Monthly insights for investment marketing and sales professionals
February 2014
It can be a foundation for outstanding marketing communications. Or a showcase of all the shortcomings that typify investment marketing. Its production can be a genuine team effort, bringing together the best of investment management, sales, marketing and client service. Or it is created in a ghetto where people rarely receive recognition and respect. This issue of Excess Returns asks defining questions about what is arguably the most important, least effective marketing document: the library of Request for Proposal (RFP) responses.
With best wishes,
Liz Hecht
Founder, Principal and Director of Research
Alpha Partners is an investment marketing firm specializing in research and presentation strategy. Our goal is to create alpha (excess returns) by helping investment firms win, keep and diversify assets under management.
“Advisors who develop the same rigor of response that can marshal them successfully through the formal RFP game can use those same attributes to win business through other manager selection processes.”
Once upon a time, an industry acquaintance asked me for some advice. He was working for a small investment firm with aspirations of building institutional assets from a base of mainly high-net-worth clients. I suggested that he consider building a relationship with a leading manager of emerging managers (MOM). The right MOM relationship, I explained, would take time, but would provide a high-quality entrée into the institutional market. He thanked me, but when I heard from him again several months later, he was downcast about the due diligence required to build such a relationship. “Gee, Liz,” he lamented, “I made some calls but those questionnaires they wanted me to fill out … I mean, who has the time?”
I am familiar with such questionnaires and there is nothing unreasonably time-consuming about them. The questions focus on ownership and organizational structure, philosophy, process, track record, performance attribution and patterns of performance. Rigorous responses to these questions not only fulfill RFP* requirements but also animate any robust investment marketing effort.
This fellow’s response, however, exemplifies a shortcoming of many investment firms, from start-ups to multibillion-dollar global companies. Many small firms with mainly high-net-worth clients just want to pick stocks and quote Warren Buffett; they do not want to engage in the intellectual and creative heavy lifting required to develop a compelling set of RFP responses. And many large firms have automated the RFP process to the point where responding to major business opportunities has become nothing more than a gargantuan exercise in cut and paste.
10 Questions to Ask About Your Firm’s RFP Library
To define an optimum role for the RFP in your own company’s marketing initiatives, consider the following questions:
1.
Does your team maintain a library of responses to frequently asked questions for use not only in responding to RFPs but also in preparing more effectively for meetings and in educating new team members?
2.
Is your RFP boring, or does it capture the imagination of prospective investors with fresh examples of the investment philosophy and process?
3.
Based on a review of competitor proposals, does your firm’s response include an interesting, true, well-researched answer to the question, “What aspects of your firm’s investment approach differentiate your strategy from that of competitors?”
4.
Does the proposal communicate understanding of the goals of the investment mandate and an earnest desire to win the business?
5.
Does the RFP reflect reality and can key assertions be proven?
6.
Does it explicitly and fully address the questions being asked, or are some questions answered in a partial or oblique manner?
7.
Is the RFP organized in a way that facilitates review?
8.
Is the information provided consistent with information in other important documents such as the business plan and presentation book?
9.
Are the members of your RFP team treated with respect and paid well, with the opportunity to participate in self-study initiatives such as the CFA Institute’s CFA Program or Claritas programs?
10.
How does your firm measure the success of its RFP team’s efforts?
Several years ago, while working with a company in Paris, I almost gave up on obtaining the information needed to create a cogent investment philosophy and process description. The RFP in English provided almost no detail and (like so many RFP writers) I was granted virtually no access to the investment team. Finally, I had an idea. I asked for the RFP response in French and … Voilà! The French version provided a good foundation for our company’s work. Because it included an in-depth, narrative description of this team’s investment strategy, we were finally off and running. The RFP is the bedrock of any robust institutional marketing effort. That’s why all of our firm’s work in getting to know a company, regardless of the assignment, starts with a careful read of this document.
* For the sake of simplicity, this article uses the term “RFP,” “proposal” or “RFP Library” to apply to any set of narrative responses with data provided to prospective investors and consultants. This may be in the form of consultant database content, a response to a Request for Proposal or Request for Information (RFP or RFI) or an intranet providing responses to frequently asked questions.
Opportunity or Necessary Evil?
