Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Business Brew.
I am your host, Bill Brewster. This episode features Heda
Nadler of Mountain Nadler. I really enjoyed this
conversation. Heda is a heck of a person and
she talks a little bit about how she grew up and what it
instilled in her. And I think that is one of the
cooler parts of the conversation.
And I think that if I were an asset manager and thinking about
how might I market my firm, listening to this conversation
with Heta could add some value and I might consider giving Heta
a call. So that's my pitch.
I thought, she's a very cool person.
That's what I got. This episode is sponsored by
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All right, Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to be joined by Heta
Nadler today of Mountain Nadler. How's it going, Heta.
Oh. Terrific.
Thank you for having me on, Bill.
Well, you're very welcome. I believe that we have a common
connection with William Green. Yes.
Oh. Absolutely.
There you go. I'm a big fan.
Yeah, he's a good dude. Yes.
Do you want to talk a little bit about what Mountain Adler does
and your background, just to sort of give context to the
conversation? Absolutely.
Mountain Adler, we're based in New York City.
We are a 40 plus year old public relations firm and we represent
asset managers, mutual funds, ETFs and try to get their story
across in the Press of all sorts and help them accomplish their
goals of typically attracting clients assets.
What led you to to this business that you started or that you
run? Allan Math and I had worked
previously together at a financial PR firm which had a
focus on mutual funds. At the time, they also did IR,
which we were capable of doing, but we ended up when we started
out attracting mutual fund clients because that's kind of
where we had the exposure from the prior firm.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though your client
SKU seems to have a value tilt or is that just something that
that we've talked about more because that's what I tilt
towards. Yeah.
We ended up fortuitously ending up with a lot of value investor
clients. One of our very first clients
was Mutual Shares Corp, which was the forerunner to Mutual
series funds which were run by Michael Price, the legendary
investor and Max Heine who was his mentor.
And we started to promote those two funds.
They had two $106 million at the time and they wanted to attract
IRA money, which was new and we helped them do that.
And the story of the funds were so fascinating because they were
value managers, very traditional.
And also they invested in Chapter 11 companies as they
emerged from Chapter 11. And Max had a particular
fascination with bankrupt bonds. And I understand that Mutual
Series to this day still has some of the bankrupt Penn
Central bonds in the portfolio. Oh wow, that's interesting.
It is. So how does that conversation go
when you get on the phone with them?
I mean, these guys looking back at it are legends at the time.
Did you know that they would, that they had something special
or how do you sift through the clients that you Rep and?
Well, we. Did or some clients different?
Of course we did know they were special because at the time
Mutual Shares Corp was had been founded in 1949 and was
compounding at about 12% a year. And also they had this unusual
value bent. They were no load, which was
something we had to explain to the press back in the day
because most of the funds were sold by brokers or sales people
of one form or another. And so they not only had stellar
performance, but they had that little bit of extra sauce which
is buying some of these Chapter 11 companies.
And I might add, it was also at a time where I had to explain to
the media what Chapter 11 was. Things have changed a bit, huh?
Yes, exactly. So going along the line of
things have changed, I mean what is, what is the ETF industry
done to your business and the people that you represent?
Have the structures changed a lot over time?
Have the styles changed over time, or is it kind of more of
the same? It's kind of more of the same,
Bill, but I have to say in the asset management business, it
looks like there's plenty of room under the tent.
So you end up with mutual fund organizations that are now
casting their net in the ETF space as well.
And you end up with traditional mutual fund and asset manager
organizations that are sticking to their last.
They're not going into the ETF space.
They're perhaps expanding with more funds in different areas or
continuing to do what they've always done because they've been
successful doing it. Yeah, it's interesting.
The ETF wrapper seems to be packaged in a tax efficient
manner. I think some of your clients I I
can't speak for all of them, but some of them I think makes sense
to not be in the ETF wrapper, if that makes sense.
It could be. We do have a harder Capital
Advisors has both, they have a suite of mutual funds and they
have a suite of ETFs. So I think it depends on the
manpower and resources and also they don't want to
disintermediate any of the money.
So if they're doing well with specific audiences in this case,
there's a lot of moving of the advisor community.
They just want if it ain't broke and don't fix it.
You know, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
What do you think that managers may lack or and and maybe it's
just scale, right? I don't mean this on a
personality basis, but I mean, what is it that drives people to
hire y'all and why have you been successful for so long?
I think there's probably a discussion at the firm perhaps
at many levels where they understand that they are, they
have a secret sauce, if you will, in whatever space they're
operating in and they want to get the word out because they're
not attracting assets. So marketing is a very key
element of running a business. I always think back to the tech
bubble and a lot of those organizations had great ideas,
great licenses, great patents, but they didn't know how to run
a business they never marketed. So they ended up going down in
flames. And I think in asset management
companies, somebody might attract a few clients,
shareholders here and there, but they realize that they're better
than a peer or a competitor, but the competitor has marketing and
they don't. So they look to someone like
ourselves, we tend to attract more of a boutique type of asset
manager and we almost become their marketing department.
And we're happy to do that by the way.
So it isn't just the public relations.
We will give them counsel on whether they should present at a
certain organization. We'll help them draft emails.
