Author: Mike McLaughlin

The One Question to Ask Passive-Leaning Advisors

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 26, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , ,

Second in a series of posts on the sales and marketing implications of the ongoing debate between active and passive management.  Read the first here.

A client came to us with an issue – internal wholesalers were repeatedly encountering the same objection when discussing the firm’s emerging markets products with advisors.  The objection:  I use index products for emerging markets exposure.

We suggested a number of ways to address this objection with facts (more on those later this week).  But given the relative inexperience of many internal wholesalers, we suggested that they pose the objecting advisor a simple question:

Do you use actively-managed products anywhere in client portfolios?

Why is this type of question effective?  Two reasons:

  1. If the answer is no, the wholesaler immediately knows that there’s not much point in further engaging the advisor.  No further, unnecessary investment of time by anyone.

  2. In the more-likely scenario where the answer is yes, the wholesaler can open up a conversation on the criteria the advisor uses in evaluating active products.  The discussion becomes advisor-centric, not product-centric, and sets the table for the wholesaler to better position the firm’s products.

So much of the active vs. passive management discussion is one that revolves around analytics and data.  And for good reason.  However, for firms dealing with this discussion in day-to-day field and phone interactions, it’s best to first focus on the client.

Active vs. Passive Management Debate Rises Again

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 21, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

We’ve been asked to address the evergreen debate of active management vs. passive management with several clients of late.  Why?  Many firms with actively-managed mutual funds are experiencing challenges in specific parts of their product lineups (e.g., emerging markets, domestic large cap, etc.), leaving Sales and Marketing execs to answer:

  • How should our wholesalers handle the discussion with an advisor who is using (or considering) index products?
  • How can we counter an advisor’s move toward passive vehicles in our print/online messages?

Over the next week, we’ll use the blog to cover some of the answers we’ve come up with, including:

  • The one question wholesalers should ask advisors who say they use passively-managed products
  • The underlying complexity of investment indices
  • The sometimes imperfect construction of indexed investments

We’ll also cite some of the better research-driven arguments we’ve seen that can help distributors of actively-managed products with this challenge.  Stay tuned…

Social Networks Replacing CRM? Stop the Hype.

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 10, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

Socialware, a company that provides automated monitoring and archiving of enterprise social media use, maintains an interesting blog.  Good, relevant ideas without being overtly self-serving.  I especially like the $100M Tweet.

One recent post touched on an idea that, at first, struck me as solid:  social networks become the new CRM system.  Instead of having/using a wholly separate tool, why not have the CRM be the tools everyone already uses?  In other words, use the contact and personal information (job history, interests, people they know) captured by Facebook and LinkedIn as your go-to client/prospect database.

I see two problems with the idea:

  • As the post notes, it’s hard to maintain updated information on prospects and clients.  But you know what – it’s no slam-dunk for people to keep their social media profiles and information up to date, either.  The problem of inaccurate information is not necessarily solved.  More importantly…
  • The main value of CRM lies in combining contact information with all sorts of proprietary knowledge.  No social network is going to log past business deals, Web site activity, and when you last saw somebody.  At least not yet.

In fact, it’s likely that social networks will make CRM tools more important, not less.  Applications like Faceconnector integrate social media information with firms’ proprietary databases.  And firms will increasingly be able to bring this information in-house to build even better client/prospect profiles.

So I don’t believe social networks will be replacing CRM tools.  And I think grand overstatements about social media’s potential provide skeptics the ammunition to resist the legitimate opportunities it presents.

Best of Q4 Blogs – A Few More

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Dec 30, 2010, in Best Blogs of the Week , tagged with , , ,

Last week Anu revisited a few of his favorite posts from our blog over the last three months.  He promised I’d do the same, so here we go with three of my favorites so far:

  1. Spend More Time with the Best Wholesalers:  Most Sales teams we work with know their stuff, so the best way to get better is to consider new approaches for the same old activities.  Our thought on the pastime of coaching wholesalers fits the bill.

  2. Regulation is a People Business:  I tend to think that simple ideas are best.  They’re easier to come up with, easier to understand, and can have a big impact.  The insight from Anu regarding regulation is a forehead-slapper for me.

  3. Pitch Book Length:  With every blog post I write I ask myself “how can I make this more concise?”  Attention spans are shorter than even the most realistic person believes.  Pitch books included.

We’ll revisit the “Best Of” our blog at the end of Q1 next year.  After all, good/interesting ideas (at least in our minds) shouldn’t be lost just because they’re more than a week old. Gawker reminded me of that just a few weeks ago.

Happy New Year!

Is Social Media All About the Numbers?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Dec 17, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with , , ,

As he took down a mole poblano chicken drumstick over lunch, I posed the following question to Anu:

If Twitter let us hide the number of people who follow Naissance, would you want to do it?

The genesis of the question was a social media project for a client and the discussions we’ve had around measuring the success of such efforts.  I thought about the Naissance Twitter account and LinkedIn profile, and that people encountering them probably:

  1. Focus immediately on the number of followers we have, and
  2. Make some sort of judgment based on that number

What if the 19 was 1,900?

At first I felt frustration.  Yes, we have 19 followers, but we’re a new company and have never made an explicit ask/push to get people to pay attention to our social media presence.  How dare anyone judge the Naissance book by its cover!  This “reasoning” led to my question for Anu.

Then, of course, I realized that people DO judge books by their covers.  At least in part.  That’s the real world.

So since social media “ROI” is a fantasy for most firms, the easiest proxy for how well social media efforts are going is the number of friends/followers you have.  And so the real world for social media means promotion is as important as content.  Maybe more. Getting people over the initial hurdle of engaging you is the first and most important challenge.

As unappealing as it may sound, being shamelessly self-promoting is probably a good idea.