Time Management Archives • Marketing Intent

The book, Essentialism – The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown struck a chord with us when we think about marketing for our clients. The premise of the book is to understand what’s essential to what you do and focus on that. It’s not the pursuit of doing less, it’s the pursuit of doing more of what really matters. Read on to learn how this applies to asset manager marketing.

It’s All About Raising Capital

There’s a lot of marketing that’s done today simply because people think it should be done. But much of it doesn’t go to the end of raising capital for asset managers. Our approach is to take some of the principles from Greg McKeown’s book and apply them to our clients to help them focus on pursuing what really matters – which is raising capital. We review our clients’ marketing programs and plans to ensure they support their capital raising efforts and goals.

Syncing Sales and Marketing

A key way we do this is by syncing marketing efforts with the sales team, and understanding what their needs are. As we evaluate marketing pieces, create strategies and draft content, we think through how we can help the sales team have better conversations with advisors. What objections can we address head on? What product structure complexity can we explain? What differentiator can we highlight? What is the story we’re telling about the product and asset class? This is essential work and should be the focus of any marketing team in the alternative investment industry.

Using Time Wisely

Another aspect of Essentialism we practice with clients is the best use of time – who is best suited to do which tasks. We are skilled at developing marketing strategies, writing content and creating compelling designs to help asset managers stand out with financial advisors and capture mindshare. We bring these contributions to your firm often alongside marketing teams you have in-house – and even alongside other marketing firms that are handling other aspects of your firm’s business.

Our Essential Role

We see our essential role as consulting you on industry best practices and trends, pushing you ahead of your competitors in awareness of your brand and investment offerings and starting conversations with advisors that open doors for your sales team. Your internal team may be best suited to navigate the materials review process at your firm, provide background information to us, manage your email program and plan events. We can do these things for our clients, but our essential work comes in the insights we offer that no one else at your firm has the time, experience or background to offer. Our goal is to make our clients’ investment in Marketing Intent go the furthest.

If you’d like to explore further how we can support your firm’s capital raising efforts and focus on what is essential as far as marketing goes, reach out to us.

You’re short staffed, buried in work and you know you should delegate to get out from underneath it and get caught up on your marketing tasks, but you’re not. Why aren’t you delegating? Even seasoned marketing managers fall victim to the “I can do everything myself” or “I can do it better myself” mentality.

Let’s discuss ways to overcome some of the obstacles we feel when managing marketing and delegating – as well as opportunities to potentially outsource delegation to an outside marketing firm.

Some managers fear delegation because it hasn’t worked out well for them in the past. In my 25+ years of managing marketing teams, I have found that it comes down to delegating to the right people.

There are four different personality traits that I found are critical when you’re choosing who you’re delegating to.

Strong Sense of Responsibility

First is a strong sense of responsibility and a commitment to the company. You want somebody who is dedicated and interested in their career growth, as well as the mission of the company and feels excited about it. That energy then translates into wanting to accept the additional responsibility of delegation.

Intuitive Communication Skills

Next is intuitive communication skills. I always think of this as understanding the communication needs of the target audience, which in this case is myself, or you, if you’re the manager. You want to make sure that the person you’re delegating to understands what you need to know and when you need to know it. They need to give you updates that make you feel comfortable, without feeling like you have to pry for information, or that you aren’t getting what you need.

Strong Project Management Skills

The next is really strong project management skills. It’s important for whoever you’re delegating to, to understand the overall project and how to move it along. I like to know that the person understands “Plan A,” but that they also have a “Plan B” and even a “Plan C” at times, in their back pocket. They can then keep the project going and moving along if they encounter any obstacles.

Confident Individuals

Next are individuals who are confident in themselves. You want to make sure that you have a team or a person you’re delegating to that is solutions oriented. They need to be trying to solve a problem that comes up versus coming to you as a safety net when things get hard. They figure out how to address red flags and put projects back on track. This is somebody who feels comfortable and confident in challenging situations, but also makes solutions a reality.

Self Reflection

Let’s move on to our next topic – which can be harder because it requires self-reflection. Oftentimes managers want to take credit for everything the team does, and they feel like in order to do that, they have to do all of the work. They take more of an “I” approach to managing marketing than a “WE” approach.

What I found in my career is that a “WE” approach is much more effective in motivating a team, as well as lightening your own workload, so you can dedicate your time to the tasks and projects that require your attention. If you think about how to motivate your team and elevate each member to work to their maximum potential, there’s much more that a marketing team can accomplish, than if everyone is working on their own.

Delegation to an Outside Firm

When it comes to delegation, marketing managers don’t often think about using an outside marketing resource. Consider projects you just aren’t getting to, or projects that you need help with to push them across the finish line. These are great areas where an outside marketing resource can help.

An outside marketing firm can also help fill in areas that aren’t your strong suit.

If you’re not an organized person, try to find a marketing firm that is. If you’re looking for a little bit more creativity, then make it criteria to select a firm. Once you have that alignment, you can start out with a small project to make sure you’re developing trust, and then you can move on to delegating out bigger projects.

If you’re finding yourself underwater and need help managing your marketing load, we at Marketing Intent would be happy to explore delegation to us, with you.

Let's start your marketing with intent.

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