New client, Old client

During a meeting on Monday, L was talking about how important it is to bring in new clients and new work since the retirement consulting business is changing. (Okay, let's admit that pension consulting business is not growing in the US.)

And L also mentioned that it is more important not to lose sight on serving our current clients with our best service- because for every client we lose, it takes 2 years to bring back the same amount of revenue. (Well, I once heard that it is 5 times as hard to bring in new customers than to keep existing customers happy.)

Then one of the co-workers thought that reminded her of a girl scouts song, Make New Friends. The lyrics are quite catchy and true. (Though I was a Brownie before, I never heard of this song ;))

Make New Friends

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
and the other's gold
A circle is round that never ends
And that's how long I'm gonna be your friend.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you mentioned in your blog sometime ago that retirement is a big thing since there are tons of baby boomers retiring. But I do agree more with your lastest post regarding the shrinking pension consulting business. Are you afraid about your job security in years to come and any plans to handle that risk?

Y said...

Considering the fact that most people switch their jobs/careers/profession several times throughout their working years, I think job security is just like an illusion. Though, having the designation FSA/ASA under your belt will make it easier to find the next actuarial job.

Speaking of pension consulting, personally, I'll take the CFA exams after becoming an ASA. You know, just to "diversify" your talents/skill sets.

What's your thoughts on that?

Anonymous said...

I can't think of any reasons why taking CFA exams would hurt you. But, I would be wondering if your experience in pension consulting would meet the CFA experience requirements for Charterholder.

Y said...

I know an actuary who works in the benefit consulting field and passed all of his CFA exams last year. I just dropped a line to ask him about the CFA experience requirement.

I'll keep you posted.

Y

Anonymous said...

On a side note, CFA changed its experience requirement back in 2005. Back then, if you are an actuary, you would qualify if you passed all the 3 exams.
But yeah, keep me posted. 10q

Y said...

I just got a reply from Alberto Dominguez (Another actuarial blogger at What's an Actuary?), and here's the info:

Quote:
Acceptable professional work experience as it relates to applicants seeking to become charterholder members, or regular members, includes activities that consist to a majority extent of:

(i) evaluating or applying financial, economic, and/or statistical data as part of the investment decision-making process involving securities or similar investments, which includes, but is not limited to, publicly traded and privately placed stocks, bonds, and mortgages and their derivatives; commodity-based derivatives and mutual funds; and other investment assets, such as real estate and commodities, if these other investment assets are held as part of a diversified, securities-oriented investment portfolio; or

(ii) supervising, directly or indirectly, persons who practice such activities; or

(iii) teaching such activities.

...if you became a candidate before the 2005 exam cycle, have passed Level I [in 2005 or earlier], and become a regular member by 1 July 2007 [not sure if this required you to pass level 3 by June 2006 or if there is still a chance for those who pass in June 2007 since grades don't come out until after 7/1/07]


And you are right, I was looking at the sample job titles on the CFA Institute website, actuary is not listed. It said, "it is required that you spend at least 50% of your time in investment decision-making process." Are there any actuarial jobs that involve so much time in investment decision-making?

Hm...so if I am continuing to work in the pension/ retirement consulting field, I can't meet the experience requirement to be a charterholder?

Well, I may need to redraft my plan again ;)

Back to the question you asked at the beginning. What's your thoughts on handling the risk in the shrinking pension market? Are you in the same field too?