We'll give them guidance on content strategy depending on
what's relevant and their comfort level.
We're very careful about making certain that our clients are
very comfortable in whatever activity we pursue with.
It's funny, I There's a school of thought that says just put up
returns and the money will find you.
And I'm curious to hear your response to that.
I I think you know what you're gonna say, but I'm curious to
hear. No, I'm gonna say that short
term that might very well be true, but the money leaves
quickly. Also is the minute that the
returns take a dip or you underperform and we have clients
that they know that they need to market month in and month out,
good returns, bad returns. And we also find that during bad
times, quote UN quote, the money tends to be stickier with a lot
of our clients because the investor has read about them or
heard them on TV or heard them speak at a webinar or a seminar.
And they know that the client stays in touch with them with
marketing materials. So they're much more comfortable
with the investments and they're not as performance driven.
A lot of the performance driven clients are short term, which
really is not the most ideal client for a fund or asset
manager. That's interesting.
I've I figured that you were going to say that sometimes if a
tree falls in the woods, no one hears it, right?
And sometimes you got to get out there.
And I think that there is either a skill set mismatch, a lack of
time or some other reason that that sometimes marketing and
asset management just don't go together and provides a nice
place for you to occupy in the ecosystem.
Yes. And we're very, we prepare our
clients. We educate our clients about
public relations. There's different routes you can
take. We have clients that don't want
to be on TV, don't want to speak or they have budget constraints.
They only have X amount of resources to apply to the
marketing effort. And so we try to make them happy
with whatever marketing or PR activities that we pursue.
All was annoyed towards achieving the goal of attracting
assets. Yeah, yeah.
What was your early career like? What did a young Heta Nadler
would come on the PR? How'd you find yourself in
finances of all niches? I graduated with a degree from
Baruch College in Psychology. I found out that I needed a
Master's or a PhD to pursue being a child psychologist,
which was my aspiration at the time.
And I went now because I wasn't like a student or I didn't care
for it. So I had secretarial skills
because I came from a poorer background.
So I had to work when I was in high school and college.
And so I had taken speed writing, which was a form of
shorthand, and typing and bookkeeping.
So I was able to get summer jobs, weekend jobs when I was in
high school and college, and I when I graduated from college, I
said, well you know what? I like writing, so I'm going to
see if I can be a secretary in advertising, PR, journalism or
publishing because all of them use writing skills.
I went to an agency which charged the employer.
At the time, there were only two in the city that charged the
employer. Otherwise, the employee paid and
I was not about to do that. I was a value girl right from
the get go. And they yeah.
That doesn't sound like a great deal.
You can come here and yeah. And they said we have a job with
a financial PR firm. And I said, oh, perfect, because
I'm great with numbers. So I had no idea what a
financial fee offer was because with a poor background, you
don't invest, you're just trying to figure out how to get the
grocery money every week. So I went to the firm and he
hired me. He didn't want to hire me
because my my steno skills were slower than someone who took
stenography. I just took speed writing.
And I convinced him to hire me. And I said, listen, every letter
is going to be perfect and the punctuation will be perfect,
etcetera, etcetera. I said if you don't like it,
after a week, you can fire me. And of course, I did a great
job, 'cause I was totally overqualified, but I was happy I
got a job. I would listen to the guys at
the firm talk about how they needed a news release on Bill
Brewster being named the director of a particular fund.
He was representing some mutual funds.
And I would take the information home and I'd write the news
release and I'd bring it in. And I would say, oh, I heard you
needed a release on this. So I took the limit.
I did it at home. So they started to rely on me
for these kind of basic news releases.
I was still secretary. He fired the office manager.
Now I was managing the office and doing these little news
releases. I guess I was multitasking
before the charm came into existence.
But I was very happy doing it. I was very comfortable doing it
because I figured I'd quote, make something of myself.
And lo and behold, four years later as vice president of the
company and I'm managing all the clients accounts.
And he was a little put out because he had to actually hire
a new secretary. And he said I was the best
secretary he ever. Had he said if I'm VP, I could
no longer be secretary? I'm sorry.
Exactly, yeah. And Alan Mounts, who founded the
firm with me, extremely talented, very creative.
We had a very similar work ethic.
He worked at that same firm. So we knew he could work
together and we decided to go out on our own and see if we
could attract some IR clients and mutual fund clients.
We didn't do so well in the IR department, but we started to
have some mutual funds come to us and then each it built on
that because somebody would ask the mutual fund how do they get
that story in Money magazine and they would say, oh, Mountain
Nadler. And so it was good even to this
day, Bill, we get a lot of clients through word of mouth,
whether it's from other clients or journalists.
So it it. Interesting.
So, so when you were on one side of the business, you need to
track the mutual fund clients or the investing clients.
On the other side, you needed to attract and cultivate
relationships with some of the financial media, the press,
right? So.
So what did your day look like when you were going between
those? I mean, were you trying to set
up coffees with reporters and whatnot?
It was wonderful. We'd meet people in person all
the time, you know, 'cause there was no emails, there was no
texting. And even today, all right, I
have to admit it. I will call a reporter, OK.
After I've emailed them and he or she hasn't responded.
