Senior Retirement Plan Consultant

BBSI Portland; Portland (OR); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Full benefits package including health

Company 401(k) with employer match

Paid time off

Job summary

BBSI Portland is seeking a senior retirement plan consultant to own the full arc of 401(k) opportunities—from convincing clients of value to live onboarding and ongoing relationship management. You will work with cross-functional teams, sit in on tough questions, and deliver a clean onboarding experience that prompts client referrals.

This is a consultative sales and implementation role with real depth. Base salary range reflects regional variances; a bonus is tied to plans sold and assets

Qualifications

• 10+ years in 401(k) or retirement plan administration, implementation, sales, or account management.
• Active license or credential: FINRA Series 6 or 7 with 63, or Series 65; state Life & Health license.
• ASPPA/NIPA credential (QKA, QPA, CPC, TGPC) strongly preferred.
• Working knowledge of ERISA, IRS and DOL requirements, plan types (Safe Harbor, traditional, profit sharing, pooled arrangements, MEP/PEP), and compliance testing.
• Ability to hold your own with a small business owner on both the sales conversation and the technical one.
• Willingness to travel regionally.

Responsibilities

• Grow the book: Convert prospects to active plan sponsors and partner with teams on new retirement opportunities.
• Manage the relationship: Serve as named relationship owner for assigned client plans and run plan reviews.
• Deliver the implementation: Own end-to-end onboarding including design finalization, payroll integration, census, enrollment, and remittance.
• Support the teams: Train teams to spot opportunities, build enablement materials, and provide on-call expert support.

Skills

Consultative sales

Relationship management

Stakeholder communication

Travel willingness

Education

FINRA Series 6/7 with 63

Life & Health license

ASPPA/NIPA credential (QKA/QPA/CPC/TGPC) preferred

Job description

We are bringing a 401(k) offering to our client base, and this role owns the full arc: convincing a client the plan is worth having, getting it live, and keeping the relationship strong after launch.

Most of our clients already trust us with other offerings. Very few of them have a retirement plan, or they have one that is not serving them well. Your job is to change that. You will work alongside our teams to identify the right opportunities, sit in the room when the stakeholder asks the hard questions, and then deliver an onboarding experience so clean that the client tells other business owners about it.

This is a consultative sales and relationship role with real implementation depth behind it. You need both. Owners can tell within five minutes whether the person across the table has actually run a plan.

Key Responsibilities

Grow the Book

• Convert existing clients from 401(k) prospects to active plan sponsors through consultative conversations.
• Partner with teams and business development on new prospects where retirement is part of the pitch, joining sales calls as the retirement subject matter expert.
• Run discovery on each opportunity: current plan (if any), participation and cost problems, owner retirement goals, recruiting and retention pressure, and where a plan solves a real business problem.
• Build and present the business case: plan design options, fee structure, fiduciary coverage, SECURE 2.0 startup and auto-enrollment tax credits, and what changes for the owner personally.
• Handle the objections that actually come up: cost, administrative burden, “my employees will not participate,” prior bad provider experience, and existing advisor relationships.
• Own a pipeline with named targets, activity expectations, and a conversion goal, reviewed with leadership on a set cadence.
• Identify upgrade opportunities in the existing book: plans that should add Safe Harbor, auto-enrollment, match changes, or a design better suited to the owner's goals.

Manage the Relationship

• Serve as the named relationship owner for an assigned book of client plans, not just a ticket queue.
• Run scheduled plan reviews covering participation, deferral rates, high-level fund performance, fee benchmarking, testing results, and recommended design changes for the coming year.
• Partner with clients and TPAs through annual compliance cycles: nondiscrimination testing, Form 5500, required notices, audit support, and corrective distributions.
• Monitor plan health proactively — participation, data quality, funding timeliness, failed tests, uncashed checks — and raise issues before the client finds them.
• Handle escalations on contributions, distributions, loans, and eligibility, and own resolution through to close.
• Connect retirement to the broader benefits conversation so the client sees one coordinated strategy across health, ancillary, leave, and retirement.
• Drive retention and referrals; a renewed plan and a client willing to take a reference call are both measures of success.

Deliver the Implementation

• Own end-to-end onboarding: plan design finalization, adoption agreement, payroll integration, census and eligibility setup, enrollment campaign, and first successful contribution remittance.
• Manage plan conversions and asset transfers from prior providers, including blackout notices and reconciliation of transferred balances.
• Hold internal teams and outside partners — recordkeeper, TPA, advisor, payroll — to committed dates.
• Run employee education and enrollment meetings, live and virtual, in English and ideally Spanish.
• Conduct a post-implementation review with every client and act on what you hear.

Support the teams.

• Train teams on how to spot a 401(k) opportunity in an existing client and how to open the conversation.
• Build the enablement materials: talk tracks, objection guides, one-pagers, proposal templates, and a qualification checklist.
• Serve as the on-call expert when the team needs support. Brought in when a client asks a question they cannot answer.
• Report back on what is working across regions so successful approaches spread instead of staying local.
• Travel to offices for in-person training, joint client visits, and market-level pushes.

Qualifications

Required

• 10+ years in 401(k) or retirement plan administration, implementation, sales, or account management.
• Active license or credential: FINRA Series 6 or 7 with 63, or Series 65; state Life & Health insurance license; ASPPA/NIPA credential (QKA, QPA, CPC, TGPC) strongly preferred alongside.
• Demonstrated record of selling or expanding retirement plan business, with results you can speak to.
• Working knowledge of ERISA, IRS and DOL requirements, plan types (Safe Harbor, traditional, profit sharing, pooled arrangements, MEP/PEP structures), and compliance testing.
• Ability to hold your own with a small business owner on both the sales conversation and the technical one.
• Willingness to travel regionally.

Preferred

• Experience enabling a distributed sales force rather than selling solo.
• History of standing up a new product line or service offering.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 days: Trained on the offering and platform; branch enablement materials drafted; pipeline built with named targets.

Six months: First cohort of plans sold and implemented; team sourcing opportunities without prompting.

Twelve months: Conversion target met; retention at or above goal; documented playbook a second hire could run from.

Base salary range: 90-130K (regional variances)) commensurate with experience and licensing.

Variable compensation: a set % bonus, tied to plans sold, assets onboarded, and 12-month plan retention. Bonus triggers at first funded contribution rather than at signature.

Full benefits package including medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, and company 401(k) with employer match.