Access Philosophy
Access Aims to Increase the Constituency of Potential Buyers
- Access believes management teams and the sales forces at the small/mid-sized firms only have a ‘pure’ institutional background. We find this approach ineffective because it is too narrow and eliminates many potential buyers.
- Most firms focus heavily, and often exclusively, on traditional consultants and usually employ a direct sales person or two calling directly on the largest defined benefit, name brand endowment/foundations and/or Taft-Hartley plans.
- Mid market firms tend to only hire sales people with consultant relations and traditional institutional sales backgrounds. These firms all focus on the same, relatively narrow market, most of which (defined benefit) is a zero sum game. While the payoff is potentially large with an in-demand product, it often results in concentration within a few adopting buyers.
- Because the institutional market tends to hire sales professionals with institutional experience and contacts, there exists a knowledge gap around distribution of product outside of these extremely important, but very traditional sales channels.
- Other asset management firms have chosen to focus on RIA’s, directly on broker dealer networks or multi family offices. Many of these firms are unsure how to expand beyond their niche focus.
- Some firms have shown the willingness to hire teams to service the broker dealer network by offering low minimum separately managed accounts (SMA’s). Many firms find the unique sales and service model of the SMA business results in operational issues and much lower profit margins. This experience defines their understanding of the intermediary space.
We Aim to Fix an Ineffective Distribution Model
- Access believes we can establish penetration across all non traditional institutional channels in a cost effective manner and raise AUM for our partners in market segments previously misunderstood.