July 02, 2024
For investment sales professionals, meetings are crucial. Getting your name in front of firms is just the beginning. To succeed as an investment firm, you need to schedule and secure those meetings.
We understand that fundraising is challenging. That's why we're here to share our best practices for maximizing your time effectively during the day: city scheduling.
Dakota has been successfully implementing city scheduling for years, ever since our first salesperson began. Since 2006, we've raised over $30 billion, leveraging city scheduling to plan and organize meetings.
Before we delve into city scheduling, it's essential to understand that half the battle is knowing who to contact. When you have a clear list of contacts, you'll be more successful in engaging with your total addressable market (TAM) and securing meetings.
The key is to request meetings with firms in every city you visit. This approach not only keeps your sales team focused but also maximizes their time and efficiency.
In this article, we'll dive into city scheduling and explain how it can lead you and your firm to success. By the end, you'll know how to supervise your sales team with a strategic plan and the tactics for effective city scheduling.
A lot of time is wasted at the start of an investment sales person’s day simply because there isn’t a daily plan in place. It could take an hour or two just to figure out the day's tasks. City scheduling eliminates any uncertainty about what needs to be done.
Start by putting cities on the books. What we mean by that is literally choosing a city, selecting a date, writing it down, and creating five empty time slots. These will be the times you request in your email asks.
For example, put in your book that you're going to Boston on October 8th. With this set lead time, you know you're going to Boston. Between setting the date and your departure, your goal is to secure as many meetings with qualified buyers within your TAM as possible.
This is where having a compelling email is crucial. Ensure your email includes a strong subject line, a meeting request, a brief one to two sentence introduction of yourself and your firm, and a clear call to action:
“Can you meet at 9am on October 8th?”
Don't be afraid to go through all of your contacts – to secure five meetings, you might need to send 35 or 40 emails. Even if recipients don’t respond immediately, they still see your email, your name, and your brand. This outreach, though seemingly small, has an impact.
Also, just because someone doesn't want to meet now doesn't mean they never will. This is why persistence and consistency with city scheduling are essential. Schedule your key cities four times a year.
As you set meetings in a city, it's critical to have a complete database of all the allocators in that city or those that fit the channel and product you're selling.
So, with Boston on your schedule, you can plan your meetings in two-hour increments: 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 3:00 PM, and 4:30 PM. This structured approach makes city scheduling straightforward.
It’s that simple: you're now city scheduling.
The strategy with city scheduling is to have between 5 and 10 cities on the books at any given time. This removes any opportunity for a salesperson to have any idle time. It has proven effective that they will come into the office and have a clear focus that they're always trying to schedule for certain days.
By sitting down several weeks in advance and going through each metro area and circling times, it gives a salesperson purpose and focus. You’ll go through your entire TAM in each metro area and try to book those meetings.
Navigating through extensive lists can be overwhelming, but organizing by specific metro areas makes it manageable to connect with your potential LPs. That's why we've implemented the Metro Area tab in Dakota Marketplace – to streamline city scheduling and categorize a metro area by various asset classes.
For instance, if you're looking to find all RIAs in Chicago, simply click into the Chicago metro within Dakota Marketplace. You'll see a comprehensive list of contacts in that area. Both our Investment Sales team and customers have found this feature incredibly useful for its ease of use and the ability to schedule last-minute meetings!
This tool allows you to book additional meetings, identify firms that align with your investment strategy, and connect with due diligence professionals based in specific cities.
Start city scheduling today and streamlining your fundraising process with a free trial of Dakota Marketplace!
Morgan Holycross is a Marketing Manager at Dakota.
