Our world is changing rapidly. This is not a new scenario. What is new, however, is the change in sentiment in the good old United States of America. Never before has there been such a climate of social consciousness. The silver lining in a series of dark clouds related to a confluence of national and… Read More
The customer is always right. That is what we are taught in Business 101. Of course, we know it is not the case. Yet it is an important element of business acumen. As important as ‘know your customer’ and many others we all seek to keep in mind when interacting with prospects and customers alike.… Read More
In releasing The Road to AUM: Driving Assets Under Management Through Effective Marketing and Sales, I am gaining some strong feedback. 99% of it has been awesome–individuals who ‘can’t believe’ someone ‘finally’ put all this usable knowledge into such a simple framework for managers of all shapes and sizes to follow. 1%, however, or just… Read More
When things look too good to be true, they typically are. Firms often want to hide their flaws: investments that didn’t work, changes to process that went undocumented, blips in the track record, regulatory events, organizational changes, and so on. Burying details is ill-advised. Institutional investment management research professionals want to work with investment managers… Read More
The world has changed, and the investment management landscape has changed along with it. While the 2000s were spent by organizations building out extensive and diversified platforms of investment options, the 2010s have been spent unwinding them. Easiest to unwind is liquid and separately managed account structures, but private equity, venture and limited partnership investments… Read More
Managers are encouraged to step back and ensure they have all their ducks in a row before engaging in an institutional, multi-year business development effort. Stepping back and shoring up the foundation is not only good business to avoid wasting lots of time and money on the wrong effort, but it is also good business… Read More
How do you start a puzzle? Do you lay all the pieces out and turn them right side up? Getting those first pieces in place is critical because they provide a structure; they give us a frame in which to create. We tend to start with corner pieces and then the flat edges because they… Read More
Firms must resist the temptation to dive into institutional outreach without first laying the appropriate ground work. Managers can undoubtedly find marketing and sales resources who love their story enough to plow full steam ahead right along with them. These resources, whether internal or external, may encourage managers to jump in, feet first, with the… Read More
Have you thought about how to prioritize resources? Firms have budgets and time constraints. Often resources are defined based on the most convenient and/or cost-efficient solution. Firms are encouraged to think about resources from the perspective of what the market cares about. How important is a specific function? From this vantage point, we might prescribe… Read More
There is an assumption in the market that certain product structures are more expedient to sell than others. Consider how these timelines have converged over the past several years. Changes in regulation, globalization and the simple time in market of many product structures have driven this convergence. The timeline to get a manager to capacity,… Read More
