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January 21, 2020 14 mins

Alex Dancy is the managing director with Saxony Securities. He has been in the business since 2003 and has built his practice up to managing 31 companies. His book of business is over 100 million dollars, with average plans around 3 million dollars and 75 participants. 

When asked what he would tell an advisor who hasent heard of RetireReady Solutions Alex says, "I work with 18 different record keepers. You know, all the big ones--the Fidelitys, the Empowers, John Hancocks, the Cunas, Mass Mutual, Trans America, you name it. No one has this software and it's software that requires precise data because you have to go into the payroll, but once you get that, it's worth its weight in gold. So I would encourage other advisors to start using that as part of their practice and make time for it."

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Episode Transcript

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Edward Dressel (00:05):
Welcome everybody to another podcast
with RetireReady Solutions.
I have Alex Dancy, managingdirector with his company on the
401(k) side.
He's got some exciting stories,grown a business in the 401(k)
world.
Welcome Alex.
Wonderful to have you.

Alex Dancy (00:19):
Thanks, Ed, for having me.
I appreciate it.

Edward Dressel (00:21):
Why don't we tell people a little bit about
your business, a little bit ofwhat you just told me prior to
getting started.

Alex Dancy (00:27):
Sure.
So, I've been in the businesssince 2003.
I dabbled in 401(k)s.
In 2008, I decided to go fulltime and to focusing on the
defined contribution space.
And, over that time, I've builtmy practice up to 31 companies
currently.
So I'm adding them about threeto four a year.

(00:50):
You know, the participants in myclients, have never had a lot of
the hand holding because they'resmaller businesses.
So, my book of business rightnow just eclipsed 100 million,
it's about 105 million, 31companies.
So the average plan is about 3million with 75 people.
When I discovered theRetireReady reports, it was

(01:12):
really a jem because none of therecord keepers were offering
this.
They have great tools online butnot as specific.
So I gravitated towards that andit's been fantastic to have that
in my toolbox.

Edward Dressel (01:25):
And we'll get down there a little bit and I
appreciate the kind words, butwhat obstacles do you find in
your business?

Alex Dancy (01:31):
So there's multiple.
The biggest obstacle is justreaching the participants.
And to me that's the mostimportant thing.
And when you have an hourlyworkforce that makes it a
challenge.
And I have a lot of departmentmanagement company clients and
so, you know, they'll have 50 to100 different apartment

(01:52):
complexes they manage.
So getting to those people isnearly impossible face to face.
But through the RetireReadyreports and emailing those out,
I have a connectivity with them.
And the other thing I offer isthat they can schedule time with
me until 10 o'clock at night togo over those reports Monday
through Thursday.
But Fridays I shut down at five.

(02:13):
That's probably our biggestchallenge.

Edward Dressel (02:15):
And where are you at?
We didn't go there.

Alex Dancy (02:18):
Sure.
I'm in North Georgia, a littletown called Cumming, Georgia.
So Atlanta is my market.

Edward Dressel (02:24):
Okay.
You mentioned you emailed thosereports to the participants.
What's the response when theyget those reports?

Alex Dancy (02:31):
So I'd probably say it's the old 80/20 rule.
80% don't respond, but the 20%that do respond we walk through
that and usually those peopleare putting themselves at a
contribution rate equal to whatthe company's matching.
And I tell them, look, you know,just because you're putting in
5% and getting the 4%, it's notgoing to get you there.

(02:52):
Let's take a look at what thismeans in real dollars with these
assumptions.
And my assumptions are prettyconservative.
I look at a 6% growth long termand 4% growth in retirement.
And you know, you can obviouslychange this any way you want,
but I always ask them if theyhave a spouse, if they'd like to
have them on the phone withthem.

(03:12):
And I spent an hour last weekwith a couple up in Boston.
And so it was great.
They got to sit down and welooked at the report that I
emailed them and we discussedwhat their social security
statements were looking like.
And we combine those together tolook at what their monthly
income would be.
And they were like, this is notenough.
And so this one individualdecided that he was gonna move

(03:35):
his contribution rate from 7% to15%.
So just by the 8% increase, it'sgonna help him long term and
he's got another 20 years.
So obviously we can't promisereturns, but with the
assumptions, things lookbrighter for them.
His wife was excited as well.

Edward Dressel (03:54):
You put a value on reaching the participants.
It's important to you.
What makes that important toyour business?

