Capital Raising Education Series: Part 5 | Featuring: Holly Singer, HS Marketing, and Felicia Mullison, Richey May
What this video covers: Capital raising does not happen in a single pitch meeting. It is the cumulative result of every touchpoint an investor has with your firm. This session walks through the eight essential pieces of a professional marketing toolkit and how to keep them working for you.
Start with Brand
Your brand is not your logo, it is the sum total of every interaction an investor has with your firm. A professional logo and consistent color palette should appear across every piece of collateral: pitchbook, tear sheet, letterhead, email signature, website, and LinkedIn profile. Visual inconsistency signals disorganization before you say a word.
Before you design anything, clarify your story. Why do you do what you do? What problem do you solve in an investor’s portfolio? What can your return stream offer that is difficult to find elsewhere? Investors are not buying your data points. They are buying your reasoning, your edge, and their confidence in your ability to deliver.
The Eight Essential Collateral Items
- Logo and visual identity: consistent across all materials
- Pitchbook: 15 to 20 slides covering who you are, your philosophy, process, portfolio, risk management, performance, and terms
- Tear sheet: a one to two page summary that mirrors your deck’s branding
- Website: mobile-responsive, SSL-secured, with team bios and contact information at minimum
- LinkedIn profile: current and professional for each principal. Do not let this go stale
- Elevator pitch: scripted and practiced at 30 seconds, two minutes, and five minutes
- Thought leadership content: blog posts, newsletters, or market commentary that demonstrate expertise and give you a reason to reach out
- Due diligence questionnaire: not required at launch, but essential before pitching institutional investors
Your Toolkit is a Living System (Not a One-Time Project)
A website with a 2019 news page signals neglect. A LinkedIn profile showing a prior employer signals inattention. A pitchbook with stale performance data signals that you are not managing investor communications. Treat every piece of collateral as needing periodic review.
Compliance Governs What You Can Say
Under 506(b), your website cannot name your fund or include fund-specific marketing content. Keep it firm-centric. Put fund materials behind a password-protected portal. If you have migrated to 506(c), the rules change, but have your compliance officer review all public-facing materials before anything goes live.
The Verbal Pitch: Scripted is not Stiff
Your elevator pitch should answer three questions: Who are you? What do you do? What is your edge? The third question is the one most managers skip, and the one allocators care about most. Practice until it sounds conversational, not recited. And after every meeting, every conference encounter, every introductory call: follow up. Allocators consistently report that managers pitch and then go silent.
If this video raised questions about how any of these topics apply to your fund, Steve Vlasak is happy to help. You can contact Steve directly at svlasak@richeymay.com.
Dive into the other topics in this Capital Raising Education series:
- Part 1: Rule 506(b) vs. 506(c) — Which One Is Right for You?
- Part 2: Allocating Money and the Due Diligence Process
- Part 3: Considerations for IRA Investment into Fund Structures
- Part 4: What to Do With Investor Contacts — A Look Into CRM
- Part 6: The Perfect Pitchbook
- Part 7: Contributed Securities
- Part 8: Rule 506(b) vs. 506(c) — A Legal Deep Dive
- Part 9: The Human Edge in Capital Raising
