Category: Sales Support

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Sales Support

Leveraging LinkedIn for Sales Success 

When raising capital for alternative investments, building and maintaining relationships with advisors is highly important. Yet, many sales teams find themselves hesitating to fully embrace LinkedIn, often citing compliance concerns as a major roadblock. However, LinkedIn offers opportunities for connection and interaction. This post explores practical strategies for sales teams at alternative investment firms to utilize LinkedIn effectively, ensuring compliance while forging meaningful connections. 

The Compliance Conundrum 

One of the most cited reasons for sales teams’ reluctance to use LinkedIn is compliance. The fear of inadvertently breaching regulations while posting about offerings is real. However, as problem solvers in the marketing realm, we recognize that there are compliant ways to engage on LinkedIn that don’t involve direct discussions of offerings. The key is to understand and leverage these methods to build connections and enhance relationships without crossing compliance boundaries. 

Company Updates: A Safe Harbor 

Sharing company updates on LinkedIn is a straightforward yet effective strategy. Even if your compliance department has reservations about providing commentary, posting updates without additional commentary is a viable way to maintain presence and visibility. This approach keeps your firm in the minds of your LinkedIn connections, providing insights into activities and achievements without delving into compliance-sensitive offering information. 

The Power of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator 

While engaging with all types of advisors is important, the RIA market presents its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to obtaining high-quality lists of prospects. LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator can serve as a valuable tool in this context, enabling sales team members to search for RIAs and connect directly. People are far more likely to engage with a person than they are with a company so a person-to-person connection is key on LinkedIn. Sales Navigagtor – which is an add-on feature of LinkedIn – allows for deeper research into firms and individuals, making it easier to identify and engage with potential clients through lists and feeds of your prospects’ activity on LinkedIn. 

Building Relationships and Visibility 

By connecting with prospects and advisors, you’re not just expanding your network, you’re also allowing them to observe how you engage and share on the platform. Thought-provoking posts, insights, and even personal stories can resonate deeply, fostering a sense of connection and familiarity without the need for traditional, time-consuming methods of relationship building. 

Embracing Vulnerability and Personal Touch 

Posts that reveal a degree of vulnerability or personal insight tend to perform well on LinkedIn. These types of content allow your audience to get to know the people behind the firm, fostering trust and likability. It’s about showing that there are real, relatable individuals behind the corporate facade, which can significantly enhance your appeal to potential clients. 

Utilizing LinkedIn Messenger 

Another underutilized feature is LinkedIn Messenger. With concerns over email overuse and declining open rates, Messenger offers an alternative channel for communication. It’s a less intrusive way to share information about upcoming webinars or events, circumventing compliance issues around sharing offering details while maintaining engagement with your prospects. 

The Benefits of Active Engagement 

Active engagement on LinkedIn—commenting on posts, sharing insights, and participating in discussions—demonstrates your interest in your prospects and their activities. This two-way interaction is invaluable, as it not only raises your visibility but also strengthens the relationships with potential clients by showing genuine interest and engagement in their work. 

How Marketing Intent Can Help 

Understanding the ins and outs of LinkedIn, especially in the context of compliance and effective engagement, can be daunting. Marketing Intent specializes in helping alternative investment firms navigate these challenges, leveraging LinkedIn to build trust and relationships effectively. Whether it’s crafting compliant posts, utilizing Sales Navigator, or engaging prospects through Messenger, our team can guide you in maximizing the potential of LinkedIn for your sales strategy. Reach out to us to discover how you can elevate your LinkedIn strategy, enhance your visibility, and build meaningful connections in a compliant and impactful way. 

Categories
Sales Support Trust

Humanizing Your Sales Team 

Is your sales team merely a faceless entity behind emails and phone calls? In the world of alternative investments, establishing personal connections with advisors is paramount to raising capital for your products. Let’s explore some innovative strategies for showcasing your wholesalers and humanizing your sales efforts. 

