Lesson 6.2: Next Steps (For Every Audience)
Module: What to Do Monday Morning (Module 6)
Course: The Four Levers of Business Growth
Est. read time: 3 minutes
You Now Have Something Most Businesses Don't
You've been through a framework that connects four areas most businesses address in isolation — if they address them at all. You understand why a standalone retirement plan delivers minimal business value, and why an integrated system delivers compounding results.
But understanding isn't action. And frameworks don't create value — implementation does.
Here's what to do next, based on who you are.
If You're a Business Owner (10-99 Employees)
This week:
1. Run your numbers through the free 401Grow calculator. It takes 5 minutes and shows you where you stand on the plan design spectrum and what you might be leaving on the table.
2. Complete the self-assessment from Lesson 6.1. Identify your weakest lever.
This month:
3. Pick the lowest-scoring lever and take one action:
- Tax Optimization: Talk to your CPA about whether your current plan design is the right one. Bring the calculator results.
- Lower Turnover: Deploy the 21-Day Challenge to a pilot group. Watch what happens to engagement.
- Operational Excellence: Define your top 5 roles with the Role/KPI Builder. Share the results with your team.
- Transferable Value: Run the Exit Readiness assessment. See the number. Decide if you're comfortable with it.
When you're ready for help:
Book a discovery call. Bring your calculator results, so we skip the generic "tell me about your business" and go straight to what the data shows. No pitch. Just a conversation about whether the Four Lever System fits your situation.
One thing worth knowing: you're already paying for a plan and probably an advisor, and reallo(k)ating that existing spend pulls most — and sometimes all — of the funding for the Four Lever System from what you already pay — and the outcomes are dramatically different from what you're getting today.
If You're a CPA or Financial Professional
This week:
1. Pick 2-3 clients and run their numbers through the 401Grow calculator. Look for the gap between their current plan design and what's possible.
2. Try the plan design comparison grid concept from Lesson 1.4 — even a rough version on paper — with one client. See how they respond.
This month:
3. Bring the business-paid plan costs argument (Lesson 1.2) to a client meeting. The four reasons — deductibility, fiduciary exposure, who's really paying, and recruiting — are ideas most clients haven't heard before. Whether they act on it or not, sharing that idea changes the relationship.
4. Run the Four Levers self-assessment with one client. Use it as a conversation starter, not a sales tool. The gaps it reveals become the agenda for deeper work.
The key insight: You don't need to be a retirement plan specialist to bring these ideas to clients. You need the framework and the willingness to share ideas outside your expected lane. That's what moves you from vendor to trusted advisor.
And when a client wants to act on any of it: that's where the partnership comes in. I do the plan work with your client; you stay the primary relationship. See how the partnership works, or book a conversation and we'll talk through what it looks like across your book.
If You're an HR Leader or Benefits Decision-Maker
This week:
1. Calculate your organization's annual turnover cost using the formula from Lesson 2.1. Put a real dollar amount on the problem.
2. Review your current benefits communication. Are employees actually engaging with their benefits, or just enrolled?
This month:
3. Explore the 21-Day Challenge as a pilot program. 21 days, free, targets the three drivers of turnover: health, wealth, and stress. It's a low-risk, high-signal test of whether financial wellness programming would move the needle.
4. If you have influence over plan design: ask your plan advisor whether the business is paying plan costs directly or deducting from participant accounts. If it's the latter, bring the four-point argument to your CFO.
For Everyone
Share one idea from this course with someone this week. That's it. One idea.
Maybe it's the plan design spectrum. Maybe it's the turnover cost calculation. Maybe it's the SOPs walkout test. Maybe it's the concentration risk question.
Sharing an idea you've learned — whether with a client, a colleague, a boss, or a friend — is the simplest way to test whether it resonates. If it does, keep going. If it doesn't, try a different one.
The Four Lever System works because it gives people ideas they haven't heard before. Your job isn't to implement all four levers this week. It's to share one idea that makes someone think differently about their business.
That's how it starts.
Course Complete
You've now been through all 19 lessons of The Four Levers of Business Growth:
- Module 0: The Problem Nobody Talks About (the gap, the framework)
- Module 1: Tax Optimization (plan design spectrum, business-paid costs, contribution maximization, auto-enrollment, the grid)
- Module 2: Lower Turnover (turnover cost, 21-Day Challenge, Employee Road Map, vesting, operations connection)
- Module 3: Operational Excellence (role definitions, SOPs, AI and automation)
- Module 4: Transferable Value (owner dependence, concentration risk, strategic growth)
- Module 5: The Connections That Multiply Results (why isolation fails, cross-lever map, integration in practice)
- Module 6: What to Do Monday Morning (self-assessment, next steps)
The framework is yours. Use it.