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“Ugh… I’m going to sound like a broken record.”

If you’ve felt that in a 2nd or 3rd meeting, you’ve probably had the urge to “freshen up” your story just to keep it interesting.

In this episode, Stacy breaks down why that instinct can backfire.

She’s digging into what actually matters in follow-up meetings, especially when new people join, when the sales team thinks “we already covered that,” and when you’re tempted to improvise a whole new version of your story.

Listen in to learn:

Why “repetitive” might be a you problem (not a them problem)
Why you don’t want your story to shift too much between meetings
The simple test for whether you should “run it back” (even in a 3rd meeting
How to tee up repetition without it feeling awkward

This is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week.

TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

[00:00:00] Stacy Havener: Craving more knowledge, but don't always have time to sit down for a five course meal. Take a quick snack break with story snacks, bite-size content to feed your funnel. Each short episode features Stacey, digging into one question. This series has her talking stories, sales, and so much more. Oh yeah, it's time for story snacks.

[00:00:25] Wouldn't it be cool if you could diversify your investor base and add some non-US investors? Europe could be fun, or Latin America, maybe Antarctica. Hey, icebergs aren't really my jam, but you never know. You've only got one problem. How the heck do you do that? Fair question, but maybe this is a who not how thing.

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[00:01:09] They'll tell you where to go, and maybe more importantly, where not to go. Saving you time, money, and annoying headaches. Want to find out if your investment firm is ready to go global? Visit billion dollar backstory.com/gem cap, G-E-M-C-A-P. We've created a quick quiz that'll help you figure out if you're ready to expand beyond the US and side note.

[00:01:36] It's pretty fun too. Get your firm in front of the right investors in the right places with Gem Cap. Take the quiz and get more info@billiondollarbackstory.com slash gem. Cap ge. M-M-C-A-P.

[00:01:55] So what's the best way to keep our story fresh in second and [00:02:00] third meetings? How do I avoid sounding repetitive while still reinforcing the core message? Great question. So I'm gonna answer this question not in the way that. It was asked. The first thing I wanna talk about is the, the bit about repetitive.

[00:02:19] I wanna go back to this seven times to hear it once thing. It takes people seven times before they hear something one time. So the person who actually thinks the story is repetitive is who? You. You think it's repetitive 'cause you're tired of hearing yourself. Say it. They don't think it's repetitive because they don't live it.

[00:02:41] They've heard it like one time. So it is not repetitive to them. It's repetitive to you, but you have to play through that. This happens a lot, by the way. It's like a brain candy thing that like the fund manager or the salesperson. It's like, Ooh, I wanna talk about what I think is [00:03:00] fun and cool. I'm finger wagging.

[00:03:02] That's a no. I know you wanna talk about what you think is fun and cool and different, but that's not the point of this. The point of this is to talk about what the prospect thinks is fun and cool and different or needs to know. And if they've only heard your story one time, they haven't heard it enough times.

[00:03:19] And by the way, this also goes back to why you have to have a very sharp defined narrative. Because if you told the story one way. And then you come in and you have a whole different way now that you wanna tell it. That's weird. That's a red flag to someone. They're like, wait, that's not the story you told the last time.

[00:03:41] I mean, it's not gonna be exactly the same. I don't want you to be robotic about it, but like we can't come in and just be like, well I have, you know, I'm gonna try this whole new way of telling my story. Now it's the same story. It's only sort of boring and repetitive to you because it's yours and you say it all the time.

[00:03:57] It's not boring and repetitive to them [00:04:00] necessarily. Okay, so this was second or third meeting. That's not seventh meeting. So that's the first thing. Seven times to hear it once and also repetitive is good because repetitive is consistent and repeatable and allocators like that. The second thing I wanna say is it actually doesn't matter as much about whether it's the second meeting or the third meeting or the seventh meeting, what matters is how many new people are in the room.

[00:04:31] If there is one new person in the room who has not heard you tell the story, yeah, tell it again. 'cause that's their first time. And if you feel weird about that, that's okay. You can literally say, remember, we're all people here. This is gonna be repetitive for, you know, some of my friends that I've met with a few times.

