Asset Manager Consultant Survey Results Andy Curtis & Brian Haskin Anthem Marketing Solutions
2012 Asset Manager Consultant Survey Results Asset management firms must work closely with consulting firms to service existing relationships, get products approved, and win new mandates. Typically, firms have dedicated professionals who are responsible for covering consulting firms, servicing existing clients, and selling directly to institutional investors. In order to help firms improve the productivity of their consultant relationship professionals, we surveyed 39 executives at asset management firms that manage collectively more than $2 trillion. Figure 1: Assets Under Management of Firms Participating in Survey Five Areas, Three Metrics Through our survey, we investigated five major areas of how a firm could improve its consultant relationship efforts. Strategic Planning covers all the efforts around account planning, setting goals for meetings, searches, and prioritizing consulting firms. Marketing Strategy encompasses the use of white papers, webinars, and web portals and their impact on consultant search activity. Consultant Relationship Building Strategy explores whether actively targeting decision makers and building deep relationships throughout the consultant organization results in more business. Sales Management demonstrates whether or not techniques like setting activity targets and linking compensation with search activity drive increased consultant channel productivity. Finally, the Reporting Management section tells us how firms are using their CRM systems. Figure 2: Five Areas to Enhance Consultant Relationship Effectiveness Strategic Planning Process Marketing Strategy Consultant Relationship Building Strategy Sales Management Reporting Strategy 1
To understand the relationship between these five sections and the effectiveness of consultant relationship professionals, we correlated the survey responses for these five areas with the reported information on the number of searches per salesperson, finals per salesperson, and new mandates per salesperson. Figure 3: Search-to-Win Progression Searches Finals Wins Survey Results From the consultant sales funnel, we wanted to know which behaviors were most correlated with getting in searches, being invited to finals presentations, and winning new business. The results of the survey impressed upon us how building consultant relationships are based on tried-and-true sales techniques making phone calls, getting meetings, and ultimately providing great service to the consultant organizations. How to Get More Searches Figure 4: Correlation of Response to Searches per Salesperson Searches Number of Calls 0.45 Activity Targets 0.38 Number of Meetings 0.22 Annual Goals -0.26 Forecast Support Needs -0.27 Note: Correlation is a statistical measurement between two variables where 1 is a perfect positive relationship, 0 is no relationship, and -1 is a perfect negative relationship. The most important factor that affects search invitations was the number of phone calls the sales team made. If you are not actively reaching out and maintaining a dialogue with consultants, your firm will not be top of mind when a new search is launched. So it is essential to manage your sales team such that they are focused on doing the things that make a difference, such as making calls and getting face-to-face meetings. 2
We were surprised by negative factors concerned with driving more search activity, but ultimately it makes sense. Focus your efforts on what you can control. Can you control how many new mandates you will get? Are you good at forecasting how much new business you get from a particular consulting firm? The answer is universally No. Accordingly, it is much more import to focus on what you can control, and this ends up being those items that have the greatest correlation with success. How to Get More Finals Presentations Figure 5: Correlations to Finals per Salesperson Finals Number of Calls 0.26 Link Compensation 0.23 Time with Prospect 0.22 Number of Firms Covered 0.21 Align Territory 0.18 Once again, getting on the phone is the most important driver of getting into more finals presentations. The next most important factor is creating the right environment to win new business. Specifically, the firm should link compensation with the amount search activity generated something the salesperson can control. Please note that this is not assets raised this is number of meetings, searches, and finals presentations. Additionally, the salesperson should be focused on prospecting with a fairly robust list of consulting firms in a specified territory. Here focus does matter. If the consultant professional is busy flying around the country, she is spending less time actually talking to and meeting with consultants. How to Win More Finals Presentations Figure 6: Correlations to Wins per Salesperson Wins Response Time 0.31 Link Compensation 0.24 Time with Prospect 0.20 Consultant Pipeline 0.16 Web Portal -0.21 The most important driver of winning new business is servicing the consulting firm. Readily responding to information requests for existing clients and new searches demonstrates that your firm is committed to servicing clients, employs a strong operational team, and has a robust back-office. Next, leading firms are focusing their consultant relations efforts on reaching out to end prospects while linking compensation to search activity, as we discussed in the finals section. Additionally, we found that it s important for a firm to track its product through the consultant-approval process and continuously evaluate the next steps for moving toward product approval. Finally, the one significant negative factor we uncovered was establishing a web portal. This is because asset management is a relationship business, and a web portal takes away the most positive contact in winning additional business great customer service. 3
Figure 7: Consultant Product Approval Funnel Approved Rated Due Diligence Initial Meeting Conclusion Throughout the consultant relationship survey process, several points came to light over and over again. Relationships are key; but it s better to cover a fairly robust list of consultants rather than having deep relationships with a small number of firms. Additionally, effort put into processes that automate your consultant relationships, such as web portals, is not correlated with the overall goal of winning new business. What is critical is providing great customer service with prompt and accurate responses to information requests. Finally, the most important point to take home is to devote resources to what you can control. This means more phone calls, more meetings, and better presentations, which will drive home more wins for your firm. 4
About Anthem Marketing Solutions We are marketing and media strategists armed with the analytical capabilities and product solutions you need to deliver on your goals. We ve taken our experience from years as practitioners and formulated tools and approaches that quickly deliver high-impact results. Our solutions are built on a foundation of insights from your internal data, in the context of your customers and marketing environment. Sales Alpha TM is an in-depth companion to CRM platforms that will increase the impact of your B2B sales and marketing efforts. This Anthem Marketing solution will enhance your existing CRM program using a multi-step approach that leverages data you are currently capturing to deliver custom plans and insights, allowing you to: 1. Configure your CRM system to reflect your sales process 2. Benchmark current sales and marketing efforts against objectives 3. Analyze and segment customers and prospects 4. Build custom management reports and dashboards About the Authors Andy Curtis is a Senior Director at Anthem Marketing Solutions, where he leads the firm s efforts around improving the relevancy and impact of digital media and CRM marketing efforts for the firm s clients. He has helped a range of organizations enhance the utilization and segmentation of customer data to create and execute more targeted, and cost effective, sales and marketing campaigns. At Anthem, his engagements include working with leading financial and consumer-oriented firms such as Janus Capital Group, Groupon, and Scotts. Prior to joining Anthem, Andy held marketing and product strategy positions with J.P. Morgan, Ariel Investments, and Analytic Investors. Additionally, he was a Vice President at Kestnbaum Consulting, where he managed client relationships with Conde-Nast, Disney, LL Bean, Lufthansa, JC Penney, and Microsoft. Andy received his Bachelor s degree and MBA from the University of Chicago. Brian Haskin is a Senior Strategy Consultant with Anthem Marketing Solutions. Brian has over 18 years of experience leading and growing institutional asset management firms in the U.S., Australia and Asia. He has successfully worked with large, mid-sized and small asset management firms in the design and execution of CRM implementation, sales strategy, client segmentation and management, product development, branding and organizational design. His hands on experience ranges from leading a small $3 billion asset management firm through a rapid growth phase and into a globally recognized firm with peak assets of more than $12 billion, to establishing and managing the Asian headquarters for a large, multi-national, multi-product investment management firm. Prior to his role with Anthem, Brian held senior leadership positions in the areas of sales, client service, marketing, product development and investment strategy with BlackRock, Deutsche Bank, Wilshire Associates and Analytic Investors. Brian received his Bachelor s degree from the University of Southern California and his MBA from the University of Chicago. 5