And I know it's a perfect situation where they ask me for
something specifically and they never responded.
And I'll call in. And I every time I call
someone's like, oh, I'm so glad you called because I missed that
e-mail or I was wondering what happens or you ended up in spam,
that kind of thing. We do the same kind of thing
today, Bill, to some degree, which is we go out to lunch with
reporters, we'll take, we'll go coffee, breakfast because we
want to be able to talk to the reporter about the various
clients, sources that we have and to get a sense of what it is
they're looking for, how can we help them.
And because it isn't just feature coverage, I wish it
were, but we want to say to them, we have a client who's an
expert in energy or there's a healthcare maven at this
organization or we've got guys that could talk macro.
Of course we talk the value. They come to us for value a lot
of times, which is great. Yeah.
Well, that's so interesting. Part of what I was getting at is
when you think about the asset management business, it's so
time intensive and there's so much research that goes into it
that I presume you almost need an arm go out and cultivate
these other relationships. And the nice thing that you have
provided clients over time is sort of the ability to outsource
that, right? And I'm sure there's puts and
takes from a financial standpoint, if I'm your client
that I'm doing that, but at least I don't have the fixed
cost and the time of training people to do that.
And you've got the relationships and it's got to be fairly
symbiotic, I would think. Yes, it is.
That said though, if we have a client that comes to us and they
invest in infrastructure and but my colleagues and I are not
familiar with the journalists that cover that we will seek
them out and we'll start to forge a relationship with them
if it's possible. So we can add that quiver, that
arrow to our quiver, but we do have the relationships and
that's one of the things we pride ourselves on.
And I think the media will back me up.
We will go to journalists with relevant story ideas and they
will often say that they appreciate that if they see an
e-mail from us, they know it's something that they may have an
interest in. Yeah, yeah.
And. That's important.
Yeah, your approach on that reminds me a little bit of
hearing that somebody needs a a news release and you're the one
that goes and does it at home and solves the problem for the
person. It sounds like you're a problem
solver. Correct.
We're problem solvers. We like to work smart.
We always say we are very collegial in the office because
everyone is bright and we can exchange ideas.
We don't always take each other's suggestions, but it's
certainly good to hear all sides of the equation.
And that's the same with clients and reporters also.
Do you mind going in a little bit into your background and
your childhood? I'm curious how you got the work
ethic and the problem solver. Sort of that's a knack that that
I've, I've always heard, right? You want to get ahead in life,
solve people's problems, right? So how did you do that?
Sort of. Not innately.
But how did you learn to do that?
I know this is weird to say, but it's almost an advantage to him
grown up in a poor family because you have to be
resourceful if you wanted something.
When I was 11 and 12 years old, I was tutoring in math.
Some of my neighbor's kids. I remember you're going to
laugh. I got $3.00 an hour which was
like a gold mine. Yeah, it was different back
then. But there wasn't extra money.
When you're a tween or a teen, there was no extra money to go
to the movies or to buy makeup or custom jewelry or stuff that
kids want to do. So I grew up with two sisters.
I was the neglected middle child.
I'm sorry. All of us, interestingly enough,
we're into numbers. I mean, I was originally an
accounting major at Peru, but I was good at it, but I didn't
like it, you know, so I. Can understand that, Yeah.
My oldest sister who unfortunately is deceased.
She was an A tax accountant, self-taught, never went to
school, never did anything beyond high school, and she was
enrolled agent. She was able to plead cases at
the federal court level, etcetera, etcetera.
Wow, I know. My younger sister is a PhD in
applied math and teaches statistics at the Baruch MBA
level. Wow.
So there must have been now. My dad was a mailman, huh?
My mother worked nights to make ends meet, but they were always
my father, had a lot of St. sports and my mom was very
polite and had a lot of integrity and they would always
push us gently or motivate us well.
If you want that, see if you can get it.
And they always taught us to be respectful and caring and to do
the best job possible. And I think we just grew up with
that wonderful work ethic and when.
And it's just like I had to work through high school.
I mean, what kids work from high school other than paper routes
or something like that. But I had to.
It wasn't a choice. I mean, I had to.
And oh, well, my grandmother was very influential in my life.
My grandmother lives on the second floor of the building.
We lived on the third floor of the apartment building.
My aunt and uncle lived right next door to us.
This was the days of extended families.
So if you went home and nobody was home, you just went to
whoever's door was open. Yeah, but my grandmother, she
always used to tell me I was special and I started to believe
it. Well, good for her.
Good for her for planting that seed.
I know my big regret is she passed away when I was like 16
because she would have been really proud of me and I would
have been able to help her afford to.
She always had a dream to go to Florida in the cold weather and
stuff like that, but that's. But I digress.
Yeah, So I think there was something in the There was
something in the water when we were growing up that made all
three of us overachievers. We didn't know we were
overachievers. We just did what we thought was
the proper thing to do and strive for.
Yeah, I wonder if it was having that much family around in a
support system that encouraged you to go out and do things.
I have a a friend that owns a Chick-fil-A around here and I
was talking to him about who are the best kid, who are the best
people to hire. And he said within I didn't even
get the words out of my mouth. And he said homeschool kids
because they can come in at noon and they usually have to work
like to support their family on average in our area.
