"I participated in my first 401k Coach Program 8 years ago and I have gone on to participate in the Year 2 Program and the Masters retreat. These experiences changed the way I do business. I decided to expand my service staff and hire support but it takes time to train new staff and "synchronize" ourselves so I decided to sign up for The 401k Coach Year 1 Refresher. The program has saved me many hours of training my new employee (who participated in the program with me) and allowed me to work in a concentrated amount of time with my new employee. It has brought excitement to my team! What we did is grow faster, bigger, cheaper and better! We just closed a $73.5 million plan with 1,600 employees based on what we learned. Kudos Charlie! You exceeded my expectations again!

Potential of Tax Reform Proposals to  Undermine the Retirement System  

By Marcia Wagner 

How Plans Affect the Deficit. Legislators and policymakers know that the amount of tax revenue forgone on account of retirement plans is very large and this makes 401(k) plans an easy target for revenue raising initiatives. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that annual tax expenditures for 401(k) plans, IRAs and Keogh plans amount to $70.2 billion, and the Office of Management and Budget has projected that foregone revenue attributable to 401(k) plan contributions for the period 2011-2015 will be $361 billion. Retirement saving through a 401(k) plan is tax-advantaged because the government generally taxes neither the original plan contributions nor the investment returns on those contributions until they are paid as benefits.  Since the budget process looks at revenues and expenditures within a ten-year window, and the payment of most retirement benefits occurs outside that window, the amount of taxes foregone because of 401(k) contributions tends to be viewed as a permanent expenditure.  As pressure builds to control the federal deficit, legislative proposals to reform the private retirement plan system and reduce tax costs have multiplied.

Every second two new members join LinkedIn. Every minute, 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. 90% of people trust online recommendations from people they know.[1] It is evident that social media is altering the communication landscape. And, while Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry are busy building their Twitter empires (with more followers than the entire populations of Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, United Kingdom and Egypt!)[1], they don't have FINRA, the SEC or other regulatory entities outlining a series of rules regarding what they can and cannot say - and watching to make certain they follow the rules. While the early adopters in the Twitterverse are sharing, connecting, and even landing new clients, many advisors sit on the sidelines. Why? Because of risk.

Risk is the elephant in the room. Some advisors are jumping into the arena, without a clear understanding of the requirements. Others avoid social media altogether since they aren't willing to spend the time required to both understand the regulations and outline a plan to succeed while sustaining a compliant approach.

Adobe EchoSign 

By DJ Ware

Purpose/Usefulness:  

Going paperless is becoming quite popular as the we all continue to 'go green' and it's not only beneficial for the environment but it's also easier for people who have large quantities of documents. The only issue with going paperless is acquiring signatures because the documents are really just an image representation of the original paper document. EchoSign is the solution! If you can attach a document to an email, you can use EchoSign to take the hassle out of sending, signing, tracking and filing documents with just three steps.

Easier, Faster, Cheaper, Bigger: 

The free version alone will save anyone who uses the program a bunch of time and money. It's such a streamlined method that there really is nothing to it and the instant signature delivery is extremely beneficial for someone who has no time to waste. Depending on which edition you're interested in, you can share the application with your whole team/company and have complete customization, enabling your business to reach new levels of productivity! (and free up some time to create new business as well)

Each month Black Belt Marketing will focus on practice management techniques to improve your business and give tips to increase your marketing effectiveness. This month's column is on how to hire a great employee.

If you take the advice of 401k Coach Charlie Epstein and grow your business 10-fold this year, you'll undoubtedly need employees. Let me walk you through a proven technique on how you can hire the ideal employee.

I've had very good success with ads on craiglist.com. I write the ad from a perspective of why the prospective employee should work for the firm. This is different from most ads which list the candidate's required qualifications. Describing why potential employees should work for your firm is especially important when we have full employment and your competitors are offering jobs to candidates you are also pursuing, during the in-person interviews.