Achieving Marketing Success

Achieving Marketing Success

Foreside Connections: Actionable Items for Marketing Success

Listen to the recording 

 

Rachel Pham, Client Development, Foreside Financial Group

Marilyn Dale, Vice President, Creative & Digital Services, SunStar Strategic

Dan Sondhelm, Chief Executive Officer, Sondhelm Partners

 

 

Rachel Pham:  Marilyn, I’ll start with you.  What are the biggest challenges facing fund firms now? 

 

Marilyn Dale: Well, as you know, Rachel, there are quite a few, but I was going to just mention the whole active, passive debate. I just read an investor. If you pick an active manager in manager money or you invest in a passive index, which one is going to really benefit me as an investor?  It boils down to whether the average Joe, me I guess, can pick the right fund manager because somebody is going to outperform the market. The question is who.

So, it’s your job, the clients that you have here on the phone with us, the fund company, and me, as marketers, to help those investors and advisors find those managers that have that potential and then to deliver. That’s the pressure on your clients; the pressures are where it’s always been on the portfolio managers and the analysts.  That can’t be understated. It's on you day in and day out and there’s really little left over to address other things, but the point is it’s a question that most investors and advisors have on their minds and we’ve got to be prepared with decent answers, and then of course, back it up with performance.                            

 

Rachel Pham: Thank you for that.  Dan, you know, I'm going to ask the same question to you.  What do you think are the biggest challenges facing fund firms now? 

 

Dan Sondhelm: Thanks for having me, Rachel. I think as Marilyn said, you know, there are some issues within the industry, like just competitive pressures, and asset management, and all of these other things, difficulty of outperforming.  As a result of that I think the biggest issue on asset managers’ minds as to what extent do we want to continue to play in the product game of mutual funds, or EPS, or just focus on our high net worth or institutional business.  It's quite a challenge to commit to investment products when distribution is such a challenge. 

 

There is a number of firms in the industry, whether it’s the institutional side of the business or the fund side of the business where they might be at record highs, but they’re losing clients.  When I say record highs, record highs in terms of revenues, assets under management, but they’re losing clients because there is just so much money in motion these days, but firms are benefitting from the rising stock market and as a result they don’t feel the pan.  So, it’s something to look under the hood, so to speak, see what your client base looks like and, you know, see what you can do to make it a bit stronger.

 

And I would just say the third major challenge firms are facing right now is that they got into the mutual fund industry, you know, maybe three, four, five years ago thinking that if you build it they will come and it’s been more of a challenge than they had hoped and maybe they even launched niche strategies to take advantage of what was happening in the markets several years ago, like commodities or alternative funds.  There was demand back then. There is very little demand now, so what should a firm do if they have a good story to tell, but their strategies are out of favor, at least for now?  These are all kind of strategic decisions to think about and I'm sure we’ll touch on them more today. 

 

Rachel Pham: Perfect.  Thanks.  So, with the challenges that you both just discussed, Marilyn, I’ll go back to you, what can a firm do to be in control of their own destiny? 

 

Marilyn Dale: That’s a great goal, and we actually find that firms that have a plan, that have taken the time to think through what their goals are, and then to also write down and follow specific steps to achieve them have greater control.  So, there’s that strategy on the front end, but it really has to have a robust execution side to it as well. 

 

To start with, you know, are they measuring success?  Those that measure have something to shoot for.  They know what their end game is going to be.  They can tell if they’re doing well or missing the mark, so it’s very important to measure.

 

They also have a plan to what they’ll communicate with clients and prospects and how frequently.  Typically, that is going to be on a regular basis, whether you want to make it monthly or quarterly, but there’s something that both internally you can count on.  You’re going to have people dedicated to that effort and you’re going to be consistently in front of your clients and prospects. 

 

Then a big topic that I think helps people control their destinies is getting advisors to trust you, to believe in you, to follow you.  Advisors are really looking for education.  They’re looking for education for themselves, for their practices, and for what they can offer to their clients. So, if you can educate advisors I think that helps control where you’ll be, who you’ll attract, and how successful you can be. 

