Repositioning Their Competition

When Howard Stern talked last week about signing his new Sirius XM contract, he continually referenced the challenges faced by “terrestrial radio” as influencing his decision. While I’ve heard Sirius XM use the term a lot over the past five years, Stern’s comments represent the first time I spent any energy thinking about “terrestrial radio” as anything beyond a definition. I now see that all this defining is about repositioning the competition. Terrestrial Radio--those stodgy public airwaves. How uncool!

I suddenly found myself thinking about the ways that asset and wealth management marketers can move to reposition the competition to their firm’s advantage. Active management. Tax efficiency. Precision.

And then I remembered something I heard George Gatch say last month.

Gatch, Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Investment Management Americas, speaking over lunch at the MFWire Influencers Summit, did a masterful, if unintentional, job of repositioning his competitors. In his remarks, he noted that upon taking the helm, he discontinued JPM’s softer (practice management) value-add programs saying “that isn’t our core competency.” Aha. So what is JPM’s core competency? Running money, of course. In that one sentence, Gatch immediately repositioned those competitors who focus their marketing energy on non-investment value-adds as pursuing a less noble path. In short, you can interpret him as saying, we both do things well. What we do well is manage money, what they do well is train advisors.

So, advisor, who do you want to entrust your client assets to?

Well played, Mr. Gatch. Well played.

(You too, Howard.)

Do Small- and Mid-Sized Money Managers Stand a Chance?

For all the strategy hand-wringing at small- and mid-sized money managers, perhaps their biggest challenge is finding a way to be relevant.