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Penny Burns

Penny Burns

When I published ‘The Story of Asset Management’, my publisher sent me a book, ‘How to sell your first 10,000 copies’, full of useful information.   I was embarrassed.  I wanted it read.  Of course I did.  I had written it to give current Asset Managers knowledge of the history of their craft and a sense of pride in what had been achieved.  Yet the idea of being a salesperson disturbed me.  I think it disturbs many.

However, once I stopped agitating, I realised that everything I had done since I began in 1984 was, in fact, selling; selling the idea of Asset Management.   Selling an idea is not the same as selling a commodity like a book.  Moreover, when you sell an idea that benefits others rather than yourself, selling can be both challenging and great fun!

Maybe you are resisting, but instinctively know you need to sell the idea of Asset Management in order to:

  • secure leadership commitment,
  • build a well-knit team, or really to
  • convince anyone of anything.

So here, in Penny’s Place, I plan to share my experience in selling Asset Management; things that worked, and why, but also things that didn’t work out quite as intended, and again, why? This may be condensed into five key messages, as follows:

  1. Know your audience. What concerns them. (This applies to selling anything, and any sales book will tell you the same.)
  2. Get their attention. It doesn’t have to be a story, but stories do this job very well.
  3. Have something to sell that is of immediate value to your audience - and then focus on that value. Yes, Asset Management provides long-term benefits.  But these benefits will rarely be enough to convince an audience. 
  4. Recognise that information is only useful when it is used (not merely collected or manipulated). I have watched too many seek to sell an AM model by emphasising how clever or complex it is, rather than by providing evidence of the value that users gain from it.
  5. Follow through. This is the hardest. It never ends. AM isn’t a ‘once-and-done’. I, and others with me at the beginning, looked forward to the time when AM would be the norm, just ‘the way that things are done around here’. That time may come, but it is not here yet.