‘Be liked and you will never want’ was the infamous refrain of Willy Lowman in Death of a Salesman. Judging from Citywire Amplify’s discussions with UK fund selectors, the salesman is far from dead, but he is certainly going through a transformation.

The pandemic’s transformation of working practices has profound consequences on fund sales. Once a job defined by personal relationships, in-person contact is less in demand. Regulation has also limited how close salespeople can get to their clients. But the selector’s job has changed too.

Yesterday’s sales skillset is an endangered species.

Citywire Amplify spoke to several UK fund selectors about what their ideal salesperson looks like. There was widespread agreement: salespeople continue to be a vital part of the business, a conduit between selectors and asset managers. They are useful sharers of ideas, knowledge and, interestingly, gossip.

Amplify pulled out four key takeaways:

• Infrequent touch points, not inundation.
• Take the time to learn about a business.
• Know what not to offer.
• Exude product knowledge.

Downing’s fund-of-funds manager Simon Evan-Cook said his ideal salesperson was someone who would get in touch at the exact moment you want them to with an incredible fund that is ‘perfectly timed to fit a hole in your portfolio and then you never hear from them ever again – other than once every six months with a useful update’. Doesn’t this sound wonderful? Well, even to him, it is ‘ideally and completely unrealistic’.

Time is money

Time management was one theme that emerged from the conversations with selectors, with many saying the ‘hounding’ needed to stop.

Quilter Cheviot’s head of fixed interest research, Richard Carter, described salespeople who inundated him with calls and emails as a ‘pain in the backside’. He said the incorrect assumption that he and other selectors have ‘limitless’ time must change.

‘We want them to help us when we need them but not to bug us, not to be constantly trying to sell us new products,’ said Carter. ‘We don’t exist for their gratification, their benefit, and we’re here to look after clients’ money and try to be at benchmark.’

Evan-Cook (pictured above) agreed. Despite all the good that salespeople bring into the business, he said, they can also be ‘a pain in the neck’.

‘We’ve all got 101 different things we need to do before we even consider stuff outside of the job. But to constantly be harassed with people selling you stuff, it’s tricky.’

Paris Jordan, a senior multi-asset analyst at Waverton Investment Management, said salespeople should not be concerned if it takes a while to hear back from fund selectors – warning against ‘continual calls’. She said infrequent touchpoints can subconsciously raise her interest in a fund.

‘Do not make comments about just how hard or long it has been since your first contact [until] a meeting,’ said Jordan (pictured below). ‘This has happened before and it sets a poor tone for the meeting.’

Know your client…

With thousands of funds competing for the same business, salespeople could be forgiven for their eagerness, but how can they avoid having their calls blocked and their emails deleted?

According to Abrdn’s head of multi-manager strategies Katie Trowsdale, it is all about going slow and building the foundation for a long-lasting relationship rather than opting for a quick sale through ‘bombarding’ selectors with irrelevant information. She said understanding your future client’s business before approaching them was key.

‘There’s no point sending so many emails saying: “I think you should look at this,”’ said Trowsdale (pictured below). ‘For example, some really esoteric asset classes that we clearly don’t already own. [That’s] when I think you don’t understand what we do and you don’t understand our business model. If they’re going to come and propose that I should look at their European fund, they should understand why we aren’t already in it – so definitely do your homework.’

Hawksmoor CIO Richard Philbin said there was nothing worse than starting a relationship with a salesperson who ‘double-guesses’ and criticises your portfolio choices without understanding you and your investment reasons. A good salesperson is someone that can ‘grow, change, and develop with their client’.

‘There could be a fund that for some clients it’s a “buy”, or a “hold” and for some clients it’s a “cannot buy”. So, therefore, what do I want from [a salesperson]? I want someone who knows what they’ve got on offer, but also knows what not to offer me – and I’ve had this so many times in my career where you’re starting a relationship with someone, and they come in and they sit down and they go: “Oh. I see you’ve got the XYZ UK fund in your portfolio, it’s crap. Our UK fund’s much better.”’

… and your product

How do you get to know your clients? For fund selectors, the answer is: be a product specialist, an analyst of a sort, and exude knowledge.

Trowsdale said it was vital for salespeople to have a depth of understanding. ‘If someone was starting out, I’d say: listen to their fund manager meetings as much as you can, because that’s your tool. That’s your knowledge base, and the more you know the more people are going to listen to and respect your opinion.’

AJ Bell’s head of investment research, Alena Kosava, said outstanding salespeople are usually those who understand their fund’s strategy.

‘Over my career, the level of detail I tend to request on funds has increased. While historically manager meetings would be broadly going over the standard slide deck, this is very much a thing of the past. We tend to do a lot more detailed meetings. [So] talented salespeople often have reasonably detailed knowledge of a given strategy – and this is immensely helpful in my role so I can focus my attention on carrying out a deeper dive when I meet the manager themselves.’

While Downing’s Evan-Cook said he did not expect salespeople to know every detail, they should ‘know a little about a lot’: the right level of knowledge to ‘pigeonhole’ what they are selling.

