Founder's Story - How to Keep Key Leaders Without Raising Salaries (And Why It Can Profit the Company) | Ep. 322 with Bob Nienaber Founder and CEO of BenefitRFP

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Daniel Robbins interviews Bob Nienaber, the Founder and CEO of BenefitRFP, about how founders should think about retirement planning, executive compensation, and retention strategies as a company scales. Bob explains the mechanics and intent behind executive benefit platforms, why qualified plans are restrictive for highly compensated employees, and how governance ready incentive structures can align leadership without increasing fixed compensation. Key Discussion Points:Bob says the first retirement priority is maximizing every available benefit and corporate match using pre tax dollars and letting time do the compounding. He explains that many people fail at retirement not because they did not save, but because they do not plan distributions and taxes, including state tax differences and long retirement time horizons. He breaks down why nonqualified plans allow companies to design retention and incentive programs for a small group of key people even at smaller revenue levels if losing them would be high risk. He also warns against phantom stock as “cheap” compensation, arguing that unfunded promises destroy trust and can become extremely expensive later. Takeaways:Bob’s core message is that taxes are the biggest silent cost in both personal wealth and company compensation, and structuring plans correctly can change everything. Retention is often cheaper than replacement, and he emphasizes that losing a one hundred thousand dollar employee can cost roughly three times that to replace. He claims properly designed and funded benefit plans can create profit for the company, not just cost, by reducing turnover and improving alignment. On exits, Bob says the one guarantee is that what you think will happen rarely happens exactly that way, so sellers must protect themselves and enforce buyer obligations. Closing Thoughts:This Founder’s Story conversation reframes executive benefits as strategy, not paperwork, especially for founders who want to keep key people without simply writing bigger checks. Bob Nienaber leaves listeners with a clear challenge: stop treating retirement and executive comp as an afterthought, because the decisions you make now compound for decades. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So Bob, Nina Burr, I want to know, and I'm interested today to learn more about what do I need to know about retirement? And what you've been doing with benefits and with executives is something I've never really gotten to learn about. So I'm excited to learn about that. And I think as we grow in scale our companies, we all need to understand not only our own compensation, but also the compensation of the other C-suite as well. But what should I be thinking about right now when it comes to my retirement? You know, that's a pretty broad question you just asked. So whether you're at the top end of incomes in America or at the bottom or somewhere in the middle, you always need to get as much money as you can. And not just your money that you're saving, but also any corporate matches. So the first thing you want to always look at is whatever benefits exist, whether it's an executive plan or some type of 401k or pension, how much can you maximize that the company's going to add to your plan? And so, and you always want to do it. it on a pre-tax basis. I know we get into, you know, the differences between traditional and

Roth. Don't worry about that. Get as much pre-tax money as you possibly can. Let those dollars grow for as long as they can and pay attention to investment strategies that you use them. If you understand investments, then, you know, enjoy just loading up and making sure you're always in the top placement areas. If you don't understand investments, and most people don't, so don't be shy, but reach out to somebody, usually a sponsor of the plan will help you with those investments. But you want to save as much as you can. As you get closer to retirement or to the period of distribution fund from these funds, there's actually a lot of tax laws that exist that Americans don't typically understand. First off, when you transition, you don't want to simply take the

money out and pay the same tax rates that you would have been paying when you set the money aside. And there's a lot of, I'm talking to you from California where we have the highest tax. tax rates in the in the country. There's a lot of plans where I can take distributions out in a lesser tax area, a different state when I retire. I could retire in Nevada where they have a zero percent income tax rate and I can pay zero percent state tax on those dollars that I distribute if I utilize the right tax laws that exist. And these these rules on source taxing as they call it have been around since Clinton's period. So it's been around for a long time. The other thing that most Americans don't realize is that, let's say I do a great job of saving over, you know,

the 20, 30 years that I'm working. And my money's in a 401k and I end up with a couple million dollars between what I've deferred, what my investments have done, and what the company matches have been. And now I go to pull that out. There's a Department of Labor Reg that enables all participants in these corporate benefit plans to get their money out without paying the taxes after distribution. And that's important. The number one thing that anybody, you know, rich, not so rich, somewhere in the middle, are going to face it's going to be restrictive in reducing their benefits as taxes.