And he's like, you get those kids and they want it and they
need it and they're trainable and they see a career path in
front of them and and they're willing.
To work pretty. Interesting answer.
Yes, exactly, exactly. We were taught nothing is going
to just come our way. You need to work to earn what it
is that you're looking to achieve.
So, so we were OK with that. So there was no resentment.
It was motivation, although I must.
Say it's an interesting perspective.
I like that perspective. Yeah, but you know what, Bill?
I grew up in an era where it was not common for girls to go to
college because what's the point?
You go to college, you graduate, you get married and have kids
and you stay home. So I pursued college.
I wanted to go to college, and then when I graduated from
college, I got married shortly thereafter.
Because in those days you got married when you were in your
20s. Different times.
I know. And because I had achieved vice
presidentship at the company, I didn't want to stop working to
have a child. So I decided I would continue to
work. And this is at a time where
there were no maternity leave, there was no daycare centers.
There was no consideration given in those days.
And you're talking 4050 years ago.
And so I just made arrangements to have someone come in the
morning and take care of my daughter.
I worked every day in my pregnancy.
Oh my God. Birth on Sunday and I felt fine.
By the way, I think attitude helps.
I work Friday. I gave birth Sunday.
I took two weeks vacation and I went back to work.
Wow. And I never looked back.
Who took care of the baby? I had a woman who I had lined up
three women when I was in my 9th month of pregnancy, excuse me.
And I called the first woman when I gave birth and she had
just had emergency gallbladder operation.
So I called the second woman and I had said to the second and
third women that I picked someone who had a little more
experience, but if that didn't work out, I'd like to call on
them. And the second woman was happy
to do the job. She took her bus every morning.
I lived in Yonkers at the time. She came to the house super
reliable and she left when I came home at night and I was
happy to be with my daughter, whom I have a close relationship
with to this day, notwithstanding that I worked.
Yeah, well, I think she probably understands who her mother is,
and it sounds like you're a pretty special person.
She does. And people said to me, oh, did
you spend quality time with her? I said every minute I spent with
her was quality trying. Trust me, you don't have to say
Oh, from 11:00 to 2:00 will be quality time.
Well, I respect that. I have mixed feelings on
quantity, verse quality, but I suspect that when you have that
kind of fire in your belly, the quality time is seem like
somebody that's very good at focusing on what's in front of
you and accomplishing it. Exactly, and figuring out how to
do it if it's at all possible. Yeah.
And what was it like as a woman VP back in those days?
One, you said you didn't have any maternity leave.
I would think you didn't have too many peers.
Now the PR business tends to attract talented people who can
write well. So to that degree I was
fortunate that I was in PR. It's almost like being in the
arts. It simply doesn't matter what
your agenda is if you have the talent.
But it was still mostly male dominated and the fact that I
was able to breakthrough from Secretary to Vice President and
account Executive was telling the progress that was going
forth for women at the time. I never really looked at myself
as a woman per SE, but just someone who wanted to be
successful and was talented at multitasking writing people
skills. I get along with anyone whom I
choose to get along with careful words, right?
I like that. I like that you.
Just have to figure out how people are wired and then just a
deal with them. You can't deal with everyone the
exact same way because everybody's wired differently.
Nothing is wrong. It's just and in the asset
management business, you got a lot of numbers, people and a lot
of quantitative mindsets, mechanical mindsets.
So we're very good at getting along with all of our clients
and being able to be successful for them.
You're bringing up some personality traits, so I'm
curious, over your time, what are there certain personality
traits among investors that you've seen that you think
there's commonalities among successful investors, or do they
come in all different shapes and sizes?
Yeah. They do come in shapes and sizes
as far as value investors are concerned.
In William Green's book, Richard Wiser, Happier, he really dwells
on the personality as opposed to someone looking for a certain
balance sheet numbers or income statements or earnings per
share, etcetera. And they from my perspective,
these successful value managers see things from a different
view, if you will. You and I could look at the same
thing and they see a potential opportunity there or something
to question or pursue. And you and I are saying, well,
it just looks like a tree to me, you know, but they're thinking,
oh, I wonder about the lumber industry and I'm wondering what
the shortage of houses is there going to be a pick up is?
So. So they do have a different
perspective and they tend to look at the world as prospective
opportunities for them to at least explore, to explore.
And I do find that they're nice. They're kind of comfortable
being themselves. And Michael Price, I went into a
meeting that Michael Price was speaking at 600 people he was
talking to. I walked into the room and he
rushed over to me and he said let me take your coat.
No, that's nice. And I said, Michael, you're
supposed to be talking any minute.
I'm OK. Take your coat.
It's Berkowitz from Fairholme, whom we represent.
I had dinner with him in the city.
He texted me an hour later to make sure I got home OK.
I mean, just nice people, yeah. Do you still represent Bruce?
Yes. How has that been?
Interesting. I would think I I don't know how
to ask the question and I'm just going to encourage an honest
conversation. We can cut whatever we may cut
this, but it's he. He was so concentrated and so
public on Sears that I would think it would be a test.
Well, there's one common trait that they have.