[00:04:51] But since Mary's new, and you don't even have to call them out since there are some new people, it might make sense for me to kind of take you through how we came [00:05:00] to be sitting here at New Firm LLC. So it's not actually the number of meetings, it's how many new people are in the room. And if there's one new person, you'll run it back Jack because they don't know the story.

[00:05:15] Now, I'm gonna actually bonus pro tip question here that you didn't ask, but I wanna tell you because this happens, and actually somebody asked me this at our accelerator and the question they asked, it's basically a version of this from the sales side, which is. Okay. I, as the sales person, have talked to my champion at the prospects firm and they've told me about them.

[00:05:42] And so I've taken notes and I've told my fund manager about them. So now we go into the meeting and again, our more better meetings framework is the first thing we do in that meeting is we ask the prospect to tell us their story. So the salesperson was like, well, I [00:06:00] already know it. So what do I do?

[00:06:02] Because now it makes me look like I haven't told my fund manager the story, and if I ask them to do it again or like should I just synopsize the story while we're all sitting there? My point of view on this is very similar to what we've just talked about. When it's us telling the story, we ask them to tell it again.

[00:06:24] Why? 'cause there's a new person on our side now, which is the fund manager. And so if we feel weird about that, we can say, Hey Mary, I know you told me about your firm and it's such a great story. I filled Jim in on it, but I would love it if you could just spend a couple minutes taking us through the backstory of you and your company, who you serve, and all that stuff, right?

[00:06:46] You want to do this, why do this? Well, many reasons, not the least of which is the prospect is gonna think it's a good meeting if they talk 70% of the time. We're never gonna get there. Okay. [00:07:00] I've been doing this a long time. I've never been in a meeting where the prospect spoke 70% of the time. But even if we aim for 50 50, we need to give this person or these people some time and some space to talk.

[00:07:12] And this is a great way to do that right out of the gate. So the first thing is, you know, you can clarify it. But let them take up the space and tell you the story, the way they wanna tell it. And also because the fund manager might pick up on different things. You definitely told like a cliff note version of it.

[00:07:29] Let them hear it in their own words, which is also why I don't like the summarizing thing. It's also why I don't like when someone reads the bio of the person who's sitting there. It, it's just weird and awkward. Like, you know, I could have Mary tell you 'cause she's sitting right here, but let me just nutshell it for you.

[00:07:48] Like, they do this and this is how much they manage and this is who they serve. Mary Good. And Mary's not gonna go. No. I could tell it a lot better than that. Stacy. Thank you. She's gonna go. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of it. Like you robbed [00:08:00] them of the opportunity to tell their story. Yuck. That's not cool. So I don't recommend that.

[00:08:08] Everybody just pause. Okay. We're gonna tell some stories. You may have heard it before. Apologies if you have, but here we go again. This is how people learn and remember things, is by hearing it more than once. Let's be real. No one wakes up and says, I can't wait to build some operational infrastructure today you are here to manage money to build something that lights you up, not chase down reports across five systems and 15 service providers.

[00:08:40] That's where Ultimas Fund Solutions comes in there. Your ops dream team, consolidating all your middle and back office chaos into one clean, scalable setup, registered funds. Private funds, SMAs, all integrated. One team, one tech [00:09:00] platform, one rock solid source of data. But here's the real differentiator service.

[00:09:07] I know that Fund in a box sounds convenient. It's also a box. Know what? You can't put in a box? A human who picks up the phone when you call and need help. Real life people who know your name and your fund and they care about getting it right. Ultimas was built on people doing business with people. You get institutional strength combined with boutique level service without getting stuck in a phone tree of doom.

[00:09:35] If you're ready to simplify scale and start working with a team that feels like an extension of yours, check out billion dollar backstory.com/ultimas. That's ul. T-I-M-U-S. You've got the investment strategy, the vision, the track record. Now it's time to upgrade the engine behind it all with ultimas. [00:10:00] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

[00:10:07] The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm.

[00:10:26] Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Haven or Haven or Capital Partners.

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