YouSaid · the spoken record

Jennifer Prosek

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68
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2024-07-15
most recent
2024-07-15
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1
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podcast

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  1. “So, how do you go about doing that? There's many ways to build a network, but I think anything in life is about the law of reciprocity, giving to receive. So what is giving? Giving the gift of a network is an extraordinary thing to give. So I spent a lot of time giving the gift of network. And I do, I find like-minded people who want to be in the room. So I will convene 20 founders of private equity firms, for instance, who don't know each other. And what I will find is everyone will leave knowing who the other people were and what always happens is that they follow up with each other. They make friends, they do deals together, magic happens because of that. And I love doing it. It's a lot of work and it's hard to do. And there's a whole recipe, but convening has really been my way of building my network.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I became an entrepreneur by accident in my 20s. I was a person who had no network. And I had to build it from scratch. So when you're a startup entrepreneur in your 20s, you don't have the luxury of, I used to work at Goldman Sachs, and here's my amazing network. So I got clever about how to build networks. And what I realized was one great relationship can change the course of your career, the course of a business. became an obsession for me. And what I realized is that convening is extremely powerful. So I spend a lot of time convening people who want to get to know each other in small intimate settings where real relationships can happen. And it's been the most extraordinary part of my career. If you ask me, like, what would you do for free? Convening because I see the magic of it for my own business, but for”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Once you start putting that message out, you nail the narrative, you're speaking, then you get into building relationships. I know you spent a lot of time building a network and you see all these people that come in from it, somebody like Deirdre, that you wouldn't think would normally be at a communications firm. How do you think about building a network?”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Leadership and volatile times. And people have to opt into your newsletter. They want to read your stuff just like they would read the Wall Street Journal. And that has been If you look at LinkedIn, check out Mark Lipschultz. Check out Orlando Bravo. They are very active and sophisticated on LinkedIn because they know it's helping the bottom line.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I experiment with everything myself before I tell a client to do it. One thing that has happened since the pandemic, for instance, is that LinkedIn went from being perceived as a job seeker's space to a real thought leadership news breaking platform to serious business people, partially because the pandemic forced us all to find different behaviors to do business. The LPs, the GPs, everyone got on LinkedIn because they were sitting behind their screen trying to close a deal or raise money and they're like, how do I do this? Let's get on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn has become extremely powerful. And there are different ways to use LinkedIn. Most people use LinkedIn just to show the momentum of their firm. This thing happened today. This deal happened. We hired this person. And that's great. But the next level is really writing longer form content in a newsletter fashion. So for instance, I have a newsletter called”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “On getting those reps before they go on stage. And the reps are not just sit straight and speak this way. It's the content. And you've been to many panels at many investment conferences where the content's not that good. So to us, we believe it's a reputational backfire to get on stage and not be interesting, not be memorable. If you're memorable in the other way, he really had nothing to say. That's just not worth doing. So we're pretty hardcore with our clients to make sure they are ready to perform.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “A great question. Speaking engagements are one of the most effective way to show the market what you're about and what unique insights you have that are of value. It's become extremely crowded to land a panel or speaking opportunity at these investment conferences. That emerging market of marketing has moved so quickly that most founders now want to be on stage telling their story again because they understand the bottom line impact. How to get someone from zero to hero, everything in life Malcolm Gladwell said, what is it, the 10,000 hour rule? It is practice. It is reps. So what we try to do is create a safe space where a founder or CEO CIO can have those reps before going on stage. So for instance, in our world, we have a number of former TV anchors like Deirdre Bolton, who all they do is work with founder, CEO, CIOs, PMs.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “As you go from a firm that's generally been insular talking to their LPs, but not the outside world, and then wants to tell their story more broadly. There's written pieces, but there's also spoken pieces at conferences and television. How do you go about training someone in public speaking to get them to the point where they're good at telling their own story?”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “And in that case, media relations was on the table. So we called a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and told them the story of their culture. And within weeks, they had a feature story on the front cover, the business section. And the headline was the firm that banned the word deal. So I remember just feeling like we had to dig out that one little thing, but that one little thing was symbolic enough to the reporter that something interesting was going on there culturally. And that, of course, that culture had to lead to great returns. We really want to talk to prospective talent deals and capital about not just our culture, but how it leads to the best returns. And it did in that story. So that's the one that comes to mind.