And you can eliminate those taxes in a qualified plan if it's set up straight. And so remember, that's a part of DOL 926. It's kind of a complex rule. but when you work with people that work with these programs, they can get it out. And it's all legal. There's no gray area or anything like that. And then once you've reduced the taxable impact, now it comes out to the time of distribution. Most distribution periods last as long as you're working career these days because people are simply living longer.

So if I'm going to live 25 years, I'm going to have eight years of that time. It's probably going to be considered in my go-go period. That's where I'm young. I still got enough money. I've got energy. I want to travel the world. I want to do all these fantastic things. And so I'm going to invest my dollars into programs that will continuously give me some growth. Same thing with this logo period. It's probably anywhere from 9 to 15 to 20 years of my lifetime that the money's going to sit. So people, if you put it into bonds or if you put it into fixed accounts, you're guaranteeing you're not going to have enough money to last through your retirement.

So you need to manage that probably in the same type of investment strategy that you'd use while you're still earning the dollars. And then when it gets to this logo period, this is where everybody says, oh, I've got to have my cash ready for this logo period. No, you really don't. You probably have 20, 25 years in most cases before you're going to need that. And this slow go period and no go period is kind of where you're sitting on the retirement rocking chair out front of the house and people are feeding you and taking care of you. you have plenty time to get there. Oftentimes the same amount of time that you earned your money during your working careers.

And so if you really set up your program properly, you'll have money during all three of those distribution periods, and that way you have the most fun you can possibly have with your family, traveling, kids, whatever you want to do. Bob, I want to maximize the beginning time. I really do. Because I feel like I'm not going to have a long runway. hopefully medicine my knees already hurt and and i'm like i'm only in my 40s so i can only imagine if i'm in my 60s

i hope i get to do all the things i want to be set up correctly so thank you for sharing that i never fully understood c-suit compensation at corporate levels i think we hear like 30 million dollar package trillion dollar package and we're not really sure like what does that really mean does i mean i'm taking home 50 million 20 million um trillion dollars like what does this all mean? and what do these companies need to understand with their C-suite in terms of benefits? You know, it's an interesting question. We all watch TV. We all, you know, we all hear the bits about Elon Musk being worth a trillion three,

and it is baffling to us. But that's so extra ordinary. That's so unusual. Most CEOs and most C-suits. The C-Suits are usually the C-FO, C-O-O, CEO, those types of folks. most of them will make a little more money than the rest of the pack in the company. They're not making tens of millions of dollars in most cases. Very, very small percentages of CEOs are ever in that type of environment.

They are paid extra because they have extra responsibility. They have the job of managing the culture of the company, of real CN2 that their company clients are taken care of properly, that they keep the team together. And so when you hear about C-suite benefits, You know, like an Elon Musk, you'd think, well, he's a C-suite, so he's probably using these plans. No, he doesn't have any need for him. He's so outside of the box.

But if I'm making, you know, $500,000 a year as a C-sweater, and my job is to keep the culture together, then I'm going to use an executive benefit platform for the top people. And I have to use an executive benefit program in this country because plans that, like, 401Ks and arrest a plans like that, they're actually restrictive against highly compensated people. There is kind of the group hug. They want to keep everybody together. It's a benefit plan that has to be fair for everybody. But what do you do when somebody's making money outside of that box? And so what most companies do, because believe it or not, most companies actually are absolutely fair. They want to do the same for the CEO than that they do for the lowest paid

person in the company. They want to keep everybody together. They have a doctrine that really relates to that. So they'll build a benefit plan for the senior executives to keep them around. You want to keep that culture going. They're the ones that are successful that are driving the company and doing all these things. And then you also want to have a plan that also ties in all of the lower paid people because maybe they're just younger.