Marketing professionals and new business development executives frequently tell me that their firm seeks to move away from RFP-driven searches. The RFP process required in public fund searches is perceived as excessively bureaucratic or rigged against smaller companies. This may be true in some cases and, depending on the nature of the opportunity, it may make sense for your firm to bow out of certain searches. But this desire to avoid RFPs still misses the point. Even if your firm never needs to submit a formal proposal, everyone involved in building new business and servicing existing clients will benefit from access to an inspired set of narrative responses to frequently asked questions. Viewed in this way, the RFP is always an opportunity, regardless of whether one chooses to participate in a given search.
A Plan Sponsor’s Perspective
Often embedded in the belief that RFPs are to be avoided is the belief that institutional investors and their consultants do not really read RFPs. But of course they do. For an interesting tour of a plan sponsor’s take on diverse RFP responses, there is no better source than Philip Halpern’s book, Marketing Institutional Money Management Services. Mr. Halpern currently chairs the advisory board of Edgeline Capital Partners, a boutique private placement firm, and participates actively on a number of industry boards and investment committees. He previously led as Chief Investment Officer the endowments at The University of Chicago, Caltech and The Washington State Investment Board. I read his book when it first came out in 1995 and I still refer to it often. The chapter entitled “Request for Proposals and the Search” offers incisive commentary on diverse answers to frequently asked RFP questions.
Based on real RFP responses,** Mr. Halpern shares his views on what resonates and what repels. “The focus on top-down,” he notes of one company, “provides a consistency and discipline that most stock pickers do not have.” Regarding another firm’s philosophy statement, he comments: “Wyeth believes this and believes that, but why? For all the meaning that is conveyed, Wyeth might as well substitute the terms ‘apple pie,’ ‘mom,’ and ‘baseball’ for their descriptors … Introducing ‘value catalysts’ without explaining their significance is sloppy. There is no philosophy imparted here, only gobbledy-gook.”
Philip Halpern’s book makes it clear that key decision-makers read RFP responses carefully — and they also read between the lines.
** Mr. Halpern provides real RFP responses but fictionalizes the companies using the names of famous artists — for example, Bierstadt, Inc. or The Wyeth Company.
Monthly insights for investment marketing and sales professionals
February 2013
The incorrect address, the misplaced form, the embarrassing typo, the neglected piece of critical information … all the tiny shortcomings that day after day, mistake after mistake, make our lives more difficult and cost us money. This issue of Excess Returns considers the impact of carelessness: what causes it, how it may be affecting investment companies and what can be done to prevent it.
With best wishes,
Liz Hecht
Founder, Principal and Director of Research
Alpha Partners is an investment marketing firm specializing in research and presentation strategy. Our goal is to create alpha (excess returns) by helping investment firms win, keep and diversify assets under management.
My family’s recent decision to change banks, money managers and telephone systems has plunged us headlong into a whole new world: the world of carelessness. I already knew, only too well, that this world existed. But the vast, impenetrable extent of it was new to me.
We decided to change banks, money managers and phone systems in the first place because of carelessness (as in one mistake after another) combined with a growing sense that no one, well, cared. Changing service providers, however, required that we fill out numerous forms and become acquainted with hitherto unimagined levels of exactly what we sought to avoid: carelessness. When I explained to a potential new phone system salesperson that almost every piece of information on the contract she had provided, including the phone number, was incorrect, she said, “That’s strange.” I thought to myself, “No, it’s not strange at all. It’s a routine part of the cost of doing business in today’s world.”
What does all this have to do with investment marketing and sales? Plenty. Carelessness is alive and well in the investment business and its insidious presence may compromise your firm’s ability to win and keep assets under management in ways that you haven’t even considered.
Is Anyone Paying Attention?
Carelessness at investment management companies manifests itself in a number of obvious and painful ways:
Incorrect information. A War Story on our company’s website describes how several firms lost business purely because they neglected to include the prospective client’s full and correct name on the cover of their presentation books. (See “You Can Judge a Book by Its Cover” in the Alpha Partners’ War Story archive.)
