In just one quarter, INTRUST’s retirement group implemented PlanPro to fill their pipeline with high-quality retirement plan leads.
The company struggled with identifying quality prospects and gathering reliable contact data on decision-makers with previous prospecting platforms. Switching to PlanPro while focusing on business development helped INTRUST Retirement put the right pieces in place to drive revenue.
Challenge
INTRUST Retirement is a leading retirement plan practice in Kansas with a dedication to bettering American retirement outcomes. Wanting to serve more clients, INTRUST Retirement began looking for a better solution to prospect. Their existing tools did not provide the plan intelligence or contact data they required. Limited capabilities, including basic search features, stale or indirect contact data, and minimal plan insights hindered their ability to identify the best prospects and get in front of the right decision-makers. INTRUST Retirement knew they needed to find a solution to engage with more qualified prospects and grow their client base.
Identifying Leads
The INTRUST team was doing a great job calling on plans in the greater Wichita area. However, with inadequate intelligence to identify leads, INTRUST tended to call on any retirement plan that met their geographic and size criteria. This broad approach required many calls to book fewer meetings. INTRUST felt there was an opportunity to better identify the prospects most in need of assistance and willing to make a change.
Reaching Decision-Makers
Reaching out to retirement plan decision-makers to set meetings is a big part of prospecting for the INTRUST team. They noticed that often the decision-maker listed in their legacy 5500 databases displayed stale contacts no longer employed by the company and little data to research contacts. This was a source of frustration, time lost, and was unsustainable for a small team.
Preparing for Meetings
Without access to quality insights on the prospects, INTRUST was often unable to prepare for meetings to the extent they wanted. They wanted to be able to easily identify areas of improvement in plan design or investment menus to discuss with prospects in a first meeting — immediately adding value and showing expertise. INTRUST was often left requesting material from clients in a first meeting, and following up later with some insights, lengthening the sales process.
Solution
The INTRUST team, including Bill Bequette (Senior Institutional Wealth Advisor) and Mark Cundiff (Business Development), signed on for a Premium subscription and started using the platform immediately — identifying leads, contacting decision-makers, and preparing for meetings.
To discover new leads, the team leverages PlanPro to better identify qualified prospects. They rely on PlanPro to sort through retirement plans and help them identify criteria such as industry, use of specific providers, those lacking an advisor, investment menu weaknesses, geography, and more red flags. PlanPro even worked to integrate a custom red flag for the team, which directly led to seven meetings in a single month. The INTRUST team loves that they are able to be more targeted in their outreach now.
Knowing who the decision-makers or influencers are and how to reach out to them is a crucial part of the INTRUST sales process. PlanPro minimizes time wasted reaching out to stale contacts and provides access to more contacts for each plan. For example, Mark Cundiff spoke of an early win where PlanPro allowed him to book a meeting by having the right contact data. After identifying a plan to call on, Mark found the decision-maker and their direct phone number on PlanPro, leading to a booked meeting. Later he looked at their legacy prospecting system and noticed their contact listed was no longer with the firm — having up-to-date contact data including names, titles, phone numbers emails and LinkedIn profiles enabled INTRUST to book more meetings.
“I was able to set an appointment by having contact data on the right person”
Mark Cundiff, Business Development
In addition to driving better quality leads, INTRUST maintains that PlanPro’s plan profiles allow them to better prepare for prospect meetings and calls. Leveraging the PlanPro investment menu analysis or plan insights algorithm, the team quickly familiarizes themselves with the retirement plan and easily identifies talking points and valuable analysis. INTRUST says they save significant time to devise a strategy. Rather than focus on selling, they educate the prospect on their current plan. Now, their first call or meeting is no longer a shot in the dark — it is a personal conversation on how INTRUST can help them prepare their employees for a healthy retirement and reduce fiduciary liability.
“PlanPro allows us to go in and make something happen on the first meeting”
Bill Bequette, Senior Institutional Wealth Advisor
Results
Using PlanPro and a focused, data-driven approach to developing relationships, INTRUST Retirement has shortened their sales cycle and booked over 30 appointments in three months. Per INTRUST’s estimates, they have increased their qualified appointments booked by 200%. Not only are they scheduling more meetings, but they are meetings of higher-quality. PlanPro enables INTRUST to engage with prospects with greater relevance, allowing them to tailor their pitch based on a plan’s unique characteristics.
An area that stood out to INTRUST retirement is how invested the PlanPro team is in helping them succeed.
“PlanPro isn’t just a vendor to us — they have become part of our team. They’re helping us build our business, and it’s a relationship that we truly value.”
Bill Bequette, Senior Institutional Wealth Advisor
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