How to Gain Credibility With Family Offices

Traditionally, one of the most common marketing strategies — regardless of industry — is to make whatever it is you are selling to sound as appealing as you possibly can. This often works when selling to “the masses” because most people are looking for the best values they can find. But when selling to the ultra-wealthy, such as those with family offices, over promising by appearing too ‘salesy’ is one of the surest ways to push your target audience away.

In fact, over promising often indicates to potential investors that you are either unrealistic in your expectations and/or are comfortable under delivering with your final product. When targeting the very rich — who are typically rather conservative with their investments — it is better to under-promise and over-deliver. In fact, being conservative yourself in your projections and in setting expectations is an approach that is preferable no matter who is your target investor.

Instead of orienting your pitch exclusively to a best case scenario, incorporate three scenarios that have been carefully underwritten; best case, worst case, and most likely outcome. This demonstrates a prudent approach to your investment process, allows investors to decide for themselves which scenario is ‘most likely,’ and still allows you to put in front of your prospects an optimistic, best case scenario. Plus by having a worst case scenario properly formulated, you protect not only your investors but also yourself.

Wealthy individuals have heard enough pitches to know who is serious and who is trying to simply get their money. Being realistic with your expectations is one of the surest ways to establish trust — by establishing yourself as a pragmatist as much concerned with protecting the downside as you are with maximizing the up, you build confidence and increase the likelihood of converting a prospect into being an active investor.

When compared to the average investor, wealthy investors also typically have a more future-oriented mindset. They don’t need to earn a quick return in order to stay afloat; what they want is a predictable return that will allow them to maintain their wealth at minimum and grow it at best.

Naturally, this increased level of patience can have a direct impact on the digital marketing strategies a sponsor might consider using. The need for developing a credible, reliable, and trustworthy brand — doing everything you can to minimize the perception of risk or uncertainty — will be especially important. To project an image of seriousness, along with a sense of long-term financial stability, it will be crucial to be able to talk in terms of years, even decades, rather than months.

Lastly, one of the surest ways to impress a prospective, wealthy investment group is to demonstrate a sense of consistency because it will help build trust in your ability to project results and to deliver.

As an enterprise, you will need to develop a consistent brand, consistently deliver on promised returns, and consistently be finding new ways to improve your broader operations. But effective daily habits can also begin at the personal level, too. Doing things as simple as consistently maintaining your social media presence (particularly LinkedIn), answering emails from your family office prospects on a daily basis, and making sure that nothing is put off longer than it needs to be will help reinforce the notion that your firm, in particular, is a serious contender.

In addition to relentless integrity, seriousness is among the most valuable traits a sponsor can develop.

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