‘If they’ve got 20 funds in their briefcase that they’ve got to sell, they need to know the basics of those funds – so if they come to me with a UK equity fund, I need to know: is it an all-cap fund or is it a large-cap fund? Is it value? Is it growth? Is it macro-driven? Is it bottom-up?’

For Parmenion investment director Meera Hearnden, answering a few simple questions, such as ‘What’s the yield on a particular fund?’, increases the appeal of the salesperson. Being proactive and interested in what is happening in the market also greatly helps. However, what differentiates a good salesperson for Hearnden (pictured) is their interest in details.

‘In meetings, I can see some [salespeople] writing notes – but others will just sit there and listen, [and] the ones who’ve written notes are taking it in and then they’ll put it all together and sometimes email their clients to say: “This is what’s happening in our bond fund. I met with the manager, and these are the latest thoughts.” Things like that make me feel interested’.

Could a salesperson’s passion for their funds sway a selector? Yes, said Hearnden, though Carter was less sure. He said the most persuasive argument was the most boring: a fund that beats the index.

‘The best bond funds that [Quilter Cheviot] ever bought were the most boring out there because they just beat the index by 1%,’ Carter said. ‘Give me a bond fund that beats the index by 1% per annum and we’ll put a lot of money into it and we’ll be there for 10 years’.

Too much regulation

Responding to the pandemic sped up changes to the way we communicate. For some, this change has led to a considerable loss of the more human aspect of fund sales – so-called soft skills.

Hearnden said it was challenging to build new relationships with salespeople whom she has not met in person.

‘Until you meet someone and see their body language, which you can’t see on a Teams meeting, you don’t know whether they’re crossing their legs or how they’re sat. Things like that can give you an instant feel for what a person is like. So, I guess the softer element of it, you can’t really capture.’

Hawksmoor’s Philbin (pictured) mourned the loss of social interactions but said this had started before the pandemic.

He blamed regulation and its constraints on relationship-building between salespeople and selectors, especially those crafted outside an office environment.

A 30-year career meant he has been fortunate to build ‘a very big little black book of names and numbers’.

‘It’s almost a dirty word to build a relationship with someone,’ said Philbin. ‘To pop out and have a coffee with someone or to go for a beer after work. It now seems that it’s only business and it’s only professional. We work with intangible products, so what are you doing to make that intangibility tangible?’

To foster a more trusting environment, Philbin believes sales and clients need to be allowed to meet however they like, be it on a golf course or in a cafe without the shackles of regulations and compliance.

‘I know people in my position in other firms who aren’t allowed to go for a cup of coffee with someone. You have to fill in forms to do that. Now, everything’s just a tick-box. You will go on to your report and you go “that fund’s performing, I’ll buy that”, without actually knowing about that fund or who at that company I need to speak to – or do I need to speak to anyone, anyway?’

Carter (pictured) was more welcoming of the change. He said the days of ‘let’s take him for a pint and a football match and he’ll buy our fund’ were long gone.

‘If you’re buying a fund because you went to the cricket with the broker, with the salesperson, you’re not doing your job frankly and you’ve got to be able to justify every fund on its performance and how it works in the model.’

Although Evan-Cook understood why such regulations were put in place, he said being able to socialise helped develop understanding.

‘When you have a more informal conversation, you might get more details that are useful to you as a fund selector about the managers, about the funds, about the culture of the business. So it was all very useful, but it definitely can’t happen now. Sometimes you got to a situation where you became friends with the salespeople, and it’s just a shame not to be able to do that now.’

For Trowsdale, not all meetings have to happen over a glass of wine. Sometimes you have to be an innovative multi-tasker – especially when you are also short on time. She recently began an early-morning ‘run meet’ along the river – a sort of ‘social stroke’ that gave her the business update she needed.

‘I follow a few of my peers on Strava and other sales guys have messaged me saying should we catch up and we’ll go for a run. It is handy for me because I’m so short of time – always. So you become much more selective, especially when you’ve got more important things on your agenda.’

The salesperson of the future

Selectors say salespeople must learn to wear different hats. An emerging trend in fund sales is to produce content online, on their websites or social networking sites such as LinkedIn.

There are interesting ways that analytical tools can be used to drive engagement with such content – then, crucially, act upon it. But some UK selectors Amplify spoke to were a little cool on the idea of reading content from fund firms.

That said, Hearnden looked favourably at salespeople who engage with selectors through providing macro updates and ‘thought-provoking pieces’. One asset management-made piece of commentary that was singled out was M&G’s Bond Vigilantes website. Both Trowsdale and Carter find its data-driven and opinionated blogposts useful.

AJ Bell’s Kosava (pictured) said there was a shift in the industry towards ‘sales teams with a bit more technical ability and those able to make fund selectors’ use of time more efficient’. Meanwhile, Carter said it helps to deal with someone that can fix problems as soon as needed, and keep ‘the wheels turning’.

Whether you have been in the sales industry for years or only recently embarked on this journey – the advice is simple: listen, read, and don’t bug the selectors too much.