Maybe they're just getting their career started. Maybe they're fresh out of school and just getting young. doesn't mean they're bad people in any way. It means they're just not at the pay level of somebody that's maybe been doing it for 30 years and has a lot of experience. And so for those folks, they'll put together a benefit plan that enables them to save and get some company dollars shared into their program so that they can all be successful. And the longer you keep everybody successful together, then the more of a success culture you're going to have.

Turnover is one of the most expensive areas in a company. If I lose somebody making $100,000 a year, it's going to cost me about $300,000 to replace me. And so it's better off to put together a plan to keep these people well paid, keep it competitive. As they come up the corporate ladder, wherever they are, keep it all tied together so that the company stays together, the culture stays strong and we all can reap the success together. Yeah, I remember hearing this before when I was in a corporate job around, you know, like you're saying, it's two times the salary to hire and then X amount to fire. So, you know, the goal is to keep people as long as you possibly can if they're a fit for the right job. What size does a company need to get to or if I'm a founder? What do I need to look at in terms of where is my business at a point that I

need to really look into this? No, I think it starts, you know, I, you know, I generally, just in my practice because I've been doing this for over 30 years. Usually companies have $200 million or more of annual revenue or the ones that come to me all the way up through the Fortune 100. But, you know, if you're a company doing $30 million a year and you have one or two really strong people that would significantly hurt your company by leaving, then you need to do a plan for them. And that's one of the nice things about a non-qualified plan is it enables you

to really design a plan for one, two, three, five people, very small group to make sure they stay around. If you don't, they're going to get picked up by your competition. And then, as you said, they're going to be replaced. And now you have all this tremendous cost. Your culture is going to change your clientele's at risk of being taken away. All these things happen. But I would contend that you might have a small group of people

that would need a non-qualified plan, even if you have a small company, even if it's doing $10 or $20 million, it really comes down to where am I big, where's my biggest risk of somebody leaving? And even if I have somebody that maybe just graduated college and, you know, but they came to you, they referred to you, they're 23 years old. And you've already recognized that this kid is going to be something in the future. You know, but they're not at the income levels to qualify for a highly compensated plan. then by all means, there are some special benefits you could do for them as well. So it's not just the top top people.

You as an owner, as a founder, you're always looking for special people that are in your midst that you want to keep locked in to your organization because you know you can help them. At the same time, you're going to help yourself by keeping them locked into your organization. So, yeah, again, it doesn't really matter what size the company is. I'm starting to see some companies giving out some equity or shares to their employees, not not publicly traded companies, but private companies. And I found this to be very interesting as a way, because I think we're seeing some industries now, the pool of people that they're trying to get, it's ultra competitive.

Like there's certain AI and other things where the pool that the people that can actually do this job is small. So they're getting highly competitive and they're going after people that are like, I know so in 23 years old, working at SpaceX, for example, that I'm sure these people will be set up for life with their compensation packages. But how do you see this in terms of the future of younger people, I think, really want to be a part of something? Like they're passionate about being part of it. They obviously want to make money still.

And they want to feel that they're really a piece of it. And I think companies notice that there's also this ultra-competitive, group of people that can that they like they're okay to bounce around I think our generation above we're like you stay there forever and you retire now it's like I'm okay to bounce around so I imagine to get highly qualified people companies need to relook how they give out this and I'm just specifically around equity and shares yeah I would say um you know one there's a there's a plan out that a lot of companies are using that I absolutely hate. And it's because the perception or the sale to the companies is it's just cheap.

And that's a phantom stock plant. There's no real stock associated with it. You know, you're setting it up as a private company that we're going to pay you out in 10 years and it's going to be worth X, but there's no funding behind it. There's no real meat behind it. So participants don't really believe it's a benefit. and so when a company comes with the real benefit and they say, you know what, we got here's some real benefits for you,

the person's going to jump. The other thing is, is a lot of companies will sponsor a phantom stock plan because, as I said, they think it's the cheapest way to go. Well, in 10 years, if you promise somebody $5 million and you never funded for it, that $5 million is real.