 

Do you have somebody dedicated to publishing relevant information?  We’ll talk about content in a little bit, but that’s very important these days. 

 

Finally, just to reiterate, I think those that have a commitment, who’ve really defined up front what they think success looks like for them, they have a sense of control, they have a sense of destiny, and I think those are the folks that are doing well these days. 

 

Rachel Pham: Perfect. Thanks. Dan, anything to add there about what firms can do to control their own destiny?

 

Dan Sondhelm: Marilyn has a great list of things to think about to control your growth strategy.  I’ve got a few analogies to add. 

 

The first one is discipline.  Everybody on this phone call has a very disciplined, repeatable investment process that produces excellent results.  You know, most of the time that is very focused on the investment management side of the business. 

 

The distribution and marketing side of the business may not be to that level of discipline and consistent process.  So, I think it’s very important for firms to think through and try to get to some balance between the investment side and the distribution marketing side.  If firms had a distribution or marketing strategy and process that was even, you know, half as impressive as the investment side firms may be further along, but I know it’s hard and it’s hard for a lot of reasons. 

 

The next one is diversification, building a portfolio is really important to be diversified in stocks or sectors, or however you diversify.  I think from a growth perspective diversification of strategies is also important.  I don’t know that there is one tactic that will make somebody grow.  There are some best practices.  I think multiple strategies, whether it’s from the beginning or phased in over time where you can start adding to different best practices I think you’ll get better results. 

 

The third is dollar cost averaging and from an investor’s perspective, really important to dollar cost average into the market to retire.  I think from an asset management firm fund company you don’t need to have a sales and marketing strategy like Fidelity next month.  Take it slow.  Take it strategically. Take baby steps if you want.  I think, you know, one of the goals could be to be further ahead, you know, over the next six months than you are right now. 

 

Rachel Pham: Thanks for that.  With that, Dan, maybe can you elaborate just on kind of what you were just saying in the sense of what do you think firms can do to make a difference in the next six months specifically?

 

Dan Sondhelm: So specifically, I think, change the mindset.  It's really important to commit to growth and change the mindset of your firm, you know?  Investors generally are not going to just come to you and I think if you can make that commitment that we’re going to go out and find the ideal investor, whether it’s through sales or marketing, or public relations, or whatever, but just being more visible and credible in the marketplace, you know, that commitment is going to help you out quite a bit. 

 

Think about the firm, growing the firm as opposed to your mutual funds as a cost leader.  You know, many firms have very serious and institutional practices.  The funds may not be as large, may not be as profitable, may not be as established.  I think as you’re thinking about growing, think about growing the firm, you know, invest a little bit of that money towards growing the firm. You’ve got the same investment people, same process, and for many firms it shouldn’t really matter if assets come into your separate accounts or your mutual funds.  In both cases, you’ll be ahead and sometimes the separate accounts is much more sellable than the mutual funds are. 

 

In other cases, the funds are very sellable, and you can commit to growing the funds independently.  That’s just not always the case and I think incorporating the portfolio manager into the sales and marketing process more than they are currently would be an advantage, because most audiences from advisors, to institutional consultants, to speaking at conferences, to just everything that happens with a fund firm, at some point they want to talk to the asset manager or the portfolio manager and they just have so much more credibility than the salesperson. So, incorporating the portfolio manager into the mix, you know, more often I think will get you stronger results. 

 

Rachel Pham: Perfect.  Thanks for that.  Marilyn, do you agree or disagree with Dan, or have anything to add when it comes to what funds can do to make a difference in the next six months? 

 

Marilyn Dale: I would say in general I agree.  Certainly, it can be easier in some cases to concentrate on your separately managed accounts, but unless you’re in that ultra-high net worth spot in terms of attracting investors it’s going to take you a long time to make up what you might be able to do with the volume you can do in funds.  So, we certainly don’t want to lose sight of funds, even though it is a difficult part of the business these days.  But I think we can move on to some of the other questions.