Your Sales Team Serves as Frontline Ambassadors 

While access to the management team is crucial, it’s equally important to shine a spotlight on your sales team. They are the frontline ambassadors who build meaningful relationships with advisors on a daily basis. From remembering details about advisors’ personal lives to offering tailored solutions, your sales team plays a pivotal role in nurturing the relationships that are critical to your capital-raising efforts. 

Use Photos and Videos of Your Sales Team 

Does your wholesale team have a presence beyond simple email signatures? Consider incorporating visuals such as photos or videos of sales team members in your communication efforts to foster a personal connection. Personalized videos from your sales team can help further bridge the gap and provide a memorable touchpoint with advisors. Gone are the days of faceless interactions; embrace multimedia elements to showcase the personalities that make up your sales team. 

Leverage LinkedIn for Personal Branding 

LinkedIn isn’t just a platform for sharing company updates; it’s an opportunity for your sales team to cultivate their personal brand. Encourage your wholesalers to add personal touches to their profiles, such as introductions, commentary, and even fun anecdotes. Humanizing their online presence not only enhances their credibility but also fosters genuine connections with advisors. 

Showcase the Depth of Your Team 

Don’t underestimate the power of including sales team pictures on your website or wholesaler map. Not only does it add a personal touch, but it also highlights the breadth and depth of your firm’s sales resources. By showcasing the individuals behind your capital-raising efforts, you demonstrate transparency and build trust with advisors. 

Partner with Marketing Intent: Elevating Your Sales Efforts 

If you’re seeking innovative ways to showcase your wholesale team and humanize your sales approach, Marketing Intent is here to help. Our expertise in personalized marketing strategies can enhance your firm’s visibility and foster deeper connections with advisors. From creating engaging multimedia content to refining your LinkedIn presence, we’ll work with you to elevate your sales efforts and drive results. 

Ready to Humanize Your Sales Approach? 

Don’t let your sales team remain faceless entities in the digital realm. Reach out to Marketing Intent today for personalized strategies on showcasing your wholesalers and humanizing your sales efforts. Let’s transform your sales team into a dynamic force that resonates with advisors and drives capital raising success. 

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Sales Support

Beyond Thought Leadership: Differentiating Your Firm with Practice Management 

In the world of alternative investments, establishing your firm as a thought leader is undoubtedly valuable. Thought leadership helps you build credibility and trust among potential investors and advisors. However, in an environment saturated with asset managers and funds, is thought leadership alone enough to set your firm apart? In this article, we’ll explore additional strategies that can help differentiate your firm through the use of practice management content. 

What is Practice Management Content? 

One of the emerging trends in the alternative investment industry is the use of practice management tools as a means of differentiation. It’s essential to have a unique hook that captures the attention of potential advisors. Practice management (also called value-add) content can serve as that hook. This content goes beyond traditional thought leadership and provides additional touchpoints to engage your audience. 

The purpose of practice management content is to offer practical insights and tools that provide value to financial advisors to improve their practice, gain clients and enhance client relationships. 

For example, alts sponsors could develop resources that guide advisors on building trust with clients, handling relationships between couples, and expanding the services they offer. By providing practical and actionable tools, you not only demonstrate your expertise but also offer a tangible benefit to advisors that isn’t related to the product you offer. 

Forms of Practice Management Content 

Practice management content can take various forms, such as webinars, whitepapers, flyers, interactive tools, or courses. These materials offer real value to financial advisors and keep them engaged with your firm. They can serve as an introduction to your brand and create positive associations that go beyond your firm’s investment offerings, helping your sales team build trust and rapport.  

Reciprocity 

Another plus about practice management content is that when you provide tools and resources that genuinely assist advisors in their practice, you create a sense of reciprocity. Advisors appreciate the value you provide, and this makes them more receptive to conversations about your firm and investment offerings. 

Let’s Get Your Practice Management Content Rolling 

While thought leadership remains a crucial component of your marketing strategy, it’s no longer enough to differentiate your alternative investment firm effectively. Practice management tools and value-added content offer additional touchpoints to engage with potential clients and advisors, building stronger relationships and increasing your firm’s appeal. You may see firms with entire practice management libraries or courses. Don’t be intimidated by them. You can start small, selecting topics and approaches that will resonate with advisors. 

