Sep 29 2016 | 5:46pm ET Hedge Fund Marketing – Tips for Your Initial Sales Meeting by Bruce Frumerman There are two main goals your hedge fund should set for its first in-person sales meeting with prospects. The first is to learn more from the family office, endowment, foundation, fund of funds, independent RIA wealth management firm or institutional plan sponsor about their portfolios, and their investment plans and needs. The second is to effectively tell your hedge fund’s story and the role it could play within the prospective investor’s total portfolio, provided there is a fit. Is your hedge fund fully prepared to thoughtfully use the time allotted in its first in-person meeting with a prospect? Here is a reminder checklist of content that needs to be delivered and explained to investors to further your firm within their due diligence process as they evaluate whether to allocate to you or a competitor. In telling your firm’s story, there are four key topic areas that the hedge fund portfolio manager or sales person should be covering at that first meeting: the fund’s numbers, the back office, the front office, and of course, the strategy. Naturally, prior to being granted that first in-person meeting, the hedge fund needed to make it through a prospect’s initial vetting, determining whether it is worth the prospect’s time to take the meeting. A fund’s performance tear sheet or flipchart pitchbook are the documents investors most often receive from those seeking an audience with them. Fund data, staff bios and the firm’s list of service providers have already been fully read, or skimmed. So, it is rarely a ‘blank slate’ when the hedge fund firm first sits down with a prospect. http://www.finalternatives.com/node/33890?mc_cid=ed4617eb12&mc_eid=d03fd1041f
The real problem is that you won't be able to talk to any family office before you have 50m$ to 100m$. You won't be able to talk to endowment and foundations etc. before you have 1Bn$+, maybe some will talk to you with 500m$+. So the real question in hedge fund marketing is how do you get the first 50m$.