Marketing Your Fund To And Through Consultants And Gatekeepers

It is often said that ‘soft’ manager qualities are frequently what separates a fund from it competitors. Investment consulting firms have been paying greater attention to ‘soft’, subjective factors in assessing money managers. Firms that place a greater emphasis on increasing and demonstrating transparency in their communications and processes are favored.

Assuming you were delivering acceptable risk/return characteristics and met AUM size and track record length requirements, did your firm find itself favored over the past year compared to its competitors?

Institutional consultants and gatekeepers recognize that quantitative data on performance does not provide them with enough information for recommending one money manager over another. In fact, sophisticated investors conducting money manager due diligence have been complaining for years that managers from different firms are presenting charts and pitches so similar that differentiation between them is hard to ascertain.

While improvements in technology and increasing data transparency has made it easier to access and manipulate quantitative data, that doesn’t explain how a portfolio manager assembled and managed his basket of holdings. Much value is given to those portfolio managers who are able to communicate a clear picture of the process they are following. Remember, process is one of the things that institutional investor clients are paying their consultants and gatekeepers to identify, pass judgment on, and be able to explain to them.

Sophisticated investors look to seek out money managers who have the ability to articulate both the benefits and weaknesses of their product, there is a problem. Many find that asset managers frequently struggle to articulate this, especially during introductory meetings where differentiation is key, and junior or unprepared staff can become a huge detractor from consideration. Asset managers need to work harder to differentiate their philosophy and approach relative to competitors.

This raises two vital questions for your money management firm that affect its ability to be understood by the consultants and gatekeepers you need to sell to and through. How easy have you made it for skeptical prospective investors and those who influence them to understand your investment philosophy and process so they buy into your portfolio management story? Have you clearly differentiated your strategy from those of similar performing competitors?

Time for a self-examination

Here is a tip. Reexamine the written marketing collateral you use throughout the selling cycle. You do, of course, have more than just a monthly performance sheet and a flip chart that delivers more performance related data, staff bios and a few bullet points labeled Philosophy and Process, right? Take out a yellow highlighter and highlight each detailed bit of copy that educates and persuades people to understand and buy into your investment philosophy and the process you use in managing your portfolio. Now, go back and reread the highlighted bits. Is this content really enough of an explanation as to how you think and run your portfolio? If this is what you read of a competitor would you feel that it was a complete-sounding explanation?

If the answer is No, then you need to rethink what your investing storyline is and how to better explain it in print. Remember, your printed marketing collateral is what represents you when you are not there in the room with the consultant and his team, or his investor client. Your investment beliefs and process storyline needs to be both complete and easy to comprehend and digest; not some hodgepodge of disparate jigsaw puzzle pieces the consultant has to figure out how to assemble in order to get the picture of you and your firm.

If chunks of your storyline are missing, you need to give a rethink as to how you are spending your face time in sales presentations communicating the crucial ‘soft’ manager qualities for which consultants and gatekeepers are on the lookout. In both your written and oral presentations it is the storyline about how you think and invest that is key.

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© 2025 Frumerman & Nemeth Inc.

Bruce Frumerman is CEO of Frumerman & Nemeth Inc., a 37-year-old financial communications and sales marketing consultancy that helps financial services firms create brand identities for their organizations and develop and implement effective new marketing strategies and programs. Frumerman & Nemeth’s work has helped money management firm clients attract over $7 billion in new assets, yet they are not third-party marketers.

Frumerman & Nemeth is internationally recognized for its work in crafting for clients the beyond-the-numbers story of how they invest — content that investment committees actually discuss, debate and vote on behind closed doors when considering firms on a short list for potential investment. Importantly, this is required due diligence content that cannot be communicated in pitchbook format.

Frumerman & Nemeth’s work also includes providing strategic consulting on product and strategy-specific branding, crafting the required strategy-specific content detail and designing and producing the marketing tools needed to make it through the two-month to two-year institutional selling cycle. Clients also employ Frumerman & Nemeth to help promote the intellectual acumen of management — helping them get speaking opportunities, write and give speeches as panelists or stand-alone speakers at industry conferences, and through media relations marketing services.

Mr. Frumerman can be reached at info@frumerman.com, or by visiting www.frumerman.com.