‘Go-To’ Advisors Know the HR Rules

Find your passion, advised Kent Schutte, president of EFS Advisors, and build your business around it. Schutte’s breakout session, “Becoming the Go-To Advisor,” was a Day 2 highlight of the 2014 NTSA 403(b) Summit in Washington.

“Our company’s passion is educators,” said Schutte. “They’re underpaid and under-appreciated, and yet we expect them to mold a better future for our country.”

According to Schutte, who is NTSA’s President-Elect and also served co-chair of this year’s Summit, the best teachers are the worst planners because they tend to care more about their students than themselves. So the “go-to advisor” needs to know more about a client’s employer-provided and voluntary benefits than anyone else, and that may include the organization’s human resources person. 

This means advisors need to understand the union contracts and bargaining agreements the teachers have with administrators, including things like sick days and medical benefits, as well as knowing who the bargaining agents are for each side. Know the politics, find out if relations are cordial or adversarial and whether the administration is focused on education or the bottom line, Schutte advised.

It also helps to have electronic copies of the contracts (which are public information) on your computer so you can immediately call them up if questions arise. And know the details of the state’s DB plan, including the formulas, early retirement incentives and survivorship options. 

Once you have clients, know who the centers of influence are and meet with them if you can. Find out the relevant associations your clients (teachers, administrators, business officers, school board) belong to and join the ones that will permit associate members. That way you’ll be apprised of whatever relevant issues that may be on their minds and be better able to devise ways you can help address them.

“Administrators can be unintentionally ignored because some advisors are intimidated by them,” Schutte said, “but they need our help as much as anybody because they’re so busy.”