Bad grammar and misspelled words. Think of all those teachers on the boards of teachers’ retirement systems. Will they want to pay your fees if your marketing materials contain grammatical errors, typos and all manner of inconsistent usage? The average teacher almost certainly understands the difference between a compliment and a complement. Yet some investment company professionals, in my experience, do not. What is a teacher to think when being asked to pay millions in fees annually to a company that misspells commonplace words? Or to a company that indulges in total schizophrenia regarding how to spell its products? (I have seen companies spell the name of their leading product three different ways — Small Cap, SmallCap and Small-Cap — in the same document. As in, “We can’t decide how to spell what we’re selling, so we’re going to spell it however we like.”)
A July 2011 BBC News article comments on the rise in online sales after spelling errors were corrected on a consumer website selling tights. If consumers are sensitive to spelling errors when buying a pair of tights, just imagine how sensitive they are when buying asset management.
The absence of (or failure to adhere to) a well-defined process. The investment process is one of the critically important four Ps (philosophy, process, people and performance) required for success in institutional (and, increasingly, retail) investment marketing. Yet where is the process when it comes to ensuring that critical marketing documents are not filled with typos? Where is the checklist defining systematic procedures — i.e., who does what when to ensure quality? The style guide defining consistent usage? The intranet FAQ providing consistent answers to routinely asked questions about the investment strategy? The will to pay attention to these things when they do, by some miracle, actually exist?
And speaking of process, what does a humdrum mistake such as a spelling error say about a firm’s ability to follow its investment process? If a company cannot spell the name of its flagship product consistently, what does that say about its ability to conduct effective due diligence on potential investments?
Of course it’s all about process. The major cause of carelessness is not laziness, stupidity, overwork or the escalating complexity of daily life, although all of these factors come into play to varying degrees. The primary culprit is the aforementioned lack of process. Process alone, however, is not enough. People have to believe in the process and implement it consistently. And yet there is still a certain class of person in business who believes that fussing over details is somehow demeaning. These people see themselves as fighting the great strategic fight at the forefront of leadership and change. This mindset unfortunately has little to do with what ultimately really matters: execution.
The Checklist Manifesto
A checklist, when you think about it, is process in its purest, most practical form. In The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, surgeon Atul Gawande considers the importance of using a checklist effectively in endeavors ranging from surgery to flying a plane to money management. In a chapter entitled “The Hero in the Age of Checklists,” Gawande explores how checklists benefit professional investment managers. He describes how one money manager created a checklist based on studying past mistakes (his own and those of other prominent investors). Each mistake is paired with an action item on the checklist. For example, the failure to consider the potential impact of the dot-com bust on a furniture rental company leads to the checklist item: Confirm if revenues might be overstated or understated due to boom or bust conditions.
Dr. Gawande further describes a study of 51 venture capital investors by Geoff Smart, a PhD psychologist who was at Claremont Graduate University at the time of the study and is a co-author of the best-selling business book, Who: The A Method for Hiring. Mr. Smart’s 1998 study profiled different research strategies pursued by venture capitalists. His findings showed that the most effective approach was methodical and checklist-driven. He calls the group of venture capitalists who follow this approach “the Airline Captains” and their results validate the effectiveness of this methodical style of investing: a median 80% return on the investments studied versus 35% or less for those pursuing different research strategies.
But (and here is the truly interesting part) even when checklists have proven to be wildly successful, one practitioner tells Gawande, people are reluctant to use them. “I got pushback from everyone,” says this money manager. “It took my guys months to finally see the value.” “To this day,” writes Gawande, “[this successful money manager’s] partners still don’t all go along with his approach and don’t use the checklist in their decisions when he’s not involved.”
Perhaps this is because people see checklists as being unnecessarily time consuming? Paradoxically, however, notes Gawande, investors who use checklists find the process to be “more thorough but faster.” Without the checklist, says one money manager who was able to research hundreds of bargains swiftly in late 2008, he “could not have gotten through a fraction of the analytic work or have had the confidence to rely on it.”
“Checklists,” says Mariko Gordon, Founder, CEO and CIO of Daruma Capital Management, “make sure that all the windows and doors of our investment process are locked, and that we haven’t forgotten to put the alarm on, so to speak.” In the December 2012 issue of her company’s newsletter, Ms. Gordon, a longtime fan of Dr. Gawande, describes checklists as one of several approaches to building the conviction required to manage concentrated portfolios.