You really owe them that in this day and age, and it's going to be the most expensive $5 million. as you've ever pulled out of your pocket in your life. So it always makes more sense to set up something that's funded. We see a lot of promises, and those are also the most failed benefits that exist out there too. So you hear this story all the time. It's cheap, cheap, cheap, and it fails, fails, fails, and we know this.

People get picked up all the time. They get chased around all the time. And you got to do something for it. So that's where you need to really sit down with the true benefits consultant and say, this is what I'm after. What's the best way to do it? look at the scenarios. That's one of the things that our company's been very successful with, with our proprietary technologies. We can show every single benefit plan that exists in America.

We can show all of the funding tools. We have a heat map tool that has won all kinds of awards. And what it does is it compares every investment, every insurance product that's out there. So you can see what's going to give you the best results for our company utilizing the company's demographics. We can even keep the company's assets that are funding these tools 100% tax-free. And so, you know, there's a lot of ways to really do it. We show clients everything. When we do an audit, we don't sell anything. We don't sell product.

We don't sell services. We simply lay out where the services are, where the products are, so companies can make an intelligent decision. Because we know, from our experience, companies can make the best decisions for themselves, as long as you give them fair and equitable data so that they can make those decisions. and that's what we do. But as far as just really keeping everybody locked in, I always tell companies the same thing. And this is a guarantee that I've stayed with for 30 years.

If you build a plan properly, it will cost you less to build a plan and fund your people than it will if you simply write checks out to them all the time. You'll eliminate turnover. People are still going to leave at some level, but you're going to eliminate quite a bit of the turnout because people that are successful don't necessarily look at the dollars and cents on their benefits.

They just look at it as an overall look. Am I going to be okay? And they see the company's putting away some programs for them and all that. And there's a lot out there, then they're going to be okay. And then the other thing that I have always really actually had bets with companies on to prove me wrong, and I've never been proven wrong, when a plan is set up properly.

it will actually produce a profit for the company, not a cost, but a profit for the company. And I've never been proven wrong on that in my entire career. And I speak in front of tens of thousands of people every week. So it's, you know, I'm still waiting for that day where somebody can come in and show me something different. So that to all tells me that if you don't have a plan, get with somebody that's competent to put together a plan for you. get rid of the fears of having a plan that's not going to be right because there are so many great solutions out there and just start putting it together for yourselves. I like to prove me wrong guarantee.

I enjoy that. I think that's a good one we can all learn from. You were really an industry leader. You are an industry leader, but you really carved this niche. Like you became one of the first or the biggest in your industry or the most well known in your industry. I think a lot of people are looking at that as something. What advice do you give to somebody who's thinking about doing that? And the reason why I ask is it can be hard to do this compared to like be it's simple to do the thing that everyone's doing,

but also who wants to do the thing that everyone's doing. So what advice do you give for, you know, because you did it yourself and you've been successful at it. You know, you exited a company and you've done all these things. How can someone else do that for their industry? Yeah, I mean, you know, if you want to take my example, I guess, I've always provided benefits for my folks and for myself. You know, that's why you go into business. Some of us are on the ownership side. Some of us are on the employee side.

But here's the key factors. If you look at it on either side, and this is an equation that's been around for, you know, as long as I can remember. but you take a dollar and you double it for 20 years, you're going to have a million dollars. Take that same dollar and double it every year. You're not going to, and you add a 40% tax rate to it, you're going to have a little more than $12,000. People are amazed at that. Nobody knows that math better than the IRS, than your taxors. And so if you think about it from a company standpoint, if I help my employees avoid that by using pre-taxed

So their money is going to grow into a million dollars. And I do it for myself. I might pay taxes later on. I might even have a distribution based on some type of formula for the IRS or for the state that I'm in. However, I'm going to maintain as much as that money as possible. By doing that, I increase my human life value, which means when I die, my kids get more. And if I teach my kids properly, their kids get more, et cetera. And I can do the same with my employees.

When I built out, you know, the company that I most recently sold, built it from the ground up. Never used debt. Just built it on the, you know, the way that you normally build a company. And I got my team involved, always, always had good partners, always had good teammates to grow it. And in the process, I ended up selling over $100 million worth of personal businesses. there was nothing magical about that.