 

Rachel Pham: Sure.  Let’s do that.  You know, me personally, any time I want to know anything about any company I go to the web, right?  So, let’s talk a little bit about what sites and visual marketing.  I’ll send this one to you, Marilyn.  You know, many fund companies can be reluctant to kind of venture into that digital world.  Do you have any thoughts on it?  Should they be?  How big of a priority is it? 

 

Marilyn Dale: I have to say, Rachel, it kind of hurts me when I see a website that was really nothing more than an online perspective.  Story is so important when you’re trying to get your firm well known.  It's kind of the primary – the website is really the primary vehicle you have to get your story out in front of so many advisors and investors.  So, when we develop these websites for our clients we work really hard to show that personality of the firm.  We want to show its backstory.  We want to show the investment hypotheses. 

 

We’re actually in the middle of some research right now with advisors asking them what do they expect, do they want to find on a fund site.  So far, the answers have been pointing to them wanting insights on the fund manager’s specific area of expertise, their asset class, their sectors.  They’re not looking for general market commentary. They’ve got hundreds of sources readily available that they can get the general outlook on the market, but the specialty that you have is the insight that they really value.  So, I think you really have to make a commitment to engaging advisors and investors where they are today, whether they’re young or they’re old. Again, our research is kind of noting that about 80 percent of the advisors we surveyed are using LinkedIn as a resource, which was a shock to me. 

 

I read a statistic just this morning preparing for this event about Facebook.  It said that as of January of this year over 80 percent of households in every income level had Facebook accounts.  The range was from 81 to 88 percent, but even in the over $100,000.00 income bracket the percent was incredible at 86 percent.  So even if we go ahead and knock that in half for active users it’s still an enormous number.  So, the ship is well out to sea on this and fund companies want to be known and relevant, really need to take advantage of the digital experience.ten 

 

Just one more point on this:  Beyond website and social media there’s also advertising and sponsoring.  The world just works this way today.  I have four fairly conservative adult children, college degrees, toddlers in the houses, good jobs, thank God.  They’re online all of the time.  They’re not only connecting with friends.  They’re watching the news.  They’re watching videos, listening to economic podcasts.  They’re reading the blogs.  They’re doing all kinds of research.  If they find an area of interest, and ideally, something your fund focuses on then you’ve got take that opportunity to drive them to your web content. There’s really been a lot of research lately that points to changing buyer behavior.  It's shifted to research-driven, so if we believe what we’ve been reading, no one really shops anymore before they’ve Googled what they’re looking for.  So I think the lesson for fund managers here is that we’ve got to offer substance.  We’ve got to offer it on a digital platform and find a way to drive those researchers to our products. 

 

Rachel Pham: Thank you for that. I guess I’ll kind of elaborate a bit more and ask this question. So in regards to, let’s say, social media or your online presence, or just content development in general, you know, let’s, I guess, talk more about that content itself.  We can gear it more towards social media or maybe just content for advisors.  I mean what type of content should they be developing?  Should it be on their product?  Should it be education around their process or their proprietary, let’s say, investment philosophy?  Should it be content around helping advisors grow their business?  Where should they really be focusing their time; Dan, I’ll send this one to you; when it comes to content development, at least out of the gate anyway? 

 

Dan Sondhelm: I think it’s important to start with the basics.  A lot of firms, as Marilyn said, have websites and that would be their only content and its prospectus on the internet.  The most recent timely content would be the semi-annual report, so if that’s the case I think you’ve got to start with the basics.  You know, start with who are we, what makes us different, what makes us better than other firms.  But then you’ve got to take it to something that’s not a commercial about you.  You have to go beyond that and take it to something that’s much more timely to, you know, a bit about the discipline processes of our strategies, and then ultimately, how are we making investment decisions today.  What are we thinking about the current events that are impacting our portfolios?  What’s keeping us up at night as portfolio managers that we have to deal with as we’re managing people’s money?  Then, you know, the people issues, like what are the problems that our clients face and how do we communicate with them so they trust us a little bit longer, even when we’re underperforming?  Lots of types of content to create.