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Well, the one that comes to mind, partners group came to us many moons ago. They wanted to build their brand in the United States. And we went through this discovery process, this nail the narrative process. And I remember speaking to their North American CEO about their culture and their approach. And we weren't really getting anything. And then he said private equity world is very transactional. And I don't believe in that. I'm trying to build a different kind of culture. And we've gone so far as to ban the word deal in our culture. Now, a private equity firm that bans the word deal, that's just symbolic of something else that's going on. So we dug into that approach, that culture, how he was going about it. And it was really interesting. And I remember saying to him, if you use that as the handle, that will allow you to tell the rest of the story.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I'd love to hear an example in your head, Bridge Waters, in the private markets. Do you think there's megacap, there's mid-market, maybe something that's come up relatively recently where you saw what that story was that even the manager hadn't done their own.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “The packaging makes a lot of difference. Army entrepreneurs make someone say wow, what's an army of entrepreneurs and how is that? And by the way, I wrote a whole book about Army of Entrepreneurs, as you know. So once you have this unique story, you could take it up and down. You can use it, of course, to talk to an LP or prospective employee. You could also publish a book on it. I mean, again, you know, we worked with Bridgewater for years, radical truth and transparency was the handle of their culture and it was fascinating and it became a best-selling book. So there are all kinds of channels to use, small, medium, and large and telling your story.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Well, the nice thing about being so focused on this space is we've heard it all. So when someone says we're really unique because we know if that's true or not true. So I would think if you were a large consumer packaged goods company, you would do a lot of market research to see what does the world think of me. Most of my clients don't want to spend the money for the market research. The lucky thing is we are market research because we've been doing this for 20 years. We probe a number of people leadership in the company to hear with our ears what is the story and what is unique. And there have been many times when we've had to tell a client this is not unique, but this is, say it this way. It's also the packaging of the story. I could say, for instance, I have a very unique culture that has a lot of hustle and this and that. Or I could say we're an army of entrepreneurs. Boom.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “The first thing we have to do for any firm is what we call nailing the narrative. What is the narrative? What is the story? How is it distinct? How can we tell that story in a unique way, in a sea of what seems to be sameness? So once we nail the narrative, it's really about what channels do we use. And the reality is thought leadership is the name of the game. So that's speaking, writing, publishing content on a number of different channels. That's getting to know the media that cover the space and getting quoted and producing stories. And that bag of tricks.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “When you're working with them from not having told their story to trying to get great at it, what are the different levers across? You think about like things they could write, ways they can be speaking in public.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Sure. So the emerging market of marketing is the private market space. And the reason I call it that is because these are firms that had never spent money on brand or proactive reputation management. It was all the defense work. And we saw that market conditions would change and firms would one day wake up and care about these things. And that happened. And I would say when we last spoke, it was happening. And now there is not one private markets firm on the planet that doesn't believe that brand and story and being on the offense doesn't hit the bottom line. It creates efficiencies across this rubric we call talent deals in capital. You can attract the best talent in a more efficient way. You can source the best deals in the most efficient way. Can raise money in a more efficient way if people understand your decision.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “When you last came on, you had mentioned a number of years ago this concept of an emerging market for branding of asset management firms. And I thought it'd be fun to start with your take of what's transpired over the last couple of years.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I guess on today's show is Jennifer Prosek, the founder and CEO of Prosec Partners, a leading marketing and communications firm that for thirty years has helped the world's top brands navigate what comes next. In asset management, ProSec Partners clients oversee $60 trillion and comprise a who's who in private and public markets. Jen is a popular past guest on the show from her first appearance five years ago and second when she shared her thoughts on navigating the pandemic. Our conversation updates Jen's thoughts on the emerging market of branding in the private markets, the importance of nailing the narrative, power of convening, maximizing value at conferences, and identifying talent. We discussed our thoughts on the trends driving capital flows and some great genisms from her LinkedIn newsletter. Called leading involatable times.”

    2024-07-15 · Capital Allocators · Jennifer Prosek – Nailing the Narrative (EP.396) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source