When you figure I’ve been a member of a handful of Synagogues in my lifetime, you might call me the wandering Conservative Jew. Of all the synagogues I’ve been a member as a kid and adult, they all share the same thread: they’re not a welcoming place for new members and they do very little to engage them.
Sure, my new synagogue brought me a bottle of wine and the Sisterhood brought me a welcoming package and everyone seems nice, no one bothers to go up to you and be outwardly friendly. I think the fault of the synagogues I’ve been a member of is that for most, that lack of engagement is going to eventually lead to them not ever getting involved, not ever becoming a big time contributors, and perhaps, going somewhere else. The point is that you need to engage people to get them interests. You see that all the time at those retirement plan conventions at the sponsor tables/showcases. Who gets the most traffic? The people who are selling at standing by their display engaging people or the guy sitting behind his table reading a newspaper? That was a rhetorical question.
To be an effective retirement plan provider, you have to engage clients and potential clients. You have to engage participants and employees not eligible to participate, the best advisors out there are those that can properly conduct enrollment meetings and getting plan participants enough information so they want to actively participate. The best third party administrators are the people that engage the clients and plan participants through effective communication and ease of use of a plan sponsor or plan participant website.
It’s not rocket science because engagement is all about trying to make a connection, if you don’t bother to engage people, you’ll never connect and that’s bad for business.