The Checklist Manifesto makes it clear that, when it comes to saving lives (surgeons) or making money (portfolio managers), those who create and use a well-thought-out checklist are more likely to succeed. And yet the idea of checklists, I fear, is unlikely to gain many converts in the investment world — not because following a checklist is too difficult but because it may be perceived as too simplistic. Indeed, as Dr. Gawande laments toward the end of the book:
“We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us — those we aspire to be — handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists … Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.”
This is at once genius (Gawande’s laser-sharp perception of the problem) and very troubling (the notion that people are unlikely to act as effectively as they might because doing so conflicts with some swashbuckling idea of themselves).
The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time was written for those of us who feel a tiny stab of despair every time we see a typo. Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson travel the US armed with markers, chalk and correction fluid pursuing a singular mission: to identify and correct typos wherever they find them. In shop windows, fliers, marquees and chalkboards, they find commas gone missing, errant apostrophes, all the usual misspelling suspects and just plain bad grammar. The two friends offer commentary not only on correct usage but also on the large misunderstandings that can result from small typos.
When asked by his girlfriend why typos need eradicating, Jeff Deck writes:
“’It’s the creeping menace of carelessness!’ I said, not even understanding the question. To me, the iniquity inherent in typos was as plain as a swath cut through virgin forest, or dog feces upon a white beach. It was like asking why armed robbery was a problem.”
Amen.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, you also might like to (re)visit the April 2012 issue of Excess Returns, which considers the joys of being systematic.
Monthly insights for investment marketing and sales professionals
February 2012
Thought leadership has become a virtual requirement in the world of investment marketing. Those who don’t have thought leadership want some. And those who already have some want more. This issue of Excess Returns answers some important questions for those who would become thought leaders.
With best wishes,
Liz Hecht
Founder, Principal and Director of Research
Alpha Partners is an investment marketing firm specializing in research and presentation strategy. Our goal is to create alpha (excess returns) by helping investment firms win, keep and diversify assets under management.
Ever since we hung out a shingle in 1995, our firm receives this request every month or so: “We want to build a thought leadership program. Can you help us?” And even after all these years, I still get a little thrill when I hear the term “thought leadership.” After all, what’s not to like about thinking and leading? At the same time, I wonder who follows thought leadership when it has become so prevalent. Is there still a meaningful role for thought leadership when there is so much of it?
Sometimes the person calling us truly does understand the time, resources and raw human talent required to generate effective thought leadership. More often, though, I suspect that many people in our business still think of thought leadership as cranking out a few white papers every now and again.
If your firm wants to build a thought leadership program, or if you want to improve an existing program, there are a few questions you should be asking:
What is thought leadership, exactly?
The term “thought leadership” was coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, who was a founding editor of the magazine Strategy + Business. “Thought leader” described interview subjects for the magazine who had business ideas that merited attention. So what has thought leadership come to mean in the investment world? Today, virtually every large global investment firm has a thought leadership section on its website (whether it is called “thought leadership” or something else). There one will find abundant market commentary, articles promoting contrarian views, papers on the need for change in investment policy guidelines, discussion of new risk measures, studies on current institutional investor concerns and research on the shortcomings of certain market benchmarks — to note only a few examples.
Why does everyone want it?
A well-run thought leadership program provides vital support to sales, marketing and public relations, serving to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones. A savvy sales force systematically stays in front of prospects this way, using fresh ideas to inspire dialogue. Client service professionals can engage in better conversations by presenting the thinking of the firm’s leaders. And public relations experts find in thought leadership the wherewithal to drive the content of major news stories — as opposed to commenting from the sidelines.
Do we really need a thought leadership program?
Multibillion dollar investment firms operate in a hyper-competitive, publish-or-perish environment. The smartest, most successful firms understand this and are in effect running small publishing companies with vast archives of content. For mid- to small-size firms, an effective thought leadership program can become a powerful differentiator — or a grandiose distraction that wastes precious time and results in mediocre output. Depending upon your firm’s resources, you may be better served by publishing a thoughtful monthly newsletter than embarking on a full-fledged thought leadership program.
What makes a program successful?