 

I think going back to the last question on digital, a lot of firms have really good content and usually, they put it up on their website and often that would be the only distribution that they actually have for the content, so very few people see it.  I think firms who want to commit to getting the content in the hands of their target audience, institutional consultants, or mutual funds, they are leveraging digital very aggressively from making sure that the timely content is featured on the homepage of the website, making sure that they’re going – you know, e-mail marketing is very important as you grow your list organically.  I think e-mail marketing is an interesting conversation because you can target your audience really well and I think a lot of firms are sending out blast e-mails to very large audiences thinking that the audiences are reading the material.  I think the content - the opportunity now with the advancement of digital marketing is pretty powerful.  Some of you may be using something a little more advanced, like marketing automation, where there’s a couple of benefits of marketing automation over the blast e-mail.  Automation you can send follow-up e-mails based on the behavior of your subscribers.  That’s really important so you can nurture them through a sales process. 

 

Number two:  You get incredible analytics to the point where you can basically connect your e-mail system with your website and social media so you can put a score on individual financial advisors or subscribers who are the most engaged with your content no matter where they are.  If they’re opening your e-mail, if they’re visiting your website three nights in a row at midnight you’ll know about it, because the analytics show it.  In an ideal world you’re getting these analytics of specific warm leads to your sales people to think about following up on if it makes sense. 

 

So, digital is huge now for asset managers, mutual fund companies, but at the time of sending out the facts sheet, that was years ago, the content really has to be quality, engaging, something designed to educate your clients and start to build a following. 

 

Rachel Pham: Thank you.  Thank you, Dan.  Marilyn, anything to add when it comes to content development and recommendations you would have for our firms on where they should start and prioritize, and what type of content they should create? 

 

Marilyn Dale: Thanks, Rachel.  Dan, I'm going to take an opposite approach to what you just suggested at the beginning of your answer there.  Rather than start with who you are and why you’re different, I think we really need to start, if we’re trying to attract new people, we really need to start with more of a hook.  That can start with how we think, what we’re thinking about, what is making us get excited.  We have a client right now, who’s kind of taking that approach and it’s wonderful to watch it emerge, because we’re talking about basically what people would refer to as the wide moat, the competitive advantage in the stocks that he’s interested in, but he’s positioning it from the standpoint of what’s going on there.  Why is this an interesting area?  What is creating this moat?  What does that mean to them as opposed to what’s it mean to me as the investor? 

 

So it’s more building a story and putting content out there that is going to catch somebody’s attention and then ultimately drive them.  So I think in the end we’re talking about some of the same concepts.  Dan, you were talking about marketing automation.  It's also called inbound marketing. The concept is very similar.  You’re trying to attract people to you in the first place so that once they get there and like what they’re seeing, how you think, then you can start saying who you are and why you’re the best at what you do.  That’s kind of my take on what the content should be and what the progression should be. 

 

As far as the content itself, I just wanted to point out it can be a bear.  You know, content is king they say, but it’s not the lion.  The content is the bear.  I know this for a fact, because I do it for our firm, so something to consider is you don’t have to write everything yourself.  You can get professional writers.  Make sure they’re financial people.  If you don’t want to go that far, you want to keep it in house and closer to the best, have a professional writer interview you, but again, somebody who’s well versed in financial concepts and in compliance is ideal.  It makes your life much easier.