If you’re curious about incorporating practice management content into your marketing suite, reach out to Marketing Intent. We can craft unique and compelling content that helps differentiate your firm and builds strong relationships in the competitive world of alternative investments. Contact us today. 

Categories
Capital Raising Sales Support

Marketing That Helps Bring Capital in the Door

If you’re not doing marketing that’s helping bring capital in the door, why are you doing it?

The reality is that there’s a lot of marketing done in our industry that just does not support the sales effort.

Sales-Focused Marketing Strategy

Yes, we’re a marketing firm. And we appreciate all things marketing. But in the asset management and alternative investments world, we focus on marketing not just for the sake of marketing, but to help raise capital for your investment offerings.

For example, while we appreciate branding and the importance of it, it can be taken too far, which can take the focus off sales-focused marketing efforts. For example, instead of using effort to make sure an advisor lunch is well branded on site, consider instead putting resources into providing a solid marketing follow-up effort for the event, which will better support the sales team and the capital-raising effort.

Educate Advisors

Another key area that can help push capital raising is advisor education. Educating them on your asset class, your company, your management team and your offerings. Think about how you’re giving advisors updates and staying in front of them so they develop trust and faith in your firm. And how you’re providing the information they need so they understand your offering and can explain it to their clients. Make that easy and your sales team will have an advantage with advisors and establishing the type of relationships with them that lead to capital coming in the door.

Deciding Where to Focus

Thinking about where to focus your marketing can be overwhelming. As you’re prioritizing your list, evaluate each marketing project by what it does for your sales team. Does it help explain something better? Address a common advisor objection? Highlight what differentiates your firm? Explain the investor problem your firm’s investment solves?

If you’re looking at your project list and don’t know the answers to the above in relation to each piece, get the sales team involved. The marketing-sales feedback loop is critical in understanding which marketing efforts move the capital-raising dial. And remember, that marketing is iterative. You won’t always get it right the first time, but through collaboration with the sales team, you will consistently improve and make sure marketing contributes to bringing in capital.

At Marketing Intent, we help our clients focus on prioritizing marketing that helps bring capital in the door. If you need help deciding which marketing projects to focus on, we would be happy to talk to you about it.

Categories
Sales Support

Marketing & Sales Alignment Better Supports Capital Raising

Do you remember the game telephone when you were a kid? At one end of the line, your friend said “Chuck E. Cheese” and what you ended-up actually hearing was “Would you please?”

Communication Between Marketing and Sales

A game of telephone is exactly what it can be like when the marketing and sales teams don’t talk to each other. They are hearing direction from the management team and attempting to translate it into what the sales team needs from marketing.

That can often end up in a high-level mandate of: “We need more marketing materials,” “We need more leads,” or “We need more marketing activity.”

But what does that really mean? And what is the true need the sales team is expressing?

What I found in my experience is that when the people who are doing the work sit down and talk to each other, a lot of great things can happen. It opens the lines of communication to really understand what the needs of the sales team are. In our view, this is exactly what marketing should be focusing on. Syncing with the sales team.

The Feedback Loop

When sales and marketing start talking, you open a feedback loop that will allow you to create more impactful marketing materials that start and support sales conversations. The worst place to be as a marketing professional in our industry is working in a vacuum. Interaction and feedback from the sales team is critical to your success and your firm’s ability to raise capital.

As you open the lines of communication with the sales team, you may learn that they are continually encountering a certain objection that current marketing materials don’t address. Or you may learn that the same question is coming up that is blocking advisors from making the next step in investing capital with your firm. A marketing piece answering that question may help smooth the interaction and better support the sales team.

As you open the lines of communication and listen to feedback from the sales team, you’ll learn what’s working and what isn’t, as well as which topics need to be highlighted a little bit more. The conversations may also lead to ideas for other types of campaigns you can create from the marketing perspective.

Some friendly advice: salespeople love to share their opinions! Don’t take it personally. Your goal is to produce marketing that helps bring capital in the door. When you determine what this is for, your firm and for your salespeople will take some iterations. You will put out pieces that flop…it’s inevitable since marketing and what resonates with advisors over time is not static and not black and white. Do not take feedback from the sales team personally, but do take it to heart and make your next piece even better.

