Being in the office during big holiday weeks like Christmas and New Year’s, always seems like a drag. But, it’s actually a great time to get things done and do some strategic thinking. There are less emails and phone calls to distract you, not to mention office gossip and internal fires to put out. 


Since both Christmas and New Year’s fall in the middle of the week this year and lots of people are out, there’s almost two weeks of downtime! Here are some things you can do:
 

• Take an assessment of all you did in the past year. You’ll probably be surprised at how much you accomplished. 
  
• Make a list of client priorities or personal goals in 2020.
• Bond with the skeleton staff in your office – get to know your colleagues better.
• Develop a new snazzy marketing deck for your group to use in new biz presentations.
• Write a blog post for your company’s website or your LinkedIn profile.
• Go out to leisurely lunches or drinks with contacts you know are in town as well.
• Read an amazing piece of business journalism.
• Check your spam folder to see if you missed any important messages.
• Change some of your passwords so you don’t get hacked! 
• Unsubscribe to those annoying emails you get every day.
• Clean up your Google alerts.
• Come up with ideas that can help improve the culture of your workplace.
• Try to recruit friends to join your company.
• Simplify your digital life by deleting unused apps on your phone, getting rid of unwanted alerts, and cleaning up your email inbox. 
• Organize your contacts – they’re the most important thing you have.

Trust and authenticity are words most people associate with political campaigns. If you haven’t heard them before, just wait for the coming Presidential election frenzy. But what we’ve learned as communications practitioners is that these two concepts also matter in investing and asset management. In fact, a recent survey of big institutional investors showed that “trust in the brand” ranked higher in importance than “performance” when it came to picking money managers.
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Last month, Greenwich Associates, the big consultant to pension funds, endowments and other institutions, published an important survey on why allocators pick the asset managers they partner with. It also asked institutional investors how they interacted with various forms of media. Here are the findings we found most interesting. (The full study is available here.)

• 68% say they use social media (mainly LinkedIn) to research asset managers, up from 36% in their 2015 survey.
• 86% say they take action on content they receive from asset managers
• The best media sources for “deep subject matter education” are: Financial Times, LinkedIn, Bloomberg.com and Twitter
• 36% say “specific investment advice” is the content they like most from assets managers
• Content delivery platforms matter for different age groups:
• Ages 20-29 prefer an audio (podcast) format or video
• Ages 30-39 prefer online HTML reports
• Ages 40-49 also prefer online reports viewable in HTML
• Ages 50-59 prefer downloadable PDFs
• For keeping track of individuals, survey respondents chose LinkedIn and Twitter

The takeaway from the study is something we have long known as communications experts but have found lacking in the asset management community – building a brand takes a long time and a thoughtful and concerted strategy is a key component to competing in today’s market. Here’s a paragraph from the Greenwich study we found especially compelling:


A big pension fund isn’t going to allocate millions of dollars based on a single piece of research from an asset manager, of course. However, a track record of high quality, timely and relevant content will help ensure that an asset manager is top of mind and, consequently, invited to the table when a major decision is being made.


Once again, social media proved key at this final stage. Forty-three percent of investors participating in the study said that information learned via social media had influenced an investment recommendation or decision, compared to 35% based on information learned via news media. Meanwhile, information from social and news media was equally likely to influence a decision to work with a particular company or client.


For asset managers, whether they’re well established or just starting out, deciding whether to engage with the public is really no longer an option. Either you tell your story or someone else will, or even worse, it will never get told.

Occasionally, prospective clients reach out to us who have never engaged with an outside public relations agency before.
This lack of experience can present a challenge, and an education about the overall PR process itself becomes vital if the prospective clients hope to achieve their business goals.

Those new to PR are usually new to the concepts of an integrated communications strategy, how it works in practice, and what the cost and ROI will be.

Many of these businesses that are new to these concepts have gone on to become long-term DLPR clients.  But sometimes, the real challenge is overcoming preconceived notions of what a PR agency’s communications program can deliver and how the process should work.