 

Then, beyond writing, I believe that the design is a very important component, because people want digestible information.  If you just give them these wonderful four to eight page papers with spectacular hypotheses that’s great, but trying to find the right guy to read that paper, maybe he’ll be bold lining in the end, but you’re missing all of the sparkling diamonds along the side for the folks that want, you know, what’s the concept?  How are you thinking today?  What does this chart really mean?  Let’s give advisors digestible pieces of information that they can take and turn around and use with their clients.  You’re going to kind of enamor yourself with them, become a resource with them, and they’re going to be looking to you on a regular basis. 

 

Rachel Pham: Thank you both for that.  I think you gave some really great ideas.  I do want to move on to PR, because I think that’s a very important topic to all of our clients.  Dan, I’ll give this one to you.  Can you talk a bit more about PR, how our firms can create, whether it be a strategy or build those relationships?  How do they get started?  How does it work? 

 

Dan Sondhelm: I think there is a very influential audience who helps asset managers and mutual funds attract clients.  There is a financial journalist, kind of the intermediaries or the gatekeepers of the financial media.  They want to write about investments, and mutual funds, and the markets, and all of that good stuff.  They’re looking for sources.  Right now they have lots of people that they use as sources.  They’re often based on relationships that they’ve built over time and often it’s based on firms like Sunstar and us introducing clients to the key influential journalists as a way for them, for clients, to become much more visible.  I think over time the perception is if you’re in the newspaper, if you’re on TV, and it’s not only being in the paper or being on TV, it’s kind of having ideas that are followed by others, being influential, being kind of that thought leadership status.  It takes time to build, but there’s no better feeling when you make an introduction to a client, to a very serious journalist and the journalist continues to want them over, and over, and over again for their new ideas. 

 

I think if you want to be able to talk to journalists in a way that’s on message.  If you’re a bottom-up stock picker there’s no reason to be doing interviews on the Fed changing interest rates.  It's a waste of time, I think, for the journalist.  It's a waste of time for the client.  I think if you do get in the press you’ll be off message, which is not good for due diligence meetings when the gatekeepers are trying to search the internet for things that you’ve said in the past that are not consistent with your story and then they kick you out of the running for an opportunity. 

 

So, you know, it’s really important to be selective and talk to journalists and have somebody manage that program.  You can be proactive or reactive.  A lot of firms are reactive, meaning they wait for journalists to find them.  I think you can add a level of proactiveness to this process where you’re targeting the right reporter at the right time.  You’re leveraging news.  You’re leveraging the portfolio manager’s travel schedule.  Some portfolio managers are not – they’re great money managers, but they may not be the most comfortable in terms of talking to reporters or other audiences.  So there’s other ways, like writing an article on their behalf and trying to get it placed in a magazine like Financial Planning or Advisors Perspectives. 

 

The important part is to add credibility to your sales and marketing effort so you get the visibility and then you also get it in the hands of your sales people if you have sales people.  Put it on your website so you have more credibility there.  Incorporate it into your e-mail marketing program so you can get it out for visibility purposes. 

 

You never want the portfolio manager to be unprepared, so you’ve got to do a lot of hand holding to make sure he’s at his best in working with a journalist.  It's important to know who the journalist is, what they write about, and kind of what the expectations are for that interview. 

 

Rachel Pham: Thanks, Dan, for that.  Marilyn, I'm going to ask you a question to elaborate a bit on his answer.  Dan mentioned firms can be proactive and reactive. So from a proactive perspective with connecting with PR, how do firms build those relationships? Do they mainly build those relationships through firms, such as both of yours?  Can they do it on their own?  How would they go about doing that so that they can actually put that strategy into place?  Can you talk maybe a little bit about that side of it? 

 

Marilyn Dale: Sure.  Dan and I worked together for a good ten years, so we’re, I think, very much on the same wavelength.  I agree with everything he said and I’ll add a few more points that maybe are down to earth, if you will, in terms of managing the program. 

 

To answer your question, Rachel, you know, how do you create those relationships?  Well, it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.  Nothing about PR happens overnight.  It is a marathon, not a sprint.  So you have to make a commitment on the front end.  What we do is we take our clients to New York.  We get them in front of as many journalists as we can, as often as we can so that there is that face-to-face meeting.  You know, it’s kind of old school and we certainly do our share of remote interviews as well, but there’s a lot to be said for getting to shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye once or twice on the front end. 