Alex Dancy (04:02):
It helps me stay motivated because if I'm not
helping people, I, you know, Idon't think I could do a job.
I feel like what we're doing isreally important and it'll
affect generations.
So if someone can positionthemselves where they're not
going to be a liability on theirchildren--I call that the
sandwich generation--I just say,"Look, you're the top of the

(04:25):
bread.
Your kids are gonna be the meatand cheese and your grandkids
are going to be the bottom ofthe bread and all three
generations will be livingtogether if you don't start
saving more.
So don't be a liability to youradult children when you're in
your seventies.
And then the other conversationis with the CFO and the business
owner.
They can increase the value oftheir business if they can have

(04:47):
people leaving on their ownterms at say, age 65 versus
hanging out into theirseventies.
That creates higher salaries, itputs more of a burden on the
benefits for the group medical.
So there's lots of positivesthat these reports can do for
the investment committee, thebusiness owner, and then
obviously the participant aswell as their children.

Edward Dressel (05:10):
Let's talk a little bit more about that plan
sponsor and your interactionwith them.
What is their reaction after youstart using this report with the
participants?

Alex Dancy (05:19):
So at first they're--you're questioning
whether or not they're gonnaunderstand that.
And so what I always do is offera group presentation either live
or at the office.
So a lot of my businesses aresingle offices and then
obviously on the ones that havemultiple locations, we will do a
WebEx.
And then what I do is I scheduleindividual consultations after

(05:42):
that to go through them.
And really, once you studiedthese reports as the financial
advisor, it's just like riding abike.
You learn the lingo, you learnhow to flow through the
document.
Obviously I'm not going to touchon every single piece of it, but
the ones that I think are mostimpactful are the paycheck

(06:04):
portion of the report, whichshows the difference in take
home pay.
Then obviously the monthlyincome projections based on
their current contribution rateand future contribution rates.
And then if they say,"Well, I'mgoing to think about it," then I
fall into the middle of thereport to say,"Well, if you
wait, let's assume you do waitto increase your contribution

(06:25):
rate by X percent, I can assumethat you're going to lose this
much money based on the factthat the market grew at X
percent." And I, you know, I'llwalk them through that.
But once they understand that,that there is a loss due to time
and not being at an increasedcontribution rate, they figure
that out.
And if we could just get peopleto think about increasing their

(06:49):
contribution rates by even 1%per year for the rest of their
careers until they max out theIRS limit, I mean the country
would be better off.

Edward Dressel (06:58):
When prospecting, do you use the
participant gap report?

Alex Dancy (07:01):
Absolutely.
Every one.

Edward Dressel (07:04):
And what's that looked like?
Does it make a difference intheir response?

Alex Dancy (07:08):
Absolutely.
I asked them, I said,"Are thereparticipants receiving this type
of information?
Is the advisor out there talkingto them about their specific
situation?
And do they have the capabilityof showing what they would have
to budget if they increasedtheir contribution rates." And
so when you go out and you meetwith somebody, you tell them to

(07:31):
increase their contribution rateby say 2% and the report, and
they're paid, say$50,000 a year,which is$962 a week and increase
it 2% after taxes.
That's like$14 or$15 a week.
And I've had some guys laugh,they say"That's beer money." And
I'm like,"Absolutely!" So theywon't even increase it
2%--they'll go in and say I'mgoing to increase an additional

(07:51):
6%.
I'll go from five to elevenversus five to seven.
And so once those participantsget engaged, I rarely ever see
them increase their contributionrate just one or 2%.
It's usually four, six andsometimes even 8% so, y eah.
So for prospecting, it's a greattool.

Edward Dressel (08:13):
Have you been to a trustee meeting after the
reports have been used andgotten feedback from the
trustees on the value thatreport has to them?

Alex Dancy (08:21):
Yeah.
They, the trustees, usually thebusiness owner or slash
president, and even the VP of HRwill tell me stories.
And there was one where I had acompany, they had an in house
attorney and I was sitting downwith a participant and going
through the report and then sheleft crying and the in house

(08:45):
attorney came into theconference room where I was
conducting these one on onesessions and he's like,"What'd
you say to her?" I showed herthe report and then we put those
numbers together into hersituation and she was crying
because she was so happy.
She didn't realize that itwasn't too late.
So that report changed her lifeand that attorney smiled and he
said,"Thank you, Alex for beinghere for our participants." So

(09:08):
yeah, that was, you know, thatmade me feel good.
Another lady that I helped out,she was facing an eviction from
her apartment and we made somechanges and now she's cashflow
positive with her income and herexpenses.
We talked about her situationand she just told me recently
that she's looking at buying herfirst home.

