Always look two steps ahead

Ukranian President Vladimir Zelenskyy made a terrible mistake last week when visiting the White House. Without getting political or taking sides, he just didn't look two steps ahead when he chose to aggressively demand more financial support from the United States in his war against Russia. Here are a few strategic observations he should have considered before speaking:

• the people who supported him so far have lost power in the United States.
• This president needs a foreign policy "win" and will do whatever it takes to find peace.
• Zelenskyy is trying to sell the Americans on the idea that winning the war is as important to us as it is to him. That could not possibly be true.
• Zelenskyy knows that all of the impediments to peace have been settled. Ukraine now has more arms than most NATO nations thanks to us (even though Ukraine will never be in NATO) and no president has, or ever will, supply Ukraine with the kind of arms needed to take back Donbass or Crimea. That move risks inflaming a potential nuclear World War III.
• Zelenskyy's alternatives to working with the Trump administration are incredibly limited. Is he going to just wait four years and hope a friendly Democrat can give him what he wants? Does he really believe Europe can arm him properly?

We can go on and on about how poorly his behavior was during the filming of the meeting in the Oval Office, but one thing is for sure - he just didn't show the long view vision of a leader in that moment.

Running a business requires the same long view, and the ever so important ability to look two steps ahead. I was in negotiations with a portfolio manager a couple of weeks ago about how I could help him dramatically increase the company's assets under management this year but that work needed to be done to build their "story." I was reprimanded by the portfolio manager that these cute marketing gimmicks weren't important. The only thing that was important, according to my portfolio manager friend was beating the benchmark year in, year out. Mind you, his fund had successfully beaten the benchmark over the last couple of years, so there was a certain amount of chest pounding going on. My reply - smart investors give nothing more than a head nod as an acknowledgement of that success. They need more. They need to know that when times get tough, the portfolio manager will remain committed to a process that represents their core values and, because of that, they should expect great outcomes in the not, too distant, future. Usually, there is a compelling story behind those core values.

It is also important to have a very scientific approach to marketing and sales, with a little artistic flair to make the story more compelling. Many asset managers believe great performance will sell the fund all by itself. Nothing could be more wrong than this line of thinking! Caddis was created to help good asset managers and good wealth advisors grow their business by using the sales map below. Why is this important? Because it allows everyone involved to see two steps ahead! As we build out the sales funnel for our clients here at Caddis, we consider the "buyer's journey" from top of funnel lead generation techniques to an educational element (middle of funnel) to setting and managing expectations in the closing (bottom of funnel) exercise. It is equally important to consider all of the things that could distract a prospective client from completing their buyer's journey. A fully integrated CRM can provide some automations and links to social media to help retrieve those who wandered off the path because of a butterfly (butterflies are dissenting opinions from potential competitors, social media hype, or even a family emergency that distracts people from making business decisions). By integrating each of these components an asset manager or a wealth manager can build a sales machine that has a consistent, proven, and repeatable process that can deliver growth that is scalable beyond the founder's expectations.

Why do asset managers and wealth managers hire Caddis? Because they realize how challenging it is to manage a dynamic sales funnel, protect against butterflies and coach salespeople in the organization to achieve successful outcomes. The conversation begins with lead generation (and Caddis has the most innovative program available) but it is just the beginning. The road to guaranteed growth requires the ability to look beyond the car in front of you. Look at least two cars in front of you.

Is your practice ready to grow like your favorite growth stock?

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