Earlier this week, I took a coffee homebrewing class. While entertaining, I left the class a little disappointed. And as I thought about it, I realized the disappointment stemmed from something many advisors say about product manufacturers (more on that in a minute). The teacher – while knowledgeable – wasn’t knowledgeable about my problems and issues.
Where does the client fit in your business model?
You would probably say that they are in the middle of a circle that your entire firm orbits. Maybe you even have an internal diagram like this one. 
If that’s the thinking, consider these three simple changes to your Web site.
Enhancing your site with changes like this will truly keep the “customer” in the center of your business model.
I heard that song recently. The chorus reminded me of the conversation we often hear between Compliance & e-Business regarding social media within investment management.
Compliance says, “set up process to archive, show us that it works and then begin with social media.” e-Business says, “let’s start a little bit, dabble, and then begin a compliance process as we know more.”Our perspective is to be compliant-at-all-costs. In 2011, there’s little appetite for being out of compliance and the potential damage that can place on a brand. So then what?
Well, archiving and organizing social media use is becoming easier. We see tremendous value in an archiving pilot that tries out both a leading providers (such as Social Ware or Actiance) and internal processes. While each pilot at each firm will have different considerations, the pilot’s will include these steps:
With numerous software-as-a-service solutions, perhaps this is a good place to give a little (to get a little) and begin with an archiving system pilot, before the first post on your facebook wall.
… and happens to sit next to an investment consultant and two institutional sales guys from a top-5 asset manager.
Well, that happened earlier this week. I sat down for an exciting burger and overheard a great conversation that reinforced one critical lesson: listen, listen, and listen more.
The conversation began something like:
Consultant: I’m trying to place $200 MM this quarter and we’ve been overweight American Funds.
Sales pro: That’s interesting. Tell me how you got to be overweight American Funds and why that’s an issue.
The consultant then described his and his firm’s process and some history of investment selections. The salesperson did an amazing thing there. While 9 out of 10 folks would have launched into pitching their own funds, he was able to get the consultant to speak at length about process, management and history without asking for those things explicitly. He ascertained additional information to further refine his pitch.
Listening is one of the most-talked-about, least-practiced skills. This was a great case study.
Earlier this week, we tweeted a well written piece on sales people and blogs. The author argues that sales people should not be forced to blog professionally. He gives a few reasons, two strong ones include:
By and large, we agree.
In numerous organizations we’ve seen, sales people already feel (perception being reality) there are too many non-client obligations. Adding a required blog post periodically adds to that perception and is unlikely to drive flows and client loyalty.