Episode 65: What to Do When Your Fund Manager Isn’t Great at Storytelling | Story Snacks Series

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Great with numbers but suck at storytelling? No worries.

On this episode of Story Snacks, we’re helping sales and marketing teams step up, take the reins, and make sure everyone in the room looks like a rockstar–especially when the fund manager isn’t a natural storyteller.

Listen in as Stacey covers:

How acknowledging that not everyone is a natural born storyteller is perfectly fine
How sales and marketing pros can take an active role in meetings to ensure the fund manager shines
Tips to steer fund managers back on track-without creating awkwardness
Unique cases like turning unconventional communication styles into winning strategies

A fund manager’s lack of storytelling skills isn’t a deal-breaker. It’s an opportunity for sales and marketing teams to step up, orchestrate the conversation, and make the entire team shine.

This is Story Snacks! A bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in less than 20 minutes per week!

TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: Craving more knowledge, but don't always have time to sit down for a five course meal? Take a quick snack break with StorySnacks. Bite sized content to feed your funnel. Each short episode features Stacey digging into one question. This series has her talking stories, sales, and so much more. Oh yeah, it's time for StorySnacks.

[00:00:25] So what should you do if your fund manager isn't great at storytelling? Let I love this question because it's very, very real, and it's so okay, by the way. Let's just talk about why it's okay for a second. Everyone has a unique ability. A fund manager's unique ability is not typically sales, marketing, storytelling, it might not even be personal interaction might not be their unique ability, right?

[00:00:54] I mean, this is a very specific personality type and [00:01:00] beautiful mind that doesn't always feel confident in social settings. So it is okay if your fund manager is not great at storytelling. That does not mean you will not raise money, okay? So it's okay if your fund manager is not great at storytelling.

[00:01:19] Somebody has to be. If your fund manager is not, which is going to be the typical situation, then guess who has to be? You! Which is great because sales and marketing people, that is typically our unique ability. This kind of goes to a meeting a little bit, but I want to give everybody permission that it is okay if you're not great at it.

[00:01:40] What I want you to think about is that the job of the salesperson in a meeting is very specific. What I have seen happen that is bad is the salesperson comes into a meeting, [00:02:00] says, Hi, allocator. Meet fund manager. zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket, you don't say another thing for the rest of the time.

[00:02:08] Why are you there? You have literally no role. Okay, that's the old way. We're not going to do that anymore. The new way, especially if your fund manager is not good at storytelling, is that you are like the, I was going to say Johnny Carson, but I feel that's very dating. It's really dating me here. So like insert whatever talk show host is cool.

[00:02:32] I don't even know who to say. Jimmy Fallon. Okay. Better. You're Jimmy Fallon and you're coming into this meeting. It's your show. This is my meeting and your job as the sales and marketing person is to make sure, again, you're Jimmy Fallon, everybody looks like a rock star and everybody gets their questions answered.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Okay, everybody really meaning the allocator, but you want your fund manager to look like a rock star and you're going to help them do that. So what that means is when you sit down, you have to have a voice in the meeting. You're going to do the agenda. You're going to do all the things you're moderating.

[00:03:17] You're, you have an active voice, an active role in the meeting. And the reason that this is so important. To the question about the fund manager not being good at storytelling is because when you start to involve the fund manager in the conversation, you've already established yourself as a speaker, as a voice, so you can help them.

[00:03:40] So for example, if the allocator asks a question of the fund manager and the fund manager starts to talk and takes like a hard left into like tangent town, you can respectfully let them tangent a little bit and say, I know fund manager, you could talk about that forever. I know it's a super big passion for you, [00:04:00] but I want to get you back to the question Ms.

[00:04:04] Allocator asked here, which is this, and there's no awkwardness to it. Do you see how that flows? So I think. The trick with a manager who is not comfortable with story is to help them, is to ask them questions, restate questions from the allocator, let them answer, guide them, take them back, take them away from that tangent.

[00:04:29] So, and you know what happens with that? They are going to love you. They are going to want you in every meeting right by their side because you are making them look like a rock star and they trust you. They know that you've got their back. So I have so many examples and things I could unpack with this one.

[00:04:48] I was going to say, I want to be respectful of your time, but it's a podcast. I don't even really know how that applies. It's supposed to be a snack. So. I would say the other thing, and maybe we'll talk [00:05:00] about this more in another podcast episode. is the most extreme example of this would be a manager that literally just can't answer a linear specific question.

[00:05:14] And I've had this situation where the manager was on the spectrum and again, was a beautiful mind. And people were like, you can't have them in the meeting because they will ruin it. And I actually took the other side of this, which is to say, I want them in the meeting. I think they're incredibly special.

[00:05:34] But we have to put them in the right light. And so what we did was we just shared that with the allocator Like this is not the person you're going to ask the risk management questions to this is not the person You're going to say take me through your process from start to finish We have other people on the investment team you can talk to about that.

[00:05:53] But at the end You're going to get to meet this incredible amazing brilliant [00:06:00] mind And here's what's going to happen. They might come in the room and just, I have no idea what they're going to talk about, but I can tell you, it's going to be amazing. And I want you to just sit back and take in that magic.

[00:06:13] And that was the best raise, the fastest raise we ever did. I have goosebumps just talking about it because people loved that fund manager when we let them just be.

[00:06:28] Are you an investment boutique looking to grow your business and need a little help? If you feel like you're fighting for the spotlight and well, still stuck in the shadows of the bigs, join us in the Boutique Investment Collective, Havener's new membership community dedicated to the specialist in the investment industry.

[00:06:44] In the collective, we'll guide you through the billion dollar blueprint we've used to help boutiques add over 30 billion in AUM. You'll refine your story, focus on your ideal target market, and practice your pitch. You'll rethink your marketing materials, rewrite your emails, [00:07:00] and refresh your differentiators.

[00:07:02] We'll even help you step up your LinkedIn game and give your profile a makeover. You want to grow your biz? We've got your back. Learn more about The Collective, the curriculum, and the amazing coaches who will help you on your journey. Visit havenercapital. com slash collective. High five! Hope to see you in a coaching session soon.

[00:07:28] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.

[00:07:48] All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener [00:08:00] Capital Partners.