Mobley

Marty Mobley, president of Compensation Consultants, Inc., is delighted to see small and mid-sized business owners doing so well in the current boom economy. He just wants to see them saving more for their retirement.

Mobley knows of what he speaks. His thirteen-employee, Port Orchard-based business manages retirement plans for more than five hundred client companies; companies that range from one-person sole proprietorships to corporations with three thousand employees.

“Not enough people save for retirement,” Mobley said, “and business people, business owners, are usually the worst. They’re so busy trying to build a business that they forget about building for their retirement.”

To prove his point, Mobley points to an industry statistic that says less than six percent of employees can retire and continue the same lifestyle they enjoyed while working.

“Quite often business owners put off thinking about or implementing a retirement plan for themselves or their employees because they think that it’s too expensive to set up or that there aren’t any plans available for a one or two person company,” Mobley said. “They’re usually pretty surprised at what’s available these days.”

Compensation Consultants Inc. (CCI) acts as a third party administrator for retirement plans and manages more than $400 million in pension assets. Mobley, who is an Accredited Pension Administrator and a member of the National Institute of Pension Administrators, claims that even as the economy has boomed, so have changes in the business of saving money for retirement.

“A number of things have shifted as the economy has grown in the last few years,” said Mobley, “including retirement benefits becoming a major consideration in recruiting and keeping staff. Where a few years ago it might have been common for an employee to wait a year to join a plan, like a 401K plan, and then be vested in six years or so, now new employees are being lured with plans that begin the day they walk in the door as an employee and are immediately vested.”

Aren’t employers worried, then, that there’s no incentive for employees to stay with one company for an extended period of time as opposed to job hopping while keeping their retirement account balances?

“In this economy, I think employers are more concerned about hiring the employee to begin with,” laughs Mobley, “and the quality of the plans are weighed by potential new hires. Retirement plans are definitely part of the compensation plan arsenal.”
  Mobley, 45, joined the twenty-four year old company in 1987 as a sales and marketing consultant and became president in 1991. He’s also president of the Port Orchard Rotary and, in his spare time, president of Port Orchard’s Cappella Girl’s Chorus. His outside activities, and the fact that they’re based in Port Orchard, says Mobley, comes down to quality of life.

While Mobley acknowledges that nearly sixty percent of CCI’s clients are based in either Seattle or Bellevue, he said they chose to move CCI out of downtown Seattle to Kitsap County ten years ago because of quality of life issues.

“We (Mobley’s wife, Jo, manages CCI’s accounting office) chose Kitsap County because of the atmosphere,” said Mobley. “We wanted a place with good schools and an open, quality atmosphere. All of our employees live here in Kitsap County and it’s been a good choice for us.”

The company’s also drawn attention from potential clients outside of the Western Washington area; CCI’s annual sales of $750,000 includes revenues from client companies in Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, California and New Jersey.

Mobley credits most of his sales growth in those areas to word of mouth from satisfied clients and from referrals that come in from accountants and attorneys.

“Most of the clients we see are business owners who started a small business, grew it successfully, know that they need to add or supplement a retirement plan but don’t know how. On top of all that, their employees are more savvy than ever before. They’re no longer interested in sitting back while a trustee manages all of their money all of the time — they want more control and more flexibility in how their retirement dollars are being invested.”

“Furthermore,” adds Mobley, “employees are becoming more and more aggressive, wanting to buy stocks and mutuals and then wanting to change it all again tomorrow...over the Internet! We’re seeing many more employees willing to take more risk in their retirement plans.”

And if the market should soften?

“Well, then those who played more aggressively may be risking a chunk of their retirement fund,” confirms Mobley. “But what we’re seeing in this market right now are people — employees — wanting that control and willing to assume their own risk. And at least they’re taking an active role in planning for their retirement..