Thoughts

A Naissance consultant walks into a bar…

Posted by Anu Heda on Feb 18, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with

… 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.

Sales & the blog

Posted by Anu Heda on Feb 08, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with

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:

  • Blogging is effective for reaching a large audience with the same message; perfect for the Marketing team.
  • Sales people can use the time more efficiently – either focusing on specifics with clients or listening for needs via social media.

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.

What to Learn from a Super Bowl Ad

Posted by Anu Heda on Feb 07, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

It’s a blogger’s right, no, mandate, to offer a perspective on Super Bowl Monday.

And like millions of other blogs today (I don’t really know if it is millions, or just feels that way), we’re commenting on the advertisements.  Or one advertisement.

The “Imported from Detroit” ad for the Chrysler 200 was fantastic.  The car was the top search on Google last night and the commercial had 800,000 YouTube views by 10am today.  Obviously, the commercial was compelling.

We were struck by the inspiring and emotional message for a down-and-out company in a down-and-out city.  It would be difficult (and potentially hazardous) to employ that strategy within financial services. There is one takeaway for our industry.  Communicate about the people (in this case the city and employees, not customers), not the products. That’s strong because financial products don’t exist for their own sake, but to solve problems and serve people.

iPad – a sales game changer

Posted by Anu Heda on Jan 28, 2011, in Thoughts

Mike and I are skeptics naturally.  And we’ll be the first to wonder just how important is Apple’s iPad to sales and marketing practices within the industry.  So while I’d love to remain skeptical about the iPad’s use in business, I’ve come around to agree that – used appropriately – the iPad can be a game changer for sales forces throughout the industry.

Many people have already said this; they usually mention the iPad’s robust e-mail capabilities or CRM access.

I think the game changer functionality is more subtle, closer to etiquette.  Think of this situation.

Sales person and prospective client meet for lunch.  They get to talking about a product feature, performance, or something related.  The sales person wants to use some data to prove a point.

Most likely the sales person isn’t going to pull out his laptop, boot it up, log in, plug in a USB networking device, access the Web, find the data, and then turn the laptop to face the prospect. By this point, the prospective client has finished his sandwich.

Also, it’s unlikely that the sales person’s BlackBerry is fast enough to access the data quickly or big enough to keep the sales person from squinting.

Most likely, the sales person will fumble through a dossier to find something printed that approximates proving the point.  In this case, the sandwich may get finished and the printed material may not be exactly right.

The iPad’s instant-readiness (powering on and connecting to the network) married with the resolution give the iPad “game changer” potential. The sales person could pull it out, immediately turn it sideways for both people to see and navigate to the exact data.  In this case, the conversation continues.

For the right sales person, the iPad can complement a sales process in a way that other technologies can not.

Asset Managers as Content Aggregators?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 27, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

Many of our asset management clients face a common issue – they don’t generate as much high-quality content as they’d like.  It’s a frustrating issue for marketing teams and most often chalked up to a lack of resources.

As I read about some recent developments at Seeking Alpha, a thought came to mind – should asset managers invest more effort in content aggregation and less in content creation?

Seeking Alpha is among the better known and regarded financial blogs out there.  The site publishes 250+ articles daily, drawn from a pool of 3,000 (non-proprietary) contributors.  Some of the authors, who include financial advisors, and individual articles get quite a bit of attention (upwards of 50k followers and 30k page views, respectively).

What’s interesting is that Seeking Alpha has accomplished this having paid exactly $0 for content.  $0.  For 250+ articles per day.  My takeaway is that being a content aggregator has advantages over being a content creator.  Three broad reasons why:

  1. Relevant third-party magazines, newspapers, and blogs produce much more content than individual organizations.
  2. All things being equal, more content should mean more traffic/attention for aggregators.
  3. There may be economic efficiencies in pooling strong external content versus creating proprietary material.

Given the challenges in producing proprietary content, should asset managers consider content aggregation as a strategy?  I think yes.  Would researching, licensing, and packaging 30 top-notch articles from external sources be more fiscally efficient and valuable to clients than producing 30 internal pieces?  I think maybe.

That’s enough for asset managers to at least investigate aggregation as a part of their content strategies.