June 25, 2024
Fundraising is a hard job. At Dakota, we deeply understand the intricacies of a salesperson's role, as we are immersed in the same business. It’s a profession that demands a plethora of tools for success, which is why we have devised scalable solutions to help others achieve the same success we have experienced.
Since 2006, we have been a boutique fundraising firm for world-class investment managers and have raised over $30B. Dakota’s mission is to assist thousands of investment sales professionals in discovering new leads, arranging investor meetings, and advancing their careers.
In 2019, we transformed the database utilized daily by our Investment Sales team into a platform available to all called Dakota Marketplace. This comprehensive, precise, and perpetually updated database spans institutional and intermediary channels in the US and globally.
In this article, we are giving you the resources to enhance your investment sales team’s efficiency. By the end of this, you’ll have a better understanding of how to leverage Dakota Fund’s tools and services to streamline and strengthen your fundraising efforts.
Dakota Marketplace is a cornerstone product of our third-party marketing fundraising business, designed specifically to meet the needs of fundraisers. It is a meticulously crafted database of accounts and contacts, created by fundraisers for fundraisers since 2006. Dakota Marketplace offers an all-in-one solution that supplies investment sales teams with complete and accurate data, accelerating fundraising efforts. Trusted by many industry leaders, it ensures that your team has access to the most reliable information.
With an intuitive user interface, Dakota Marketplace enables you to find necessary contacts and firms with just a few clicks. This ease of use allows investment sales teams to focus more on selling and less on navigating complex databases. The platform ensures access to qualified prospects who align with your strategy, enhancing the efficiency of your outreach efforts.
City scheduling is an integral part of our Investment Sales team’s process. This feature helps you plan travel months in advance, ensuring a consistent and structured schedule. By always having 5-10 cities lined up, your team can continuously work towards their goals.
For city scheduling, choose a city and a day and write down 5 time slots:
Though you may need to send 35 emails to secure five meetings, consistency and persistence pay off. Breaking down endless lists by specific metro areas makes it manageable to reach out to potential LPs. The Metro Area tab in Dakota Marketplace facilitates this process, allowing you to efficiently schedule meetings and connect with the right prospects.
Within Dakota Marketplace, the "Map It" feature allows you to visualize any desired channel in a metro area. This capability helps book additional meetings, identify firms aligned with your investment strategy, and connect with due diligence professionals within a specific city.
By doing the research for you, Dakota Marketplace removes the pain points from an investment sales professional's day, allowing them to focus on prospecting rather than researching.
As stated above, Dakota Marketplace is the ultimate efficiency tool designed to save time and increase productivity by centralizing data into a single, comprehensive source. This eliminates the need for investment sales teams to gather information from multiple platforms, saving considerable time otherwise spent on cross-referencing and verifying data.
The database is updated daily, ensuring that the information remains current and accurate, allowing sales teams to focus on productive activities without worrying about outdated data. Features like advanced search filters and segmentation tools help quickly identify and target the most relevant prospects, increasing the efficiency of outreach efforts.
The platform seamlessly integrates with existing sales processes, offering tools such as the Metro Area tab and "Map It" feature to plan and schedule meetings efficiently. These tools optimize travel and meeting schedules, supporting collaborative efforts within sales teams by providing shared access to data and tools.
Your investment sales team can easily coordinate, share insights, and ensure that no potential lead is overlooked. By streamlining data management and research, Dakota Marketplace empowers your team to concentrate on setting up meetings and expanding your network, rather than researching who to call on.
Start streamlining your fundraising efforts today by booking a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
Morgan Holycross is a Marketing Manager at Dakota.
