Thoughts

Avoid “Guilt by Association”

Posted by Anu Heda on Dec 08, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

The US attorney-led investigation into recent insider trading activities implicates numerous hedge funds.  The large newspapers provide daily coverage with business section headlines such as “Holdings Spiked Near Deal-Time.”

Many will read headlines like that daily and say most hedge funds cheat.  That’s not true.  And hedge funds that don’t cheat should actively discuss this with clients.

Plain and simple – if you choose not to address a message, you’re leaving interpretation up to someone else.  Here are two topics to consider sharing with clients & potential accredited investors.

  1. Investment Process – Reiterate your fund’s investment process and discipline.  Then speak – in specific terms – to how your process is incompatible with insider information.
  2. Audit Controls – Present the audit process used by you and your third-party auditor.  Then detail that the auditor is instructed to inquire about irregular trading and abnormal portfolio holdings.

Nothing assuages the most cynical investor.  Yet for the overwhelming majority, these ideas and similar ones will set investors’ minds at ease and enable your firm to own the conversation.  That’s a more favorable position than waiting for questions to come in.

4 Web Tips for Asset Managers from Gawker (Part 2)

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Dec 06, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

In a post last week, I suggested that pending design changes to Gawker’s popular blog family offer up 4 good ideas for asset managers and their Web sites.  The previous post covered two of those ideas; and without further ado here are two others:

  1. Appointment Viewing Works: Having experimented with pre-scheduled content and “theme” weeks, Gawker has found that they do well at attracting readers.  In the past I’ve advocated that asset managers too embrace programming practices from the media – preset publishing schedules that can be promoted in advance, serialized content that can stretch over time.  Gawker’s data validates that this works.

    2. Each week's Economic Calendar drives people to pay attention to information as it is released.

  2. Video is an Advertising Prerequisite, Too: The Web has gone way beyond static banner ads.  Gawker notes that 30-50% of potential sponsors have video ads to run online.  While asset managers have integrated more video into their Web sites, how fast can they start using video to support their online advertising as well?

Yes, Gawker is not an asset manager.  Content is their product.  But what they’ve learned in repeatedly trying to engage more people with their content parallels the similar challenges of asset management marketing and eBusiness teams.

4 Web Tips for Asset Managers from Gawker (Part 1)

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Dec 03, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

For those of you unfamiliar, Gawker operates a network of (generally popular) blogs.  You may not know the individual brands, but you probably know some of things they’ve written about, such as when Gizmodo found an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar earlier this year.

This week Gawker announced changes to the page layout of its blog network.  This 1-minute video gives an overview:

Clearly Gawker’s business model does not match that of an asset manager.  But I found the detailed reasoning behind the changes to have 4 good ideas for the Web sites of asset management firms.

The first two:

  1. All-Text Content is Toast: I know.  “No duh.”  But this point can’t be reinforced enough.  Gawker is embracing the fact that the Web is increasingly all about the visual.  The chance that great content can overcome subpar packaging is moving closer to zero.  While firms have improved the amount and quality of audiovisual material, the typical asset management site is still a PDF and text-rich environment.

  2. Recent Does Not Equal Best: The traditional blog format and traditional approach to content management means that the most recent item almost always appears first (*cough, our blog, cough*).  But Gawker notes that  older content sometimes has more appeal and deserves longer premium promotion.  Their new design enables dual management of what’s popular and what’s new.  Asset managers – who tend to showcase the most recent piece of commentary or the most recent practice management offering by default – can consider doing the same.

Two more thoughts to come on Monday…

Spend More Time with the Best Wholesalers

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Nov 29, 2010, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

Can sales managers get more out of their coaching efforts?  After reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, I think the answer is yes.

Switch makes the great point that human beings typically focus on identifying and analyzing things that go poorly as opposed to things that go well.  The authors propose that positive change and improvement is borne out of finding and maximizing bright spots instead of mulling over problems.

Now consider how sales managers coach and develop wholesalers.  At most firms there exists a very egalitarian approach.  For example, if an internal sales manager has 12 direct reports, he will spend 1 hour on the phones with each wholesaler each month.

I think there’s an argument to be made that sales managers should focus most of their coaching time and effort on their best wholesalers.  Two reasons why:

  1. Increased Development of the Best Wholesalers: The individuals with the most talent today have the greatest probability of growing and making a bigger impact on the firm moving forward.  Nurturing the best talent offers maximum long-term value for the firm.  Put another way:  are the worst wholesalers worth the same time/investment as the best?

  2. Better Ammunition for Improving Laggards: More time with top performers will yield more insight into what makes them so good.  Managers will gather more and better tactical ideas to improve development of lagging performers, even if they spend less time on them.

A change like this does not need to be obvious to the team, nor overly dramatic.  For the example cited earlier, the manager could spend 2 hours with the top 4 wholesalers and 30 minutes with the remaining 8 instead of 1 hour with each.  It’s not more time, but potentially more effective.

While the bright spots approach doesn’t guarantee better overall performance, the logic behind it makes it a worthwhile idea for sales managers to consider.

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.