Visit the websites of prominent investment companies and you will find plenty of examples of what to avoid and what to emulate. You will find a tired look and feel as well as thin, often outdated content. You also will find thought leadership that is abundant, lively, current, characterized by diverse media and clearly marked by sustained effort. In most cases such content also is front and center, easily accessible and a large, immediate part of defining a firm’s identity. It is obvious which programs have genuine support from the firm’s senior leaders and which are merely going through the motions. I recently called the director of thought leadership for a firm where I know there is strong senior support, to ask her take on the elements that contribute to success. “In developing our content,” she told me, “we believe it is very important to be true to who we really are and provide transparency into what we are thinking and doing from an investment standpoint. We do not want to develop something that may not reflect our views or capabilities just because it is the topic du jour in the marketplace. That’s not how we want to build credibility.”
How do we walk the fine line between educating and selling?
The best thing about thought leadership is that it has largely supplanted brochures and other less effective, more heavy-handed forms of sales literature. Still, the question often arises, “Can content be more sales-oriented without being overly promotional?” I believe the answer lies less in the content itself than in how firms use the content. For example: you send an invitation to a webinar focused on global equity investment themes followed by a very brief mention of your firm’s capabilities as a global equity investor. Certain purists would not sanction such a mention, but I believe your audience understands that, while your methods are lofty, you still want them to buy some global equities.
At the beginning of this article, I asked if there is still a meaningful role for thought leadership given how ubiquitous it has become. The answer is, “Done correctly, YES.” Thought leadership works because it says “Here are some ideas you may find interesting” — as opposed to “Here is something we would like you to buy.” An inspired thought leadership program compels intellectual rigor and elevates everyone associated with it. By writing or speaking regularly about your ideas and your approach to investing, you and your firm become more credible — to clients, prospective clients, consultants, other influential outsiders and, most of all, to yourselves.
Halt! Who Goes There?
Should you make thought leadership readily accessible or should you require thought followers to register and obtain a user name and password? I firmly believe you should make it readily accessible. Imagine that you are a professional investor searching for information about a market or an asset class. Now imagine that you need to provide information to your boss by a certain deadline. Most of the investment company sites you visit make their thought leadership readily accessible: one click and you’re in. But some still require you to register and create a user name and password: “Halt and identify yourself and only then can you access the precious gems of our intellect.” Are you really going to spend your time filling out registration forms?
Prospective clients should not have to identify themselves. They are browsing; they want to get a feel for who you really are. They should not have to register just as they should not have to register to walk into their local supermarket. But if you don’t ask content users to register, then how do you generate leads? Through content so powerful that they call you.
A Lamentable Trend
In researching this article, I was dismayed to learn that people have started calling themselves “thought leaders” in their professional biographies: “Jack is a coach and thought leader” and “Jill is a passionate thought leader.” This lamentable trend underscores the necessity of developing original content and a fresh approach. If you have had a thought leadership program in place for years, then bravo to you and your firm for getting started early — and by all means do not change the recognized name of your program. But if you are starting one now, keep in mind that “thought leadership,” while once a new and engaging phrase, today has joined the ranks of “value proposition” and “core competency.”
Monthly insights for investment marketing and sales professionals
February 2011
Performance is key to understanding any investment product. So why is performance often treated as an afterthought in investment marketing materials — buried at the tail end of a pitch book, for example, where it is prone to neglect and misunderstanding? In this issue we consider the question, “Where does performance belong?” along with some of the myths and misinformation that have shaped performance presentation strategy.
With best wishes,
Liz Hecht
Founder, Principal and Director of Research
Alpha Partners is an investment marketing firm specializing in research and presentation strategy. Our goal is to create alpha (excess returns) by helping investment firms win, keep and diversify assets under management.
I’m on the phone with my friend M, a sales professional, who tells me with some dismay that her boss recently decreed that performance — even top-quartile numbers — should always appear at the end of every pitch book for every product. “Come again?” I say. “Shouldn’t strong performance come first? Isn’t that what you’re selling?” Yes, she explains, but her boss believes that performance (results) must by definition follow philosophy, process and people (the strategy and resources applied to getting results). I used to agree with this view …
… Flash back to New York City about 15 years ago when I am having lunch with the Head of Sales, let’s call him Z, for a well-known investment company. I am hoping that Z might give our company some business, but Z keeps saying things like, “Let’s face it, at the end of the day all that really matters is performance.” “Yeah, right,” I groan inwardly, “until your team underperforms, which, inevitably, it will.” This was back when I, too, believed that the track record must logically come last.