Based on these past experiences — and in an effort to help prospects and everyone engaged in the public relations process — we thought it would be helpful to compile a list of “9 things to know” before hiring an outside communications consultant:

• PR is more art than science. This can be a very new way of thinking to executives who are more quantitatively focused. PR relies heavily on the qualitative, such as creative ideation, subject-matter expertise, media and client relationships, teamwork and industry experience.
• ROI is often subjective and somewhat intangible, despite the myriad attempts and importance of quantifying public relations results. Common metrics like “impressions” and “audience reach” only tell part of the story. It is the cumulative impact of the PR program over time, and not the eyeballs trained on a single media placement, that will drive business value.
• The best communications counselors are able to provide unfiltered advice. Sometimes, that means giving clients very direct and even critical feedback.
• Bias admitted, but the fact remains the same: The more time a client invests in a program, the more the effort of said program will pay off. A new communications strategy typically takes at least six months to one year to prove effective (although there are some exceptions).
• Earned media placements, especially profile stories, aretruly earned. They should not be thought of as advertisements or puff pieces—journalists care deeply about their editorial independence and the “public service” nature of their work.
• Strategic communications is part of a long-term value creation process and not something to “try out” or with which to “test the waters.”
• The best clients communicate openly with and trust their PR firm. This level of trust and openness directly correlates to the success of the program.
• No matter how much news one consumes, clients need an expert on how the media operates. Interacting with journalists is often counterintuitive and requires a nuanced understanding of how they think and work.
• A PR firm’s credibility with the media is often tied to the public perception of the client. Help the PR firm succeed on your behalf by maintaining a spirit of transparency, accessibility and accountability.

Keeping these nine points in mind before and during an engagement with a communications firm will not only align expectations, but also create a more valuable and successful PR program.

What We’ve Been Reading – Week of July 8​

Markets, Economy & Corporate News

• Behind the Debt Binge That Now Threatens Markets (Bloomberg)
• One third of sovereign funds plan to cut equity holdings, cite trade wars (Reuters)
• One Sure Way to Hurt the U.S. Economy? Cut Immigration (Bloomberg)
• Swedroe: Passive Investing Demonized (ETF.com)
• It’s funny how companies see clearly without GAAP in their eyes (Bloomberg)

Asset/Wealth Management:

• What Generation X needs to focus on to retire successfully (CNBC)
• Why Are Young Billionaires So Boring? (Bloomberg)
• Here’s Why There Aren’t More Women in Asset and Wealth Management (TheStreet)
• Wall Street Competes With Unregulated Banks for the Riskiest Loans (Bloomberg)

Alternatives:

• Hedge Funds Should Be Thriving Right Now. They Aren’t. (NYT)
• Billionaire’s Secret Buyout Formula: 110 Instructions and an Intelligence Test – (WSJ)
• Merger arb funds feel the pain from trade war crossfire (Bloomberg)
• How Private Equity Firms Are Solving Their Growth Problem (WSJ)

Media Industry and Journalism:

• The Disney-Comcast TV Drama Could Have More Twists Yet (WSJ)
• ‘No comment’: The death of business reporting (WaPo)
• Q&AA: Maria Bartiromo Takes Stock (AdAge)
• Can blockchain save journalism? Manoush Zomorodi doesn’t know, either, but she’s going to find out. (ReCode)

Long Reads:

• Disastrous Deal Staggers Trump Ally Thomas Barrack (Forbes)
• Future Trends (Axios)
• Acadia Pharmaceuticals: This is not a pharmaceutical company (SIRF)
• How a Tiny Bank From the Ozarks Got Big and Outpaced Wall Street’s Real Estate Machine (Bloomberg Businessweek)
• The Sexting Scandal That Toppled One of America’s Most Powerful Lawyers (WSJ)

Technology:

• Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras (NYT)
• The worst cybersecurity breaches of 2018 so far (Wired)
• Sorry, Power-Lunchers. This Restaurant is a Co-Working Space Now. (NYT)
• “Google Was Not a Normal Place”: Brin, Page, and Mayer on the Accidental Birth of the Company That Changed Everything (VF Hive)

Crisis Communications:

