetts-based Wealth2K.
Advisors tend to think of other independent advisors as their closest competitors. But Macchia cautioned that “big brands” such as Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Ameritrade, which have large budgets, sophisticated technology and market directly to individual investors, may represent as large a threat.
“The big brands are targeting advisors’ clients, and they are using impressive, web-based communications technology to express the value of their products and services. Advisors who fail to recognize and manage this competitive threat do so at their peril,” Macchia said.
“The arbiter of an advisor’s success in the retirement markets will be how well he or she is able to communicate to a large and fluid universe of prospective clients,” said Paul Lofties, first vice president of acquisitions and wealth management at Securities America, Inc., whose advisors manage more than $34 billion.
Retirement Time offers consumers calculators and other tools including Seminar for One technology designed to help them anticipate their needs in retirement. It also provides educational videos such as The Power of an IRA Rollover and IRA Rollover Options to Consider.
The Seminar-for-One also provides a comprehensive look at retirement needs and the funding model offered by The Income for Life Model. Advisors who use the platform link to it directly from their own website and can customize it with their name and contact information.
© 2009 RIJ Publishing. All rights reserved.
