Episode 73: How Do I Move Deals Through the Funnel | Story Snacks Series

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Struggling to win investors over? Stop wasting time perfecting your pitch and start laying the groundwork that’ll actually help you seal the deal. 

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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 Story Snacks, bite sized content to feed your funnel. Each short episode features Stacy digging into one question. This series has her talking stories, sales, and so much more. Oh yeah, it's time for StorySnacks.

[00:00:26] How can we move deals through the funnel? Okay, great question. I'm gonna go back to two other things we've talked about and or two of my favorite frameworks if I haven't talked about them on the podcast yet. And then I'm going to give you like one of our favorite things to do that might be new. Okay.

[00:00:45] First, in your sales stages, We are all gunning for getting an investor, right? I mean, that's like the name of the game. We want assets in the door. That's the ultimate win, but that's later. [00:01:00] There's a whole bunch of what we call incremental commitments that happen in every stage of the sales funnel. And that is the only thing you're trying to close.

[00:01:11] in each one of those stages. So for example, if someone expresses interest in your strategy and you do a discovery call with them, the next thing that you might want is to understand what's important to them in the search. You want to get the criteria from them of like, Here's what I'm looking at, or here's why I have a search going on, I'm trying to complement something, I'm replacing an existing strategy, here are my criteria, like here's what matters to me, here's what I'm doing now, and what I don't like about it.

[00:01:48] You might want that level of depth. That's a win if you get it, okay? So that's an example of an incremental commitment. Or perhaps you want to schedule a call with a fund [00:02:00] manager. That's an example of an incremental commitment. Those are all things on the way to closing the deal. So that's one thing you need to focus on.

[00:02:09] And it's an ask. So anytime there's an ask, Or give, give, give, ask framework should kick in, which says that the law of reciprocity, human behavior being everything, is that if somebody gives something freely to us, we feel more inclined to reciprocate that, okay? Now that always feels a little like tough to me.

[00:02:34] I don't want you to like be giving because you want to ask. The idea is to give an unencumbered give. There is no a, there's no nothing attached to it, but ultimately it is behavioral and you are doing it because there's a purpose at the end. Who cares? Okay? Just be a go giver. So in any given month. Let's say there's typically four weeks.

[00:02:58] This works really nice because [00:03:00] you give without an ask. One week, two weeks, three weeks. Give, give, give. No ask. End of the month, you come in. And you ask, not for the business, unless that's where you are in the process, but for the incremental commitment of the stage that they are in. And you've sort of been in their inbox and being helpful and being supportive and being specific.

[00:03:22] And now you're sort of asking like, Hey, are we moving forward to the next stage? Totally legit, totally a reasonable question to ask. Okay, so that's awesome. But one of our more favorite gives for a later stage due diligence deal, meaning that you are in the literal due diligence stage or below in our sales funnel at this point in the deal.

[00:03:48] You understand what the allocator is trying to accomplish. You have that criteria that they're trying to meet. You know how they've been solving the problem in the past and what they liked about that solution and what [00:04:00] they don't like about it. So you have a whole bunch of really good information that allows you to put yourself in the allocator's shoes.

[00:04:09] If you don't, that is the thing you need to go get. By the way, but let's say that you do. Then what I want you to do is be an extension of their research team. Literally, I want you to walk from your side of the desk to the other side next to them. You're now on the research committee. The allocator is your boss.

[00:04:29] Let's just say to really get into the part, okay, and I want you to go do their work. I want you to help them out. They are busy. They don't have time to do all this work. So just help. What can you pull together that would help them do their research, present to their investment committee, whatever it is.

[00:04:49] We do two things. We have an analytics report that we create for every client we're raising money for and it's something that an allocator might also create, [00:05:00] but we do it too. So we give them our research. We also give them a breakdown of all the things that they said are important to them in this search and how we show up against those criteria.

[00:05:15] Yeah. just different things that they might not be able to see in a database or on a fact sheet or in an analytics report. We give them some color commentary, but we basically break all that down for them. You said this was important to you. Here are some things to look at. Here's some info against that.

[00:05:33] Here's, yes, we have that and we beat it by, you know, X, blah, blah, blah. So, that whole thing, the analytics report, plus that detailed, long email. It's the only time we write a long email, which we call our competitive analysis email. That is one of our favorite ways. to move a late stage deal forward. Hope that helps.

[00:05:59] Are you an [00:06:00] 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.

[00:06:14] 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, and refresh your differentiators.

[00:06:32] 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.

[00:06:59] [00:07:00] 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.

[00:07:19] 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 Stacy Havener or Havener Capital Partners.

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