It Pays to Communicate

It pays to continue to meet with the sales team, have regular meetings and open the lines of communication. Start a weekly meeting between marketing and sales to get the ball rolling. Get to know each other and help each other bring capital in the door.

Syncing marketing and sales is one of our sweet spots. We love finding the gaps and bridging them so your firm can solidly compete in a crowded marketplace.

Contact us if you’re feeling tension between marketing and sales, or if you’re feeling like you’re working in a vacuum, disconnected with sales. We’d love to help sync your marketing to the sales team’s needs.

Categories
Marketing Management Sales Support

Is Marketing Ready for a Hybrid Sales Model?

The sales process changed tremendously this year as wholesalers learned to build relationships and trust with advisors remotely.

As the pandemic continues so will virtual sales, with many firms planning to adopt a hybrid sales model even when our lives return to normal. Which means marketing has to change too.

A Marketing Metamorphosis

Marketing has started taking a bigger role at the front end of the sales process. According to Discovery Data, advisors now make it 57% of the way through the buying process before they engage with someone from your firm. With less involvement from a wholesaler at the critical early stages of the sales process, marketing has to morph its approach to attract advisors and keep them engaged.

Attract Attention

Think about how your firm can get noticed in the sea of product sponsors marketing to the same advisors you are. Competing products typically offer the same or similar portfolio benefits yours do.

Make a positive first impression by ditching your product pitch and focusing on how you can help advisors do their job. What problem do you solve for their clients?

Keep your messaging clear and brief. Give advisors key information so they engage with your firm.

Create a Positive Experience

Once marketers have successfully attracted advisors’ attention, it’s important to focus on creating a positive experience. Much of which centers around your website. Use it to make a powerful impression on advisors – not simply as a place to post your latest marketing material.

Evaluate your site to make sure it’s easy to quickly understand what your firm does without jargon. And create a clear information path for advisors. This is particularly important when your website is designed to appeal to multiple audiences.

Check to be sure your site functions properly with all links and PDFs current. An outdated website can give a negative impression of your firm’s ability to provide ongoing updates to advisors and their clients.

Build Trust

Part of marketing’s job is to build trust and credibility with advisors in the digital realm. Provide the opportunity for them to learn about your management team and track record.

Show advisors you’re interested in them beyond an investment. Educate them. Deliver thoughtful and meaningful insights to help them make the right choice for their clients. Act as their partner in building their business and serving their clients.

We’ll Help You Differentiate Your Firm

You can differentiate your firm by creating a positive advisor experience. Schedule a time to learn how to start that process with website improvements.

Move advisors from researching your firm to investing in it.

Schedule a time for more information.

Categories
Sales Support

Marketing & Sales Alignment: Small Adjustments for Optimal Capital Raising

When I was young, I remember my dad mowing the lawn. At times, the mower would barely start and other times, it would sputter and choke. Dad would take the mower into the garage, make a couple of adjustments and get right back out to finish the lawn.

Capital raising works much the same way. At times it feels like the engine is sputtering and about to stall. When capital raising goals aren’t being met, part of, if not the entire problem in my experience, has been a disconnect between sales and marketing.

The Cost of Misalignment

Marketing and sales misalignment costs businesses a significant amount of money in both capital raising and revenue each year. It’s cited as one of the top reasons for declines or stagnation from year to year.

On a morale level, when marketing and sales aren’t aligned, team members from both departments feel like their work is underappreciated and wasted. This makes it difficult for them to generate inspired and quality work – and contributes to inefficiencies between and within both departments.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Small Adjustments Make a Big Difference

Making small changes to how sales and marketing are aligned and focused can make a big difference. It doesn’t take a major overhaul or expensive software to sync the teams up. Below are three adjustments you can make now to start aligning marketing and sales.

