How to Pitch Investors, Work With International Capital, and Allocate Your Attention Strategically

0:03On brand building in communications, there are a lot of entrepreneurs, operators, operators, and they're in the process of building out, whether they're building out their funds, building out their investment plays, what would you advise them to sort of focus on during that phase? Absolutely. You have to understand the mindset of the people that are your investor. I think a lot of times people are having monologues and not thinking about the other side, the receiving end. It's what is someone getting from this investment and take your pitch from that standpoint as opposed to trying to throw in the kitchen sink of all the things that you do.

0:48It's the biggest mistake we always see. And the first thing we ask a CEO and founder to do is give us your elevator pitch. and if you've ever watched Spongebob it's like you know three hours later the person is still going and you know people have the attention of a goldfish which is about eight seconds or so and dwindling so you have to catch people with a sound bite that is memorable and then you can get them to lean in and listen but start with something that matters to them Amazing. And I think just on one additional point here to touch on is really diversity and working with international investors.

1:37We tend to be very focused on our own backyard. But I think from some of the insights that Shirley had shared, what would you leave us with if any of us get approached by international investors? What are key things that we should take into consideration? Thank you. I think first of all, I just mentioned the level of trust that we all understand. So Asian, we're not transactional. All the relationships, even the current clients actually came from a lot of relationships I built over 15 years. So that's a level of trust and they know who you are, although you have been in transition in different principles, but they know they've been watching.

2:18So that's the first. And then second, I think there are different one family. If you have seen one family, there's one family. Because there's different definition for every family of the store of value and also risk factors. So remember that. Take that interest. Because some family, from the industry they're from, they can understand when you have a pitch from maybe real estate. However, they don't understand the difference between the real estate back in Asia. In China, we all know what happened. And then with the real estate in the USA. And then another concern, and also the risk factor. The risk factor I see, every family we advise will say, look, what is the risk to you?

3:05For us, it's not market volatility because traders or funds, they love that. That's when you get it. However, the risk is what is the likelihood you actually permanently diminishing part of your wealth? That is the risk. So we always address that. And then the third, you got to look from the investor's point of view about opportunity cost. So if you're pitching investor all for 100 % how good your fund is, how good this project is, You have to see from their view, they're maybe looking at 20, 30 other projects across different regions, different countries. And that's that you're just one of them.

3:50So I think the opportunity cost is that if they allocate that assets to your project, what other giving up? Are you out competing on the others? Yeah. Thank you. Great. I think that's great insight. We have these debates in our investment committee all day long. and most of the time it's you're not really allocating because you're being presented a project you're allocating because you have a strategy what is the investment thesis of that family office what are they allocating to are they hitting allocation caps are they actually allocating to certain geographies are they maxed out on a certain geography on our lending business for example we definitely allocate and we tap out like we might have a great deal coming in in florida but we're tapped out on florida for example so sometimes it's not just about having a great deal.

4:33It's about deeply understanding what your ideal investor profile is really looking like at this point in the market. I think going back to Alec and we'll close with that, just understanding the shift, like how have you, with transitioning from real estate into all these multifaceted businesses and other ventures, what was one thing that you've sort of taken away from that transition? I think as a business owner, it's very important to try to achieve a balance, and that balance is between short-term execution and operation and long-term vision and strategy. On one hand, the former requires you to really dig into details, establish your expertise, meet deliverables, meet deadlines.

5:19On the other hand, the latter requires you to step back and evaluate what you have, how to optimize your resources, expand not for the sake of expansion, but strategically place your bets in the most effective ways, not to follow something that's trendy but might be a distraction. So I think time and more importantly attention is the most limited resource, so how you allocate those is the million or billion dollar question. Great. Thanks to all our panelists. Thank you for your insights and sharing your stories. Join the Family Office Club by visiting familyoffices.com. We look forward to seeing you at our next live event.

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