 

You know, it’s a relationship like any other friendship, if you will.  Now, these people are not your friends.  We’re all doing a job, but there is that personal touch of you can’t just go and be a commercial.  You have to create some interest between people. 

 

I think something important that Dan didn’t touch on, and I know he would agree with me, is you have to be prepared with what your agenda is when you are in an interview process.  You have to understand that we understand that everybody who’s listening today and everybody at all of the firms that you service at Foreside are smart people.  There’s no question about it and probably could field just about any question about the markets, the economy, their asset class, etcetera, and give terrific answers, but at the end of the day you’re involved in a PR program, either through a professional firm like one of ours, or doing it on your own with people who are committed to the effort.  At the end of the day you’re trying to sell your fund.  You’re trying to get known.  You’re doing a branding exercise and you’re creating credibility.

 

So it’s very important that the story that you’re telling during those interviews is the same one that if you have multiple spokespeople, that they’re telling.  If you’re having meetings with advisors that those wholesalers are telling or your sales staff is telling, if your website and your materials are out there, they have to all ring true to the same type of story.  So if nothing else, as you start to embark on a PR program, whether you do it, again, with a professional firm or on your own, you need to get everybody in a room and ensure that everybody is on the same page. 

 

Secondly, talking to the media, particularly if, say, you’re going to be on TV or even radio, is not the same as sitting down next to somebody and talking face-to-face.  There can be hot lights.  There can be rapid fire questions.  What we stress in the media training that we do is stay on topic and we’ll give you the techniques to do so.  You can come around.  You can sound smart.  You can answer the questions, but in the end you need to come around to what your agenda is all about, at least for a portion of the interview. 

 

There’s so much more that we can talk about, but I know we don’t have all afternoon, so I’ll let it go at that. 

 

Rachel Pham: Absolutely. Thank you for that.  For those on the call, just a reminder you are able to ask questions in the Q&A pod on the upper right-hand side of your screen.

 

So before we kind of wrap up, there’s one last question and, Dan, I’ll give this to you.  Some of our listeners have a sales team and others just have a handful of people who, to be honest, wear a lot of hats.  Do have any tips that you can offer to any of those individuals when it comes to marketing? 

 

Dan Sondhelm: Yes.  If you have a sales team, and it could be one person, it could be half a person, it could be twelve people, there’s a couple of points here.  One is it’s very important to have a sales manager or sales coach, somebody in charge, somebody who can set the goal, set the strategy and accountability.  That’s not always the case in boutique firms where the CEO is the head portfolio manager and he plays the role of the head of distribution on Saturday mornings.  It's not that easy and a lot of times the sales people kind of do their own thing.  They’re highly compensated.  They’re not delivering the production that is requested by the firm.  They’re asking for large budgets and sometimes it helps to have a buffer between that CEO and the wholesaling team of one or twelve.  So that’s just something to think about if the current system isn’t working. 

 

We had a client where they actually bought Sales Force because they thought that was a management tool and they thought that would keep the two sales people, this way, the CEO would know what he was doing all day.  It didn’t work, because the data wasn’t getting into the system and there was no reporting.  It was very expensive.

 

Being on the platform, being on a platform, like Schwab, or LPL, or Raymond James is not enough.  As hard as it is to get on a platform these days, most firms are actually on many platforms and they’re still – you know, sales are still tough to come by, which means you’ve got to work the system and a lot of these platforms in the key accounts role or the national accounts role, actually have a lot of opportunities for firms to get visibility if they can figure out how to navigate the system.  A lot of firms are focusing at the bottom-up level, kind of the rep level, one office at a time, one advisor at a time.  You know, you might get some tickets, but I think more of the action happens at the higher level, where there might be marketing opportunities.  Some are low cost.  Some might be free.  If you can get to the gatekeeper, you know, real people who analyze mutual funds all day long and have meetings with them, get to know them, you know, when they’re looking for a replacement for what they have in their models or their recommended list you might be considered.  It's really important to know that. 