(09:30):
So you know, what did thatreport do for that person?
It made her become a homeowner.
And that was the leading tool toget her in that direction versus
being evicted from herapartment.
So budgeting and then thisreport, those combined--I have
different budgeting tools Iuse--but you know, those are the

(09:52):
days where you're like, allright, I cannot wait to get to
work tomorrow to go and do mynext education workshop and meet
with participants.

Edward Dressel (09:58):
I love that.
That's awesome.
You've given me a couple of funstories.
Do you have another story or twothat go, you know, this was
really worth my time to workwith participants.

Alex Dancy (10:09):
Sure.
So, I've done so many of thesethat I guess the main thing is
that people don't realize andunderstand money and the way it
works and how it works aftertaxes and just having the long
term five year, 10 year andretirement numbers, those

(10:30):
different tables in the reportcan really be eye-opening.
And so, in my opinion, Ed, yoursoftware should be required
software for people to learn toget a high school diploma.
It really should be because itdoesn't matter if they work for
a company that has a 401(k).
This stuff could also be used ina simple IRA or an IRA account.

(10:53):
People just need to understandthat.
So all three of my kids, myyoungest one is only 14 at this
time, but, all my kids areworking that are teenagers--I
require them to put away 10% oftheir pay and they've seen these
reports.
So, you know, it, it, hits homeas well.

Edward Dressel (11:14):
These are fun stories.

Alex Dancy (11:15):
Yeah.

Edward Dressel (11:16):
What would you tell somebody who hasn't seen
our software, who hasn't lookedat it, is out in the 401(k)
participant world?
What would you tell them?
Why use this?

Alex Dancy (11:29):
Yeah, the question, I have for them is"Why are you
not using it?" Because, youknow, I work with 18 different
record keepers.
You know, all the big ones--theFidelitys, the Empowers, John
Hancocks, the Cunas, MassMutual, Trans America, you name
it.
No one has this software andit's software that requires

(11:52):
precise data because you have togo into the payroll, but once
you get that, it's worth itsweight in gold.
So I would encourage otheradvisors to start using that as
part of their practice and maketime for it.

Edward Dressel (12:04):
How hard do you find it to get the data from the
record keeper, the plan sponsor?
How hard is it to get the dataand get it in the system?

Alex Dancy (12:13):
So the plan sponsor--generally we'll have
some what they call learningpatterns to populate the
data--what I think they need tounderstand is that as long as we
can get the tax data, if thenames are--the first and last
names are in one column or twocolumns or whatever that turns

(12:36):
out to be--we can massage thatdata.
But once they figure out thatthe long term effect on how this
is going to help the company, Ithink they finally realized that
on the second round.
So I have some companies thatare doing the second round on
this and they're popping it out.
So once you get over that firstoccurrence of doing this--that
first hurdle--after that, itshould be pretty easy and simple

(12:59):
for them.
The data from the serviceproviders, getting the acetate,
is pretty simple.
I've got one plan that has eightdifferent sources and you know,
we just take seven of thosesources and add them together
for the pretax.
And then of course we have theRoth, but once we've got that,
it's pretty simple.
So yeah, it's not a hugeheadache.

Edward Dressel (13:20):
Any other comments before we wrap up?

Alex Dancy (13:23):
I would just say that, Ed, you guys are doing a
great job.
I hope that you all continue todo this because I plan on
working another 17 years and Ihope you don't go anywhere.
So thank you.

Edward Dressel (13:34):
I appreciate your time, Alex.
It was, you know, some funstories.
I just did a podcast withanother individual published
soon on the 403(b), talked aboutsomebody crying in the same vein
that you talk about it.
Just the delight of helpingsomebody who doesn't understand
how well they're doing and thatthey can make it.

Alex Dancy (13:54):
That's wonderful to hear.

Edward Dressel (13:56):
It's a lot of fun to help participants engage.
I tell my employees we are inthe poverty alleviation business
and we're helping America retiresuccessfully.
I appreciate your time and wishyou the best in the market place
today.
Have a great day.

Alex Dancy (14:10):
Yep.
Thanks Ed for having me.
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