• Papa John’s Founder Used N-Word On Conference Call (Forbes)

What We’ve Been Reading – Week of May 13​
Markets, Economy & Corporate News

• Activists Don Sustainability Cloak to Whip Up Support (FT)
• Capital Spending Boom is No Great Boost to Capital Markets (WSJ)
• Comcast’s All-Cash Bid Could Pit Murdoch Against Fox Shareholders (Reuters)
• Simplified Volcker Rule Coming to Big Banks (Bloomberg)
• Investors Cut Holdings in Apple by Most Since at Least 2008 (Bloomberg)

Asset/Wealth Management:

• Five Predictions on the Future of Wealth Management (Forbes)
• When is it OK to Fire a Client? (Wealthmanagement.com)
• Spooked by Scandals, Asset Management Tries to Self-Police (Institutional Investor)

Long(er) Reads:

• What exactly happened to David Einhorn (Institutional Investor)
• How Baby Boomers Broke America (TIME)

Alternatives:

• Hedge funds’ favorite charity is funding their opponents (WSJ)
• What’s in a hedge fund name? Apparently, booze, boats and Boston (Bloomberg)
• Private equity tech titans face off with new funds (WSJ)
• The Pope just called investment products that helped cause the financial crisis a ‘ticking time bomb’ (Business Insider)

Media Industry and Journalism:

• I’m Not Quoting Enough Women (New York Times)
• Suzanne Scott Named First Female Chief Executive of Fox News (NYT)

Technology:

• The crypto alternative (Techcrunch)
• Cybersecurity Whistleblowers Are Growing Corporate Challenge (WSJ)
• Cambridge Analytica starts bankruptcy proceedings in US (BBC)
• In Virtual Reality, How Much Body Do You Need? (NYT)

Crisis Communications:

• Air France-KLM hopes 3 CEOs can end its crisis (CNNMoney)
• Hail Caesar Salad! Romaine Is Safe to Eat Again (NYT)
• ‘Just the Grossest Thing’: Women Recall Interactions With U.S.C. Doctor (NYT)

What We’ve Been Reading – Week of May 6​

Markets, Economy & Corporate News

• Here’s what tax reform, so far, has meant for the stock market and the economy (MarketWatch)
• U.S. job openings hit record high; more workers quitting (Reuters)
• Jobless Rate Looks Like Old Times, but the Economy Doesn’t (NYT)
• Companies Should Maximize Shareholder Welfare, Not Market Value (Journal of Law, Finance and Accounting)
• Economists think the next U.S. recession could begin in 2020 (WSJ)
• How China is Trying to Head Off Its Own Financial Crisis (NYT)

Asset/Wealth Management:

• David Swenson wrote an angry email. Then he pressed send. (Institutional Investor)
• Thomson Reuters Grows Capabilities of Wealth Management Platform (Financial Advisor IQ)
• Who Runs Mutual Funds? Very Few Women (NYT)
• Trump Brags That He’s A Billionaire – But He Doesn’t Act Like One (Washington Post)
• Asset managers double spending on new data in hunt for edge (Financial Times)

Alternatives:

• That Big Hedge-Fund Short Squeeze in Treasuries Is No Sure Thing (Bloomberg)
• Investors Want More Private Equity Relationships (Institutional Investor)
• A Hedge Fund Fee plan that Only Charges for Alpha (Bloomberg)

Media Industry and Journalism:

• What happens when a local newspaper dies (Washington Post)
• Denver Post Journalists Go to New York to Protest Their Owner (NYT)
• With ‘The Weekly,’ The New York Times Gets Serious About TV (NYT)

Technology:

• Bitcoin is ‘rat poison,’ Berkshire’s Charlie Munger says (Fox Business)
• Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency (NYT)
• This 13-year-old is the youngest professional ‘Fortnite’ gamer (CNBC)
• Google’s Assistant is getting so smart it can place phone calls and humans think it’s real (CNBC)
• Alexa and Siri Can Hear This Hidden Command. You Can’t. (NYT)
• Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Crisis Communications:

• Nobody Planned This, Nobody Expected It (The Collaborative Fund)