 

Also, you know, going back to the rogue wholesaler, kind of in the boutique firm, it’s really hard when you’ve got really friends who are playing the role of sales people.  No boutique firms want to let somebody go.  So it’s real important to think through what is this sales person costing in terms of growth, by the headache, by the money, by maybe telling an inconsistent story out in the marketplace? 

 

One kind of undiscovered area, lesser known area that firms maybe aren’t focusing on as much would be these TAMPs, TAMPs like Envestnet.  You know, it’s a growing area.  More advisors are using TAMPs.  A lot more assets are coming in there.  They all have research groups once you get on the platform.  So there may be opportunities in the TAMP market for your sales effort. 

 

A lot of the platforms offer extensive national conferences and it seems like the place where you kind of have to be, just because your competition is there.  I find more value in the regional events that a lot of firms offer.  It's a much smaller audience, but I think having just a handful of sponsors, you get more attention from the wealth management firms who are there.  So these are all things to keep in mind if you are kind of working the field, you know, either at a bottom-up level, or a top-down, key accounts level. 

 

Rachel Pham: Great.  Thank you so much, Dan.  So, I know we’re running out of time here, so maybe I’ll just do one more question to both of you.  Marilyn, I’ll have you go first.  Maybe in 30 seconds, I know we talked about a ton of things from PR, to digital and social media, websites and such, content development.  What would you say is the most important takeaway from today’s call? 

 

Marilyn Dale: Thank you, Rachel.  I think just pick one.  We’re talking about what to do in the next six months.  I think in the next 30 days if you can review some of these ideas that we’ve talked about and just pick one, you know, are you ready for PR?  Would a content program make sense?  Put your focus on that.  That’s my 30 seconds. 

 

Rachel Pham:  That’s good.  Yeah.  I agree.  Dan, to you.

 

Dan Sondhelm: First, thanks for the opportunity, Rachel, to talk today. 

 I agree on being very focused and picking one.  If I was going to add one other thing it would be to just think through where you want to be in the next six months.  What bit of progress do you want to make no matter what the market conditions are?  Think of some data points.  Do you want more shares outstanding?  Do you want a bigger brand?  Do you want to raise your stature in the marketplace?  You know, do you want ten new financial advisors and you would call this a success?  Think about where you want to be in the next six months and then don’t over think what it’s going to take you to get there, but pick something and try to balance some sort of discipline on the distribution marketing side that you’ve been so successful on on the investment side.  It will take you a little while to get there, but just baby steps. 

 

Rachel Pham: You’ve got to start somewhere. 

 

Dan Sondhelm: That’s real important for the future of your firm.  That’s exactly right. 

 

Rachel Pham:  Absolutely.  Well, thank you to both Marilyn and Dan for being our guest speakers today, and everyone for dialing in.  I think they provided a lot of great tips on kind of getting started in marketing and some ideas to kind of generate your imagination there. 

 

There will be a replay available shortly after this call.  I will send it out to everyone who has dialed in, as well as signed up. 

 

We will continue to host these quarterly Connections calls, so please let us know if there are any specific matters that interest you as we aim to bring you informative and relevant topics to help you continue to grow the assets under management. 

 

If you do have any further questions, do not hesitate to reach out to myself, Amy Bernard, or your Foreside Relationship Manager.  Thank you and everyone have a great rest of your week. 

 

[End of Audio]

 

Listen to the full call here.

 

At SunStar Strategic, we begin with message development and media training. We then develop a strategic outreach program to get you the attention you deserve. Coaching and feedback provide continuous opportunities for improvement.

 

Call us at 703.299.8390

Date

11 Jun

Tags

Marketing

PR & MARKETING IDEAS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX