What it Takes to Sell to Asset Managers in Private Markets
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
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Private markets are not just another vertical. They’re a category that breaks most of the conventional rules of B2B sales – and if you’re still running the same playbook you use everywhere else, you’re already behind.
That’s the conversation we had on a recent durhamlane webinar. I was joined by Jonathan White, CEO of Portfolio BI, and Sven Eggers from State Street – two people who know this space from both sides of the table. What followed was one of the most direct, no-filter conversations we’ve had on the series.
Here’s a flavour of what came out of it.
It starts with understanding what you’re walking into
Private markets are, by definition, private. That sounds obvious, but its implications for sales are significant. Managers don’t publish their strategies. They don’t broadcast how their business works. Every firm might sit in the same broad category, but the way each one operates, makes decisions, and evaluates new partnerships is different.
Jonathan was clear on this: the old model of finding a buyer and selling to them simply doesn’t apply here. These are senior, time-poor executives who are being approached constantly – by email, by LinkedIn, by phone. The barrier to entry for the first meaningful conversation isn’t just high. It’s getting higher.
Sven added another dimension: the market itself is shifting. Fundraising cycles are longer. Capital is harder to secure. Investor scrutiny — particularly around compliance, risk management, and operational robustness — has intensified. The asset managers you’re trying to reach are navigating all of this while you’re trying to get ten minutes with them.
Why most GTM approaches don’t survive first contact
We spent a significant chunk of the session on what doesn’t work – and it was illuminating.
Volume-based outreach without relevance. Generic messaging that ignores how the specific firm operates. The ‘laundry list’ pitch that tries to cover every possible service in one message. Case studies deployed before the prospect has shared anything about their own situation. All of these were called out – with some candour about how obvious they look from the receiving end.
The phrase that stuck with me: everyone knows why you’re reaching out, so cut to the chase. The pretence of it being anything other than a commercial conversation wastes everyone’s time.
But there was something more nuanced underneath that. It’s not that outreach doesn’t work — it does. The question is whether it’s relevant. And relevant, in private markets, means something specific: it means demonstrating that you understand not just the industry, but this firm, in this moment, with this challenge.
What does work – and why it’s harder to scale
The conversation shifted to what actually moves the needle – and it’s not a single thing. It’s a combination of factors that have to land at the right time.
Understanding the firm’s situation. Leading with outcomes, not products. Using thought leadership that’s grounded in real client experience, not just self-promotion. Building and leveraging a network in a way that adds context to an introduction rather than just deploying names. Doing the research — properly — before you ever pick up the phone or send a message.
Sven made a point that I keep coming back to: don’t show me what I already know about myself – show me something that’s going to interest me. That’s a deceptively simple bar to clear. Most outreach doesn’t get close.
Jonathan talked about how the tools available to sales teams today — data sources, LinkedIn, public fund ecosystem data — have genuinely changed what’s possible in terms of pre-call research. The information is there. The question is whether you’re using it.
The bit we only scratched the surface on
We talked briefly about the role of the client’s client – how increasing investor scrutiny is reshaping what asset managers prioritise, and how that changes the conversation a sales team needs to have. It’s a thread worth pulling on separately.
There’s also more to say about how you balance scale with sophistication in outreach – especially for SDR teams operating across a sector that demands personalisation at every touchpoint.
We touched on both during the webinar.
Watch the full conversation
Jonathan and Sven between cover the full arc – from why the market is structured the way it is, to the specific approaches that have actually worked in practice.