They kind of own up to their errors or missteps and they
explain them and they say we'll try not to do that again.
And he's concentrated sometimes it's by design.
Well, he is registered as a non diversified investment company
but with Joe which is about 75% of the portfolio and that's a
stock he bought initially in 2010.
I remember when he did that. Yeah, and he never really added
to the position. He's paired the position, but
it's like one of the side effects of having a super
successful holding in your portfolio.
Yeah, I have heard from people that have been there recently,
and I don't know. I've said it before on the
podcast. I'll say it right now.
I don't know why I don't just get in the car and go see it.
I hear it's beautiful. Like what?
Like the development that they're doing.
I I hear that they're. Doing a great job with it.
It's fabulous. Yeah, we haven't visited, but
anyone who's gone down there to visit it, they come back like
blown away, blown. Away.
Yeah, that's what I've heard too.
I had two people text me and they've been like, you got to
get up here and see what's going on.
I know. Which is a nice story after sort
of the Sears debacle, right? Like it's nice to have a rose
grow from yeah, it. Was over the years but.
Yes. No, of course.
He has massive career. That's why I just somebody that
I have followed because I mean what coming in 2010 he must have
been. I mean forget about top decile,
he must have been like top 5% fund manager.
Yeah. Yeah, so it's been interesting.
Also, I have learned a lot from following him, just sort of like
the thin line between. I try to remind myself if that
can happen to him, it can really happen to me, right?
So that's interesting. I don't want to ask you who do
you represent or whatever, but I'm just kind of curious like
you've gotten to interact with all these Titans, right?
Like the people, Super. Fun for me.
I mean, I represented Marty Whitman.
Wow. Jean Marie of yours from First
Eagle and we still represent First Eagle.
That's our longest standing client.
We've had First Eagle since 1987 when the world was different.
But yeah, yeah, so it's been great.
It's been absolutely great because.
Do you find that those people talk to each other or do they
operate a little bit more on a solitary island?
Life. My take, and I don't know this
for sure, is that they're more solitary.
I think they know of each other. They may look at each other's
quarterly reports. But I was telling somebody
recently that notwithstanding that they're all value managers,
you don't really see a lot of overlap on the portfolios in
many instances. So they look for these unusual
opportunities, these undiscovered value stocks, and
they pick stock by stock, you know?
Quote UN quote value investing, has that changed over time or
are there sort of some commonalities that that have
gone through that have worked throughout the years?
I mean, it's something I hear a lot of people say like oh, the
market's changing. I I have good perspective on
whether or not that's true. I don't think the market has
changed. The market is still made-up of
people, so maybe the people have changed so.
Unlikely, according to. Evolution, right?
We tend to have a focus more on tech or whatever, but that could
change too, right? You know, 'cause they tend to be
more fickle. But I think that Graham and Dog
basic classic value investing is still the same.
They're still looking to get a business at half its intrinsic
value with a little bit of observation about risks.
So there's no possibility of permanent encampment of capital
that they can foresee. So I think that's basic value
investing. Trying to get something for
$0.50 on the dollar has remained the same.
So let's say I I have a track record and I say Heda, I I know
that I'm good at this, but I need the help on marketing.
How has your distribution strategy changed over time?
I'm curious like how the marketing of funds has changed.
Well, it's changed more from the perspective of the outlets that
we're able to go to. I mean, back in the day, we had
print media, period. The end.
Oh, yeah. We had Associated Press, United
Press, International Fund, Reuters, right.
Yeah, that was it. That was it.
So there was no money.com, There was no fortune.com.
There was actually the financial advisor trades really weren't in
existence. They were not a target at all.
So you didn't have financial advisor, financial planning,
investment news, that kind of thing.
So today there are so many more outlets that we can go to to
tell a client's story that reach their target audiences.
So it isn't onlythe.com the online publications, but we do
podcasts which you have to be very effective.
Back in the day, you wouldn't be on my show.
Exactly. Consuela Mack has been doing her
thing for a while. I I got to talk to her.
If you know her, I'd love to interview her someday.
She's awesome. We also can have clients now who
participate in webinars, who are on panel discussions, who speak
at conferences, who might do byline articles.
And also there are roundup pieces that's trend stories that
where it's logical for a client or comments.
Then there's radio and TV as well.
So you have Bloomberg, you have CNBC.
So those are all outlets. So there's many more outlets to
tell the client's story. Well, I I don't mean to be so
naive about this, but what is a by lined article?
That's where a client will write a piece.
It's more of an educational piece.
So maybe are small caps really coming back in 2024 and it might
be written by a small cap client and it's educational about small
cap stocks, perhaps a little history perhaps looking ahead
and then at the end they get their credit.
This article was written by SO and SO, who's portfolio manager
of the Builders to small cap funds.
Yeah, that makes sense. OK, you see that barons a lot
and. It has life after that.
Any article can be posted on a website, can be sent to clients
and shareholders. We could do social media if the
client is comfortable with that. If they have a sales force, they
want to get the word out to the sales force.
It also makes the people working at the firm feel good, because
here's a piece extolling the virtues of their investment
products. Yeah, I found I've been
surprised at the even if I look at who's listening today, the
back catalogue, it's not nearly as listened to as the most
recent podcast, but people still churn through the back catalogue
quite a bit. So these these content pieces do
live for a very long time. Yes, yes.