I just understood where the cost effects were, and the biggest thing that an owner or an employee will ever lose money to is to taxes. You get that under control, you get that managed properly, then you're all going to be much more successful. And that's what we do. That's what we educate people on these things. You know, I was lucky in my career that I work with, I think, the last four or five White Houses, and then I had a chance to work with congressional tax people, work with both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. I didn't do this because I like hanging out with politicians, believe me.

I did this because those are the people that actually write the rules. And then in the process, when they wrote the 409A regs around executive compensation 20 plus years ago, I was brought in for different discussions with that. And, you know, it's very fortunate when you get those opportunities to work with the teams that are working with the people that are writing the rules around these things so that when they do something stupid, and is often the case unintentionally by congressional members, because their hands are tied up in a lot of different areas, they're not going to be the experts on this stuff. So somebody has to help them. And then we just put it together.

And, you know, my job these days is to continue. working with those rules, they get adjusted once in a while, which is fine. And there's great benefits in congressional adjustments when they come in for participants and companies. And we work with that stuff to make sure that our clients and participants are absolutely getting the most they can out of life. People are shocked that the amount of difference in money they have working with our company, I'm sure companies like ours, versus where they were situated before they started working with us. And when they find that really doesn't cost them anything or the company anything to just do it right, in fact, it dries up revenue on both sides, then they really get

involved with us. Was there something when you exited that you didn't expect to happen? Yeah, every exit. That's a fun, that's a fun question. Every exit I can tell you, every time you sell a company, the one thing that is guaranteed is what you thought was going to happen, doesn't happen. it happens differently. So you have to be ready to bounce. And one of the things that I always tell sellers of companies is during the sale process, you're so conditioned, people are so conditioned to make sure that we're doing everything right for the buyers. Everything's got, I've got to deliver, I've got to deliver, I've got to deliver. And then when the deal gets done, they realized the buyer didn't deliver what they were supposed to do.

Well, it's got to go on both sides. And I've had that effectively hit me. One of the companies that I sold came back, got it back for free because the buyer did not maintain what their obligations were. And as a seller, yeah, I take what my promises are, you know, to the foundation to the buyers. They're doing a great thing. They're buying my company.

They believe in me. Same time, though, if a buyer comes in and they start changing the game, then, you know, I firmly believe in having that contract, that sales contract, play a favor to come back to me as a company if they're not going to go down the right route because it might affect how I'm paid or my buyout or whatever it might pay. So that's become real conversations. Fascinated. Well, Bob, this has been great. I've talked to a lot of people, well over 1,000 people, never heard about this before.

Always was curious about it. And thank you for sharing around the exit and strategies and what people should expect there. If people didn't get in touch with you, how can they do so? You know, a lot of people, I've written a lot of books on this stuff and some bestsellers, so they find my books in airports or whatever. Probably the best way these days is just get in touch with me through LinkedIn. And, you know, you can just go to Bob Nina Brett, LinkedIn, and friend being moved out from there. You can always go out to BenefitRFP.com, which is the company that,

We sold into the simplicity group, and you guys can look at information. But please don't be shy. One of the things I always tell people, the biggest mistakes companies make on these things is they think they have a stupid question that nobody's going to ask and nobody's asked before. Again, I've been doing this for 30 plus years. I'm passionate about every aspect of benefits and how they can help you. You know, we know everything about these benefits. We work with them every single day. and we will tell you which ones will work the best,

which ones you want to stay away from. So we can give you the best advice. We can give you AI benchmarking, controlled data so that you can see exactly what a plan will cost you before you implement anything and before you pay a dime to us. There aren't no stupid questions. The only stupid move anybody can make in a company as a participant or as an owner or shareholders not take that 10 minutes to make a call

because we will take care of you. Well, Bob, thank you so much for joining us today, sharing all this insights. I can't wait to look more into it. And I can't wait to see what happens in the future for you. What are the next things, challenges, what's going to be happening in the future? I'm fascinated. But thanks for joining us today on Founder's Story. You got it.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.