  1. Communicate. While sales and marketing teams interact with each other daily, they often don’t really communicate. I’ve seen firsthand how improved communication can make a significant difference in sales results.
  2. Focus, focus, focus. On the right clients and their needs. Which type of advisors or firms are being targeted? Why? What are you trying to communicate? Why? What information do clients need? Why?
  3. Align goals & share rewards. Keep both teams moving north toward common and well-communicated goals. Structure rewards so both marketing and sales share in success.

Position your firm for stronger capital raising.

For a confidential conversation about how we can help, schedule a time.

Categories
Sales Support

Nothing Happens Until Something is Sold: Marketing’s New Role in the Sales Process

Alternative investment product sponsors deeply understand the truth of “nothing happens until something is sold” as they rebuild their selling groups and base of advisors with each new offering.

In today’s world of major market disruptions, public health issues and personal distractions, the job of wholesalers to gain or even maintain advisor mindshare and raise capital can be more difficult than usual. By taking on a new role in the sales process, marketing can help strengthen advisor relationships and contribute to capital raising efforts.

Marketing’s Old Role

Before we talk about marketing’s new role in helping the sales team, let’s take a look at the role marketing departments often play at alternative investment product sponsors.

They fulfill orders. Sales leads the charge and tells marketing what they need. And marketing produces it – no questions asked. After all, sales knows what they need, right? 

Wrong…and right. When sales requests a specific marketing tool, they have identified a gap in information either for themselves, or more importantly, for advisors. When sales translates that gap into a particular marketing tool vs. sharing the why behind the request, marketing doesn’t have the opportunity to explore and develop the best solution.

This is not an ill intention of the sales team – but rather an extension of who they are. They are idea people, people-people, problem solvers, and capital raisers.

And it’s not ill-intended on the side of marketing either. Oftentimes, marketing teams are not resourced with the time or experience to dig further into the root of the sales request, so they simply fulfill it and move on. Over time though, this approach can further strap marketing teams for resources as their load of ongoing, one-off marketing pieces to update grows, leaving even less time to plan strategic marketing programs.

Marketing’s New Role

In its new role, marketing works collaboratively with sales to understand the advisor’s experience and improve it, removing friction points and helping sales build stronger relationships. Marketing often makes the first – and most critical – impression of the firm on advisors. They control how easy it is for advisors to get information, the timeliness and consistency of critical updates, and the translation of a product into stories that resonate with both advisors and their clients. 

How Does Marketing Move into Its New Role?

The first step in marketing assuming a strong and prominent role in the sales process is to gain a deep understanding of advisors, their challenges, successes and perceptions/opinions of product sponsors.

Marketing can gather some of this information by meeting with both internal and external wholesalers, but it’s critical for them to also have firsthand experience with advisors, sitting in on sales calls and meetings.

Then, marketing can evaluate the experience they create for advisors. How easy or hard is it for advisors to build a relationship with the firm and do business with you? And how easy or hard is it for wholesalers to develop strong relationships with advisors?

With the rough spots identified, marketing can develop plans and programs for a smoother and more streamlined advisor experience.

Where Should Marketing Start?

While marketing works on a longer-term plan to move into a more strategic role focused on partnering with sales and refining the advisor experience, there are steps they can take to start heading down that path immediately.

  1. Communicate with sales. Let them know about the new role marketing is starting to take to better serve advisors, to become a more collaborative partner to sales, and to help raise more capital.
  2. Tap into sales knowledge. Until marketing can get a firsthand understanding of advisors, tap into the knowledge of the sales team on the advisor experience. Oftentimes friction points for the sales team will also be friction points for advisors. Focus on the top three to start creating a more positive experience for advisors.
  3. Ask why. When sales requests a particular marketing piece, seek more information to uncover the problem sales is trying to solve. Consider the problem and what the best marketing solution is to improve the advisor experience around the issue.
  4. Reduce materials. Take a hard look at all the pieces marketing maintains and discuss with sales to determine if any can be eliminated or combined.

The experience an advisor has with your firm can be the difference between never offering your products and becoming a loyal producer. Marketing plays a critical role in making sure the advisor experience is streamlined, positive and positioned to bring in capital.

Need help evaluating the experience your marketing team is creating for advisors?

Set up a time to chat about how we can help.

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