And if you're if they're Evergreen in terms of just
stating the case for a particular asset class or
strategy, they can just go on forever.
Yeah. How do you think about how how
should I think about creating Evergreen content?
Do you think maybe I'm going to be selfish here, get some free
advice like because some of the incentive is come on and give me
a stock, your best idea, right. And I don't think that content
seasons as well as getting into how people think, who people
are, stuff like that I think is much better in the back
catalogue, right? Well, you don't want to do
anything that's time sensitive. We even tell our clients when
they do a podcast, not to say things like, well yesterday the
market closed at an all time high because right away it
becomes outdated a week later. And of course, if they're proven
wrong in terms of a forecast or numbers not good, yeah, of
course that goes explodes. Yeah.
So you want to have more basic topics.
I think it's always the tried and true, even some of the stuff
you are asking, Bill, how has value investing changed over the
years? But how does it look today?
Or the case for small snacks, small cap stocks?
Or should you diversify internationally?
What are the risks? What are the positives?
So if you have more general topics but educational and
relevant, I think those can stand the test of time.
Yeah. The nice thing about that
approach too is let's say I am a growth investor, but I'm
interested in whether or not value investing has changed.
I can read that article and come away learning something.
To your point, if you can educate people in the middle of
the interview, I think it's you widen the net of potential
readers or listeners. If you listen or read about
small people, you can always learn something and you kind of
tuck it in the back of your heads.
Yeah, that's why we love our business.
We are dealing with smart investment people, smart
journalists. We think we're smart, you know,
So it's a win. I do know.
That's why that's what I my primary enjoyment of the podcast
is. It opens up smart people to talk
to. Absolutely, absolutely.
What would you say are some of the common mistakes that people
make in an interview? I know you said dating an
interview saying yesterday the market closed an all time high
or something like that, but what are some pitfalls to avoid?
We try not to have them make mistakes 'cause we really
prepare our clients, whether it's an interview or a
presentation. Or yeah, So what does that look
like? What does pre call prep look
like for? You.
OK, so. So first of all, there's some
rules of the roads. Everything you say is on the
record. If you don't want to see it in
the story, do not say it. And especially don't say it.
When you throw out an enticing statement and then say, oh, by
the way, that's off the record because we said that's a great
way to annoy the journalist. The other misconception that
clients, it's not a misconception.
They'll say, oh, I'm always quoted out of context and we'll
say to them, correct. That is absolutely true because
the interviews rarely are a transcript word for word of
everything you said. So you definitely will be quoted
out of context. And therefore, it's important
that you pay attention to what you're saying and how you're
saying it, so that almost each statement can stand on its own.
We also talked to them about taking body cues from the
reporter, whether it's a Zoom interview or in person.
If you're talking and the reporter is taking notes and
then all of a sudden he or she puts their pen down, it might be
interesting to you, but it isn't interesting to them anymore.
Yeah, they've stopped writing. They're not that interested.
That's a good that's a good clue.
Exactly. If they're clicking away on the
computer and there's no more clicking to stop.
Because we do find journalists are very polite.
They don't want to interrupt. Radio and TV is a different
animal. We train clients separately for
them and we rehearse them. We rehearse because we explain
to them they're reaching thousands and thousands of
people and so and they're and it's real time.
They've got 4 to 5 minutes to state their case.
They have to come up with message points which we help
them create. Simple statements that talk
about their differentiation from every other asset manager, what
their strategy is. They got to be able to nail
these things in an interview. So that's part of the prep as
well. And we try to give them
background on the journalists. And sometimes the client will
start off by saying, Oh, my son is at Ohio State and I see you.
And so you have. A.
Build some rapport? Not in a creepy way, yeah, for
sure. Yeah.
So as I said, if it's a presentation or ATV, we tell
them how to dress. We make recommendations in terms
of wearing kind of blander clothes, so to speak.
Because what you want to do is have the audience pay attention
to you and what you're saying. Not because you have a great pin
on your lapel or a jazzy tie, but if it's a zoom or that
you're doing it from, we worry about the background.
Is that where you're doing it from?
We don't want them sitting in a swivel chair because people
swivel in swivel chairs, that kind of thing.
So we really go from soup to nuts.
And the clients are thrilled because they went from being
nervous to oh, OK, I mean, the rules of the roads are simple.
Don't do a dated dump, Don't do jargon.
Speak a little slower. Speak a little louder, even if
you might, because you want the audience or the interviewer to
to understand what you're saying.
And pause. There's three things you need to
know about value investing and pause.
So the interviewer might say, oh, really, what are those?
And then so it's a more interesting dialogue.
My head has been hung up a little bit.
You said that you're going to be misquoted.
I was misquoted once in a news story that mattered a lot to me
and I was really pissed about it.
And I reached out to the reporter and I requested a
correction and that went absolutely nowhere.
And it was frustrating because the quote was correct.
But what was said at the time in the conversation and how it was
represented in the story, yeah. I hear you.
