The Road to AUM: Driving Assets Under Management through Effective Marketing and Sales

Got performance? Seeking assets to manage? Frustrated by the youthful research professionals across the table who “just don’t get it” while seeming to control billions?

Managers are often challenged by the process of asset gathering. Why doesn’t the market recognize the firm’s value? Where is the AUM? Here is a big idea—let’s ask these institutions why most managers do not have their assets and never will. These pages convey the responses of institutional investors worldwide to these questions and more so that managers can hear their feedback directly and utilize it to create a game plan designed around what matters most to asset allocators.

Managers are a passionate lot. They work hard building firms, track records, and teams. Their strategies are different. They are out in the market, spending precious time and money in the pursuit of institutional assets to manage. Their numbers are better than exponentially larger, well branded, and longer tenured investment management competitors. Managers anticipate this outperformance will make all the difference in asset gathering. However, the assets consistently go to the biggest players in the industry, largely agnostic to asset class, vehicle type, and market cycle. Occasional entrants make a big splash, while the industry remains a pyramid. Few firms make it to their desired capacity. What makes the difference in institutional investment management marketing and sales?

The Road to AUM provides investment managers and business owners, as well as marketing and sales professionals with a roadmap to institutional asset growth based on observations and comments directly from the institutions themselves. Whether a firm is launching, emerging, stuck in neutral, or moving in a new direction, an aerial view of the road ahead is paramount. This book will tell managers what the market will not. It will explain where to spend time and resources, and where to save them. The book offers a view of the forest through the trees for managers seeking a path to asset growth.

Sandra Powers Murphy is a globally recognized investment management marketing and sales consultant. After more than a decade serving in a marketing and sales capacity on behalf of State Street Global Advisors and State Street Corporation, Sandra founded ARK Global LLC. As CEO, Sandra drives product and business development initiatives on behalf of a diverse group of clients. Sandra has helped numerous managers expand their investor base, add product structures, secure strategic partnerships, define business plans, create market presence and improve their overall profitability. Separate and distinct from ARK Global, Sandra founded Noble Ark Ventures to serve as an educational resource to professionals regarding institutional marketing and sales best practices.

Sandra is the President of the Third Party Marketing Association as well as a member of the Women Presidents' Organization and 100 Women in Finance. Sandra is a partner of Compass Securities Corporation, member FINRA, SIPC, and a Registered Representative of ARK Global LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Sandra holds investment industry licenses with FINRA, the MSRB and NASAA including the Series 7 and 24; 50 and 53; 63 and 66 respectively. In addition, she serves on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board Professional Qualifications Advisory Committee. Sandra is a Licensed Certified Social Worker (LCSW) in the state of Massachusetts. Sandra lives with her husband, six children and golden retriever near Boston, Massachusetts.