Whether performance comes first or last is an important question with different answers depending on the situation. I’ve thought about this for years and worked with different companies on different approaches. Here are some key lessons that I’ve learned:
Sell your own track record — don’t let consultants do it for you. The received wisdom at certain investment firms is: “We don’t present performance up front because the consultant already has covered performance with the prospective client.” Or (a variation on this same theme): “Good numbers are a given; all of our competitors have good numbers, give or take a few basis points. If we didn’t have good numbers, we wouldn’t be here.” Of course consultants will already have presented your numbers to prospective clients. But you cannot wholly rely on consultants to present what really matters: the story behind the numbers.
Tell the story behind the numbers. This is how you not only win business but also create loyal clients who are more likely to stick with you even during those inevitable periods of underperformance. The story behind the numbers proves that your performance results mainly from skill as opposed to luck; it provides context, explaining why your numbers, while perhaps lower than those of a competitor at a given point, nonetheless are more likely to preserve capital over time. Providing context sets expectations, allowing clients to understand why you avoid certain industry sectors and therefore underperform when those sectors are in favor … or why you are likely to perform better in a down market than in an up market.
Keep the portfolio front and center — do not sacrifice the product on the altar of philosophy, process and people. An unfortunate by-product of putting a key portfolio attribute such as performance last seems to be that all product attributes — performance attribution, portfolio composition, portfolio characteristics — are lumped last along with performance. In practice, given short attention spans and probable time cuts, this means that many investment presentations only barely touch on or completely neglect what matters most: the portfolio and portfolio performance. As a result, in my experience, the typical final presentation proceeds rather like a waiter who describes the history of the restaurant, the professional biographies of everyone in the kitchen, the chef’s beliefs about cooking, the process for preparing the food and then finally, at long last, the specials on the menu that night.
Be flexible. What shocked me about my friend M’s story is her boss’s inflexible all-performance-last-all-the-time mindset. Expediting the focus on performance is particularly important when your numbers are strong. As in, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” But what about those inevitable periods of underperformance when your numbers require explanation? At such times it may well make sense to lead with the philosophy, process and people. In other words, create a foundation for understanding first — as opposed to starting with an out-of-context explanation for recent underperformance. The presentation strategy you follow during periods of underperformance will depend on many different variables: the extent of the underperformance, the reason for it and what’s going on with the market as well as with competing managers. As I have discussed in another article (“How to Stay Up When Your Numbers Are Down”), under one set of circumstances, you may need to take your product off the shelf for awhile; under another, you might credibly position it as the contrarian option.
At the end of the day (just kidding … when will politicians and financial executives stop saying this?), Z never gave us any business and M is now happy at another firm with a more flexible, strategic approach. And what about us? Lucky us, we increasingly have the good fortune to work with firms that are happy to put their long-term track record front and center. After all, alpha is the bull’s-eye. Why shouldn’t it come first whenever possible?
The Performance Guy
Presenting performance effectively requires understanding diverse metrics (Jensen’s alpha, anyone)? So I was delighted when one of our clients told us about Investment Performance Guy, published by performance measurement guru David Spaulding of The Spaulding Group. This blog and David’s newsletter provide a lucid, engaging look at different ways to think about the numbers. David’s January 25, 2011 blog post, for example, poses a question many people are asking right now, “How many risk measures are enough?”.
Hasta La Vista!
Even as risk measures proliferate, relatively few money managers measure one of the biggest risks to portfolio performance: ineffective selling. Based on analysis of $500 billion in professionally managed equity portfolios, Cabot Research has shown that a surprising number of managers give all of their alpha and more back by selling at the wrong time. In an article for Value Investor Insight, Mike Ervolini, Cabot’s CEO, explores the behavioral finance drivers behind ineffective selling. In a nutshell, explains Mike, “buying focuses on the potential for positive future events whereas selling very often focuses on pessimistic past events.” As a result, investment companies spend more time, creative energy and marketing copy on buying than on selling. From both an investment and a marketing standpoint, an effective sell discipline thus can become a decisive competitive advantage.