That occasionally happens, Bill. So where the quote, I'll say,
did you say it? They'll say yeah, but we were
talking about this or they didn't do the next sentence,
which clarified what I said. Yeah, yeah.
Or. It's like.
It's like you have a conversation and 10 minutes
later you say something. And yes, I said it.
I just didn't say it when we were talking about this
particular issue. Right.
So whatever that. Happens.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's over now.
So what advice would you give to an asset manager that's looking
to establish their brand? Obviously they should hire
Mountain Adler. I mean that would be step one.
Yeah, that's step one. And Step 2 is check out step
one. Hey, that's step one.
And Step 2 is. Don't forget about step one.
You're. Done.
I like it. Yeah, that works.
Now, on a general basis, what you need to do is to discover
what your resources are, because there's a lot of ways to market.
You can do advertising, you can do social media, you could do
digital, you could do public relations.
So, So you really want to figure out what resources and people
and time you can devote to each effort and see.
We try to optimize our client, the spokespeople's time.
So yes, we brief you about an interview, but we will also give
you all the details about the interview and it's 45 minutes.
So keep that in mind. We'll sit in where we can.
We typically don't interrupt. So you get a lot of bang for
your buck with public relations. There are.
It's a monthly retainer. You're being promoted, you're
being marketed by us month in and month out in one fashion or
another, Stories, podcast, webinars, content strategy,
etcetera, etcetera. We've become your marketing
department. So.
So that's important and we're very respectful of
spokespeople's time. We work through liaisons.
We know the rules of the road, We know all about compliance,
which there is a lot to know in our business and we're very
sensitive to that. But as I said at the outside
also comfort level, very important with a client.
They really need to feel comfortable with each PR
opportunity and there are some clients that they will talk and
be comfortable doing anything. There's others that only want to
do print media. We'll critique by the way, we
may, we'll brief you, but then afterwards we'll say, OK, this
is what you did really well and here are your areas of
improvement and no one has ever said to us, I don't want to hear
that because they really want to do their best.
Yeah, they really. Well, I have a feeling I I would
not tell you that. If you told me I had stuff to
improve, I would say, you know what?
I take Heta seriously. She.
She's. Yeah, yeah, I'd say she knows.
Her stuff. I'm a Listen.
Yeah, we're all trying to do a great job.
Yeah, well, everybody drives towards a common goal.
That's the only way that you actually achieve it, right?
If I were to hire you, how would you suggest I think about the
success of APR campaign or hiring you generally?
Like how do you measure success in what you do?
OK, well, let's go more a little to the beginning of the
relationship. You contact us, you're thinking
about public relations. So we start to get to know your
business and we will come back to you based on a lengthy
conversation with a little PR outline.
Here's what we think your goals are.
Here are the target audiences and here's how we think we will
be able to get you some press coverage.
OK. And we also do news releases, by
the way, so those are automatically picked up by
certain media people or it's a way to get your foot in the door
with certain press people. Look at this news release, Bill
Brewster's subscriber base has tripled in the last two years,
that kind of thing. And then we, if you say to us
and we give you a budget and if you say to us, OK, let's start
out, let's try it, then we have a strategy session where we go
over every detail of the program.
So you're comfortable, we go over the objectives, do we get
them right? Because these are the things
we're going to strive to achieve.
And it could be things like you want to attract family offices
or you want to have more institutional clients or you
want to communicate call more effectively with your existing
clientele or shareholders, that kind of thing.
So we go over everything, liaisons, can we just call you
on the phone, do you prefer e-mail, etcetera, etcetera.
And then we begin. And what we like to do is to
have PR calls with our clients like every other week, so we can
tell them how something resulted.
We they can say, oh, Gee, that story was great.
We got 3 perceptive clients from that or we getting reprints or
blah, blah, blah. And then we talked to them about
what are you seeing out there, what's going on?
Like now we're starting to ask clients if they have opinions
about the upcoming election because we know the press is
going to be writing about that. And some of them will say, no,
we don't want to get involved with politics and fine, that's
OK. No problem.
Yeah, maybe there's a smart way to toe the line.
Express an opinion without expressing an opinion.
Political right? That's correct.
Yes, in some hot water, but to your point, it's very relevant
and to the extent you can say, look, if one party wins, I think
this is the most likely outcome, and if the other party wins,
this is the most likely outcome. And back it up with data rather
than opinion that could make sense.
Right, exactly. Exactly so.
That's a way to be safe in shark infested waters.
Exactly. And we tell them our MO.
We tell them if we book an interview, we will brief them on
the journalist, we will have a prep call.
So they're super comfortable. We ask if there's any
sensitivities. Yeah, some clients will say,
well, we could talk about stocks, but only the ones that
are in our top ten holdings. So if a reporter asks about the
23rd holding, we have to tell the reporter, no, they can't
talk about that. So we go over everything and
then we begin. And it's a learning process and
we do these update calls, but we're in touch in the interim.
I don't think we have any client that we're not in touch with at
least a few times a week. Do clients share with you
whether or not they think that talking about stocks is a net
positive in their lives or a net negative?
It's something I wonder about running a podcast that happens
to discuss stocks fairly often. They never really shared that
kind of information, Bill. But I know that if you're a
stock fund and you want a feature or a spot on Bloomberg
or CNBC, yeah, they'll talk about your strategy, but they
want some examples of the strategy.
