After 35 years of financial services experience in funds management and stockbroking, we can tell you without excellent marketing people, you are never going to fulfil your potential.

 

In stockbroking, you can have great company research and macro economic forecasts, great corporate deal flow, but unless you have outstanding stockbrokers with terrific marketing skills you are not going to be able to make the money you could have.

 

In investment management, great investment performance and a well run business, will help you win some investment mandates without good marketing.

 

Add great investment performance and a well run business (i.e strong policies and procedures) to superior marketing people, and your business potential has a good chance of being fulfilled and your company will make a lot of money.

 

Good marketing people can win you investment mandates even when your investment performance is weak. They can retain investment mandates when investment returns are well below what is expected.

 

The best marketing people will cost a lot of money each year. But if they a really good, they are “worth their weight in gold”.  Don’t be scared to rain money down on them in a good year.

 

Don’t be frighten to pay them more than your best investment manager. Investment managers always think that if were not for the good investment returns they delievered, the marketing people (and for matter financial planners) could not make sales.

 

This is rubbish. Clients don’t discover good investments returns by themselves. They have to be made aware of them by good marketing people and be convenience by those same people that the results are “not a flash in the pan”, but are sustainable in the long term. Not an easy thing to do when plenty of managers have ‘their day in the sun” albeit fleeting, before falling to obscurity.

 

You need to remember that a top marketing person is putting their reputation and more importantly, their future earnings capacity on the line, by working for your organisation. This is because, ‘their clients’ are relying on the marketing person’s judgement when recommending we invest in their company’s funds.

 

Put simply, their reputation is linked with your investment outcomes. Working for and promoting a dud manager is not great for their reputation. A second mistake is probably fatal to their earnings potential.

 

How can you pick a good marketing person?

 

It is not easy if only because marketing people are good talkers. They are going to sell themselves to you to get the job.

 

But can a good talker deliver the clients?

 

Lots of marketeers are nice people, who attract others because they are likeable. But most won’t win many clients, certainly not the big clients.

 

Don’t fall for the sales pitch that they know everybody and can get doors open.

 

In our view, investment marketeers and sharebrokers are similar can be divided into two groups.

 

Personality marketeers, and

Knowledgeable marketeers.

 

Personality marketeers generally have an average or weak understanding of the products they are promoting, this includes, industry trends, rival products, financial market conditions and the economy. They rely on their popularity to win an investment mandate. They may create attention with a potential client / asset consultant sufficient to get an appointment to present. Given, their lack of knowledge, they will want an investment professional to attend that first meeting and all subsequent meetings. This is because they cannot answer most of the questions convincingly, if at all.

 

Personality marketeers will often take a long time to get a meeting with a decision maker (e.g. head of an asset class, division head, chief investment manager). A top marketeer have relationships deep enough to get to this senior level first-up, by passing the road blocks at the lower level.

 

Knowledgeable marketeers have an in depth understanding of the environment in which they are promoting your products. This allows them to target the best opportunities to make sales. They have an in depth understanding of investment processes, and things like investment performance measurement, portfolio transitions and how their own front, middle and back offices work. All which give the potential client and client much more confidence in using your services.

 

All good marketeers are good at the following steps:

 

1.     Attention

Get the attention of busy people to learn about the features and benefits of your products and services.

 

2.    Interest

Properly done, attention leads to interest in your products and services. This is the longest and most risky stage. There are plenty of update and educational meetings meetings to be held, regular phone call providing performance updates etc.

 

3.     Desire

If the marketing has been superior in all areas, the potential client will want to use your products and services.

 

It is hard to get to this level and to stay there requires no hiccups, in particular with performance. Wholesale investment mandates become available about every 3 years. Which means about 1/3rd of potential clients start the process of reviewing their investment management service providers.

 

Often known as a beauty parades, you need to be update across the board in policy, procedures and registers. These will have needed to be properly maintained and up to date with regularly standards and changes in internal polices and procedures. Once the “Action” phase starts, you will simply not have enough time to bring every thing up to scratch.

 

Intrinsic AFSL Solutions can help you in all aspects of this stage.

 

4.      Close

Most marketeers don’t like ‘asking for the business’ from the potential client. Possibly because, they fear rejection.

 

A great marketeer sees an opportunity in rejection and is skillful enough to maintain interest and gradually build-up desire again.

 

But if the potential client says they want to use your products and services, then the action phase will commence.

 

The potential client is likely to have told you that they would like to use your products / services, but doing so is subject to you satisfactorily passing the due diligence process.

 

They are also likely to have told you that your company is not the only company in the running to win the investment mandate.

 

5.      Action

This is the due diligence stage and there is a lot at stake. Fail and there is no mandate and the asset consultant that put you forward to one of their clients, is unlikely to do so again, at least until you can prove you have rectified the problems discovered in the due diligence process.

 

Intrinsic supplies all you need to pass due diligence with flying colours. With over 300 policies and procedures already in place, only requiring modification to meet you needs and the ability to complete the extensive and time consuming due diligence on your behalf, we offer a higher probability that your will be awarded that new investment mandate and retain existing investment mandates when they come up for review.