If you're looking for a way to significantly grow your practice, here's a key: increase your focus on retirement plans. And if you want to take it a notch higher, zone in on improving participant savings outcomes. Growing numbers of financial professionals have done just that by becoming very knowledgeable about the topic in recent years, some of them going so far as to work exclusively with retirement plans.

A new survey of plan sponsors reveals that focusing a practice on retirement pays off. But that doesn't mean every financial professional needs to go all-in. There will always be demand for the spectrum of financial professionals. But increasing your focus on retirement, and especially retirement outcomes, could make a significant difference.

The study, conducted by the Retirement Advisor Council, with funding and research oversight by the Principal Financial Group and six other council members, found better results among plan sponsors who work with a financial professional than those who have no advisor. But the survey also found that plan sponsors who work with retirement plan-focused financial professionals give them higher ratings and report more successful retirement plans.