Author: Anu Heda

Planning for Staffing: social media style

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 22, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with

Last week, I attended a great social media within financial services conference.  The conference brings professionals from all corners of financial services to discuss the how & why of social media.

What needs to be done to deliver a high-quality social media effort?

  1. Own the dialogue – educate, excite, and engage business lines to further their business goals with social media usage.
  2. Create and modify a process – write down each and every procedural act the firm will take with each social media tool used.
  3. Liaise continuously with Legal – start and maintain a business dialogue with legal that replaces yes/no questions with how-to questions.  That begins from a deep understanding of FINRA 10-06 (among other guidelines) and competitive intelligence.
  4. Create and refine metrics – understand internal evaluation process and map social media into those evaluation processes
  5. Set up and monitor social media – [we got to number 5 before actually using social media.] own the primary relationship with each social media tool (e.g. login/password for facebook) and monitor usage
  6. Build external usage – generate buzz outside the firm; nothing is sadder than a corporate Twitter account with 5 followers.
  7. Evaluate new social media tools – investigate and determine applicability with each new tool under the ever-growing social media umbrella.

There are more firm-specific initiatives necessary, but these seven seem applicable across firms.  Some firms think the work can be added to already-stretched-too-thin marketing teams; I’m dubious of that.  In my eyes, there is a need for at least one full-time person.

Selling the small DC plan

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 17, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

In reviewing notes from a meeting with a Third-Party Administrator (TPA) earlier this year, one message became loud & clear.

Stop Selling & Start Servicing.

And as we’ve met and spoken with management at the record-keepers, that message resonates even more.  The record-keepers are working hard in producing sales material and internal strategies to gain share.

For a TPA selling a 401(k) plan to a small business, these simple questions continue to arise from plan sponsors:

  1. Between different options (referring to record-keepers), will investing in one plan versus another be easier for my employees?
  2. When my employees need advice and help, who’s best at answering their calls?
  3. Do all the options offer plans with the same funds, at the same prices?
  4. Do the plans all cost me the same?
  5. How do you (the TPA) get paid by these companies?

To answer these questions effectively, the TPA creates his own competitive analysis.  He has to track changes across record-keepers including, fund price changes, fund availability, plan participant/sponsor Web site changes, and service discrepancies.   Maybe he does a good job.  Most likely his information becomes outdated.

When the TPA’s information becomes outdated, the record-keeper with positive changes but poor communication loses out.  The best record-keepers create a marketing process to continually remind the TPA community of their firm’s competitive advantages (versus others). Without that nuanced and important communication, improvements at the platform-level may go largely unnoticed.

  1. How much does this cost me?

Life (Insurance) is complex

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 05, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

As I meet more life  insurance agents and executives, the industry challenges and issues become clearer. Clearer in just how difficult and complex they are.

What if I told you: you could start a business where:

  1. No incumbent has more than 7% market share.
  2. The products are more in-demand than ever.
  3. The press regularly speaks about the products keeping the topic ‘top of mind.’
  4. Buyers cannot substitute a “MacGyver” solution easily.
  5. Your business doesn’t need its own sales force.  In fact there are nearly 400,000 sales people that could sell your product for you.

That may sound appealing.  If you let me continue, I may add:

  1. The industry has the most stringent government regulation.
  2. The average American feels somewhere between apathy and negativity towards the industry.
  3. The products remind buyers about growing old and/or death.
  4. Those products are pretty confusing, even to industry veterans.
  5. Large sections of your Sales force will be selling your product, right along side your competitors.

Now, would you still be interested?  Well, these are just the beginning of issues facing insurance executives. They are both – humbling and exciting.

For Naissance, we’re excited.  We’ve worked with organizations that dismantled big problems into manageable questions and then sought out answers.   In one instance, the question was what sales support and services should we invest in next year and why? That’s a great question that can directly impact sales effectiveness (top-line growth) and cost controls (bottom-line management).

Big Changes for Family Offices Ahead

Posted by Anu Heda on Nov 01, 2010, in Thoughts

Earlier this week, we visited with numerous family office professionals.  At the breakfast, sponsored by Private Asset Management, an expert panel addressed five critical points.

  1. Mergers are coming – Regulatory improvements will lead to more costs for family offices.  Specifically, the changes within Dodd-Frank will create higher compliance costs and therefore facilitate mergers by consolidating compliance staff.
  2. Purchasing power is paramount – Estate tax changes. Currency devaluations.  Capital gains changes.  All these issues (and more) have dramatic impact on the clients within family offices.  The underlying topic is: how do I maintain purchasing power? For many clients, the wealth enables a lifestyle for numerous trustees.  Those trustees may be in different geographies with mixed interest levels in the financial management of their trusts.  What they all care about is that their purchasing ability doesn’t decrease.
  3. Complex stopped selling – The experts discussed how little appetite their clients have for structured products and other complex investments.  The clients still desire yield but not at any cost.
  4. Transparency – Yes; Unique – No – For the foreseeable future, family offices will push investment managers to provide greater transparency. In a post-Madoff world, they remarked, there is little appetite for unique or opaque investment vehicles.  Post financial crisis, it’s a different world; clients are not spending time bragging about an exotic investment.
  5. Education is crucial – Family offices have the unenviable task of providing significant training to young (and soon-to-be) inheritors.  The inheritors need to learn about tax planning, long-term investment planning and managing foundations.  And a single family may have heirs across five time zones.  It’s complex and nuanced without a straightforward solution.

The underlying desire to maintain wealth and purchasing power are simple to comprehend.  Executing on those desires is very complex and uncertain.

Online Strategy Challenges

Posted by Anu Heda on Oct 28, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with

“All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again.”

–          Don Henley

That quote came to mind in a recent discussion with an ex-head of global e-Business.  Over thirty minutes, we discussed the most critical challenges involved with improving an asset manager’s online presence.  We didn’t dwell on technology, budgets, staffing, or politics – though issues in those areas exist.  No doubt: it’s  a tough job.

We focused on two specific challenges.  Rather than recap, I’ll give a suggestion to each challenge.

  • Simplify, simplify, simplify: Naturally, we expect others understand as much as we do.  Time and time again that ruins communications.  This is often true in e-Business.  People rising to senior levels of e-Business have worked with the Web for 10+ years and know about the cutting-edge.  Their peers do not.  I suggest learning your peers’ knowledge levels and appetite for cutting-edge technology before communicating Web strategy and vision.  And most likely there will be numerous levels and appetites.  It can be humbling but effective. This approach means different decks and different communication approaches.
  • Avoid the black box:  Web sites can take a long time to build.  After gathering support and organizational buy-in, the firm may spend up to one year developing the site.  I suggest building a baby-steps approach.  Well-planned, monthly releases are effective.  Seeing progress builds comfort and confidence throughout the company.

While neither is revolutionary, I believe they’re crucial to successfully launching (or re-launching) a Web site and probably for most projects that span different parts of the company.