Guides
401(k) prospecting guides.
How to find retirement plans worth calling, what to say, and what the public filings can and cannot tell you. Written from the data, with sources.
For advisors: prospecting
- How to find 401(k) plans to prospect: a tactical guide for advisors.
Finding the right 401(k) plans to prospect — instead of just any plans — is the difference between a 5% close rate and a 25% close rate.
Updated September 17, 2026
- How to find companies with 401(k) plans (and which ones are worth pitching).
Almost every U.S. company with 100+ employees offers a 401(k) plan — and they're all in the public Form 5500 dataset.
Updated September 17, 2026
- The complete 401(k) sales prospecting guide for financial advisors.
A start-to-finish playbook for advisors prospecting 401(k) plans for takeover. Covers data sources, fee analysis, decision-maker mapping, the actual pitch, and the typical 6–18 month sales cycle.
Updated September 17, 2026
- How to get 401(k) leads: seven sources, ranked by what they really cost you.
There are seven workable ways for a financial advisor to find 401(k) plan sponsors to talk to.
Updated September 17, 2026
- 401(k) prospecting scripts: email, call and voicemail examples built on the plan's own filing.
The scripts that get answered are the ones that tell a sponsor something true and specific about their own plan.
Updated September 17, 2026
- How to find 401(k) plans by ZIP code, city or radius.
Every Form 5500 lists the sponsor's address, so the full set of retirement plans near you is public.
Updated September 17, 2026
For advisors: the data and tool landscape
- What is a 401(k) lead database, and which one should advisors use?
A 401(k) lead database is a searchable index of U.S. retirement plans, sourced from public Form 5500 filings, that financial advisors use to find takeover-pitch prospects.
Updated September 17, 2026
- 401(k) plan sponsor data: what's available, where it comes from, and how to use it.
401(k) plan sponsor data — the company that legally sponsors a retirement plan, plus the people who run it — is the foundation of any retirement-plan prospecting workflow.
Updated September 17, 2026
- The retirement plan data provider landscape: who sells what, and to whom.
Retirement plan data providers package Form 5500 filings + supplemental sources (advisor records, ERISA litigation, plan ratings) for buyers across the wealth-management and recordkeeping industries.
Updated September 17, 2026
- The 401(k) prospecting tool stack: what advisors actually use, end-to-end.
Winning a 401(k) takeover requires more than a Form 5500 lookup. The advisor prospecting workflow chains together a plan database, fee scoring, decision-maker enrichment, outreach automation, and a CRM.
Updated September 17, 2026
- ERISA data providers: what they sell, who buys it, and how to evaluate them.
ERISA data providers package the regulatory filings required of U.S. retirement and welfare plans — primarily Form 5500 + schedules — for advisors, asset managers, recordkeepers, attorneys, and fiduciary-process tools.
Updated September 17, 2026
For plan sponsors
Plain-English guides to plan design and cost, written for the people who run a plan.
- What adding a Roth option to your 401(k) actually changes.
A Roth 401(k) option costs the business almost nothing to add, and it changes the arithmetic of retirement for a large share of your employees.
Updated July 21, 2026
- What a half a percent in 401(k) fees actually costs your employees.
Plan fees look small because they are quoted as fractions of a percent. Over a working career they are not small.
Updated July 21, 2026
- What a 401(k) advisor is actually supposed to be doing for you.
Most plan sponsors can name their recordkeeper. Fewer can describe what their plan advisor did last year.
Updated July 21, 2026
- How to build a 401(k) investment lineup employees can actually use.
A good fund menu is not the longest one. It is the one where a typical employee, given no help and no interest in investing, still ends up in something sensible.
Updated July 21, 2026
- How to build the best 401(k) plan for your business.
A retirement plan is one of the few benefits where the quality of the design has a larger effect than the size of the budget.
Updated July 21, 2026