Emerging managers don't lose because they have bad strategies. They lose because they don't have a system.
Banks and broker-dealers represent some of the biggest pools of capital in the industry, and most emerging managers wait too long to engage them.
Between the myths around AUM requirements, track records, and team size, too many boutique firms put this channel on the back burner until they feel "ready."
Here are ten principles that drive results, from how to engage banks and broker-dealers early to how AI is changing what's possible for a one-person sales organization.
10 Things Emerging Managers Need to Know
1. Banks and Broker-Dealers Are Not Off-Limits
The single biggest mistake emerging managers make is waiting. Waiting until they hit $500M AUM. Waiting until they have a three-year track record. Waiting until they have a wholesaling team.
Every one of those assumptions is wrong. Banks and broker-dealers want to engage early. When you eventually reach scale, they want their diligence file already built. The dialogue starts now — not later.
2. You Don't Need a Big Sales Team to Cover This Channel
Boutique managers are actively embraced by these platforms. Banks and broker-dealers have internal resources to help you navigate their systems. The myth that you need a large wholesaling team to be taken seriously here is just that, a myth. Show up, tell your story, and get on their radar.
3. Cold Outreach Is Still the Foundation
If you are not sending 15-20 bespoke email requests per day with a clear call to action and five cities on the calendar at any given time, you are leaving meetings on the table. It's emotionally difficult, no one went to college to be a professional meeting setter-upper, but the process works if you commit to it. One sentence on who you are, one sentence on your strategy, and a specific ask. Open-ended asks get ignored. Specific asks get answered.
4. The Quarterly Webinar Is Your Most Underutilized Asset
The quarterly webinar is the single most cost-effective brand-building tool available to an emerging manager, and it is effectively free. Dakota has been running them since 2007.
The key is consistency: run it every quarter on a strict schedule, regardless of performance. Send the invite with a brief agenda, provide the replay and transcript afterward, and keep it brief. Emerging managers with a single strategy have a structural advantage here that larger multi-strategy firms simply don't.
5. Video Builds Trust That Audio Alone Cannot
Turn your camera on. Video makes attendees feel like they are in the room with you. It humanizes your firm and its leaders in a way that audio alone never will. Allocators are ultimately allocating to people, and they want to see the people behind the strategy before they commit capital.
Dakota Marketplace has every contact you need… due diligence analysts at banks, broker-dealers, and wirehouses, broken down by asset class and strategy. Stop guessing who to call and start building your pipeline today, book a demo.
6. Everyone Needs to Meet the Wizard
Access to the portfolio manager is non-negotiable. Whether it's a Zoom call or a face-to-face meeting, allocators want direct engagement with the person managing the money. The best firms make their PMs available anytime, anywhere. Coaching your PM through the process of pitching is part of the job, and the firms that get this right win.
7. New Media Is a Long Game Worth Playing
Content marketing works, but not on day one. It requires consistent, sustained effort over time. The a16z New Media Manifesto from November 2025 lays out the full framework.
The channels available to emerging managers are the quarterly webinar, LinkedIn posts, blog posts, YouTube, and Substack. You don't need all of them. Start with the quarterly webinar, commit to it, and build from there. The firms that combine rigorous cold outreach with consistent content creation are the ones pulling away from the competition.
8. AI Has Fundamentally Changed the Cost Equation
Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, and Gemini give you the best copywriter, graphic designer, and business analyst in your pocket… for effectively nothing. Use Claude to write blog posts in your voice, analyze your LinkedIn and YouTube engagement, and tell you what to do more of and less of. The firms that are not engaging with these tools are falling behind, and depriving their people of career-level training in the process.
9. Use Claude and Slack to Turn Every Meeting Into Intelligence
After every meeting, pull out Claude in the lobby, dictate what was covered (who was on the call, topics discussed, next steps) and ask Claude to produce a clean, well-written call note. Push it into Slack, and from there into Salesforce or your CRM of choice. Two minutes after every meeting, it's done.
Once those notes are in Slack, they become searchable. At the end of each week, ask Claude or the Slackbot to surface key trends, takeaways, and patterns across the team. If you have ten salespeople doing 15 meetings each per week, that is 150 meetings worth of intelligence you can surface in seconds… something that was simply impossible before AI.
10. City Scheduling Is the Operating System That Never Changes
No matter which channel you're calling on (banks, RIAs, pensions, or consultants) the fundamentals do not change. Plan meetings at least six weeks in advance. Maintain five cities on the calendar at all times. Aim for five meetings per day when traveling. Identify the right contacts in each market and pursue concentrated, disciplined coverage. For emerging managers building a pipeline on a budget, scattered outreach loses. Focused, systematic market coverage wins every time.
Start Building Your Pipeline Today
The emerging managers who win are not always the ones with the best performance. They are the ones who show up consistently… in the inbox, on the calendar, on screen, and in the room.
Banks and broker-dealers are not a channel to graduate into. They are a channel to start building relationships in from day one. Combined with a quarterly webinar, disciplined cold outreach, and AI tools that do the heavy lifting on notes and content, the emerging manager who moves early and stays consistent has every advantage.
The tools available today make it cheaper and easier than ever to build a real fundraising engine. Dakota Marketplace has all the contact information you need to start calling on banks and broker-dealers right now… due diligence analysts broken down by asset class, so you can reach the right person with the right message from day one.
Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace and see how it works.