Nobody has ever come back to us and said I'm OK going on CNBC.
Well, if they say to me I'm OK going on CNBC, but I won't talk
about the stocks, I'll say, guess what?
You're not going on. CNBC Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's nice dream. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Interesting.
So where do you think your business is headed over the
next, I don't know, 10 or 20 years?
Do you think will PR be largely the same in the future as it is
in the past but the mediums will change?
Or is there some tectonic shift on the horizon?
There might. Be some kind of a shift because
we never would have foreseen the popularity of podcasts as an
outlet. Also the business itself with
the entry of ETFs, that was a game changer in the asset
management business or even when you're seeing things like AMI or
Bitcoin. We have to see how that plays
out and if that's something that's going to affect the
clients, the PR business, all of the above.
Yeah, yeah. The podcast medium, I think What
makes it work is there's something about being what left
me wanting when I would watch CNBC is a 5 minute snippet and
then somebody's gone. It's not really enough time to
dive into how they think. And I think that the unique
thing about hearing somebody speak for an hour is you really
get into how they process things and.
Correct. Correct And this.
Is fun talking about your childhood, we could not have had
more different childhoods, but we did have one thing in common.
We had a grandma that loved us. See.
That's a big that's a big thing, yeah.
I did not have the happiest household, but my grandma was in
my place of safety and emotional support and all that.
So game. Changer.
Yeah, that's what led me down to Florida.
I kind of helped her. I mean, I did oversee her all
her death and set up the infrastructure around her and
all that. Stuff, but that's great.
Yeah, well, it was nice to be able to do.
Now I got to figure out the next step.
We're sort of, I've got a couple more business related things to
wrap up here and then life happens, but we'll see what that
means. I don't know what that means.
OK, well, you just welcome it and embrace it as best you can.
That's right. That's right.
That's all you can do. It makes no sense not to do
anything else, right? Or to do anything else rather.
Correct, correct. Because if you do that, you
won't be as stressed. And that's the key, I think with
everything, whether it's business or personal, you need
to figure out ways to manage the stress in your life.
I would imagine you've had a fair amount between running a
business, being a mother that was working the two week
maternity leave. That's serious.
That wasn't maternity leave, was my vacation.
That's sorry. Vacation.
I didn't mean to mischaracterize
it. Yeah, you didn't get any
vacation after that. Exactly.
Well, it would seem, yeah, of course it was stressful, but I
was able to deal with it if it was not unexpected.
I mean, I would have been foolish to think I knew what.
As my daughter said to me, babies should come with
instruction manuals. Yeah, they don't write that
book. I was getting up with night
feedings and but I knew that's what I had.
They always have to adjust your expectations to have a newborn
and say, I didn't know I have to get up in the middle of the
night. Come on.
Yeah, you know that ahead. So I'm.
So you deal with it. And yeah, I was tired.
And so my parents fortunately used to have my daughter sleep
over one night every weekend. So that gave me enough of a
refresher. Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, it was lovely. And I did that with my
grandchildren, by the way, so the apple doesn't fall far from
the tree. Yes, it's nice to pay it
forward. Yes, exactly.
And then over the years, I discovered yoga.
Oh yeah, Yeah. Downward dog and whatnot.
Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely.
So how has that helped you? Oh, it's just wonderful.
Because it's not only a physical kind of thing where you stretch
and learn balance and things breathing, but you look better,
you feel better, You can handle situations because you're I'm
able to meditate before a tough meeting or if something
stressful is going on during the day.
It's been wonderful for me. I've been doing it for 40 years,
though I couldn't find it. But.
By the class 40 years ago I couldn't find a class.
Yeah, well, now you can't go anywhere without hearing about
it, Do you? Do Pilates ever.
What? Do you?
Pilates. No.
I'm not into my core. I like it.
I we have that in common as well.
I don't know if it's the best thing to have in common.
They say it's pretty important, but I hate doing it.
Yeah, well, you. Do the core stuff.
You call it your chi in yoga, XI Chi where that's where you try
to breathe from the core for your children and stuff like
that. But I don't want to hurt my
core. I find breathing to a specific
point is interesting. That was one of my takeaways
from the yoga that I have done where they say like breathe into
the part of the stretch and that's kind of cool to feel your
body do that. I know yoga actually means the
union of mind and body, and so it's interesting that if you
sniffle and you say, oh Oh my God, you're sick, guess what?
You get sick? Yeah.
If you sniffle and you win. Oh, I'm going to get a tissue
because I feel pretty good. Oh, and I'm not going to get
sick. You typically don't.
Yeah, that is right. Well, I'm going to think that my
shoulder is getting better tomorrow and then hopefully it
does. Oh, I'm with you on that.
I have shoulder issues. Too they stink, shoulders and
knees and backs. Oh well.
Whatever. Well, I have really enjoyed this
and I hope you have as well and it's been nice to chat with you
the few times that we have and I hope that we continue to.
How I look forward to that, Bill.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
Thank you very much for coming on.
I appreciate it. You're.
Quite welcome. Thank.
You all right. Have a great day.
You. Too.