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Welcome to rainmakers. I'm here with Ken grider, managing director and head of business development for Raymond James. Welcome, Ken.
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Yeah. Good morning, Carl. Good to see you.
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Good to see you. So hey, look, what do you tell us what you're doing your job day to day? What is your mandate there at Raymond James, it's a big investment bank with a lot of professionals. And you kind of feed the engine, don't you?
00:00:28.000 --> 00:01:47.000
Well, you know, it's a it's a tricky question. I usually like to try and hear other people in the firm describe what I do, and my team does, because everyone will have a different lens into it. Right. So I think the members of the team are the only people that probably have a full picture of what we do, but it is it is business development, but it combines multiple coverage channels, which I think makes it a little bit unique in industry so my teams have coverage, or try to develop business opportunities for the investment From a multitude of channels, so we have coverage of private equity venture mezzanine institutions, we have coverage of our financial advisor network, which is a quasi proprietary channel, fourth largest in the country, but approaching 15,000 financial advisors. And then we also have a professional coverage effort around law firms and accounting firms, so incremental to trying to develop opportunities for the investment bank, from all of those channels combined, there's actually a bigger effort to try and simply create cross referral opportunities independent of the investment bank, for all those channel constituents. And really, that's what creates the goodwill and drives the engine. So when they have something they can give us, they really want to get it over to us.
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So Ken, for the students listening to this, that, you know, let's take it back to the very basic level. So an investment bank buys and sells companies right. And it raises capital for Companies you, you'll take companies public. And then you also have a wealth advisor network,right?
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:30.000
And we do. I mean, at the end of the day, the firm is an investment bank. So we're doing things that have balance sheet implications or financial implications. So owners looking for liquidity growth capital. And sometimes both of those at the same time we can accomplish and we can accomplish that in the public markets and or private markets. But right, we're trying to, we're trying to do something usually capital or balance sheet oriented.
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It sounds very complicated, but I've seen you doing your job and you look like you have fun doing it. Do you enjoy it?
00:02:39.000 --> 00:04:23.000
Yeah, I don't know what else I would do. And interestingly, they pay me for this, but it's rather intense. At the same time, I think you almost have to be an OCD personality to be able to play this type of matching game. And that's really what it is. I mean, if you roll everything back, you have a whole bunch of different constituents, to the different channels, that you're trying to develop opportunities from. So if I were to kind of rank it, why it almost requires a chameleon like personality, because there's going to be different personalities and personas for all the different type of people you're dealing with. Some people are very intense, very detail focus oriented. Other people want to develop your relationships and work with people they enjoy being around. So, a chameleon like relative to the different types of personalities you're encountering. But then there's a substance piece. I think the world is littered with business development professionals who believe they can, if they're, if they're good, fun people to hang around, and they're good at developing relationships. They can be effective in a business development job. I would tell you, that's a plus. But usually in professional or more sophisticated environments. What people are seeking out first is that you have good grounding knowledge around the type of things that you're selling, because they want to use you as the first stop to try and understanding if something is is interesting. If something is possible, and what a potential engagement or relationship could look like, in relationship to the value you can bring, once once you can check that box and have that level of conversation, right, the the personality that is endearing, that is magnetic that people want to be around. That's the second piece. That's a really, really nice tackle.
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So now if if somebody is, you know, a student coming up or in another industry, and they say, wow, I really want to do it, but that guy does, what Ken Grider does, what should they be doing to prepare for a career like yours?
00:04:36.000 --> 00:05:44.000
I, I'll go back to how I answered the last question which the underpinning basics that are active in an industry, you know, what are the what are the types of services or products that are being sold, that you would be trying to develop business for? First, begin by understanding the market that you want to work in? Right? What What is it you're selling? What's the value? Why do people need it? And what is the buying decision that they go through to decide who they want to work with? Understand that. I think separately communication classes, skills and reading people mirroring people. And then I'll tell you probably agree this, Carl, how much of this job in a development role is just time management? Right, prioritizing your time, this entire effort in business development, is trying to prioritize and use your time at its highest and best use. And so you got to be able to juggle a lot of different things, and then figure out how to manage that time and identify where your time is most valuable being spent really every minute of every day. So I would say those three are good places to start.
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So I got my MBA and I think it's helped me in my career, I don't know that it would have been necessarily vital that I get it but certainly, you know, to be director of the Business Development Group, it's helped me maybe to get that promotion. I see you got your MBA as well. Well, how important is that type of degree for a job like yours?
00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:24.000
You know, I listen, I have it right. So I can't be graduate. At the same time I work with many MBAs that are over thinkers of things. Listen, I think there's some some knowledge that transferred in the NBA and from a credentialing perspective, it looks nice. Right?
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Okay.
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And if you get some great professors, and you do great in the program, hopefully there's an alumni network that can also be very helpful to you. So listen, do I say net net, it was a plus. In a development role, I go back to the top three things that I mentioned earlier. You know, be a master of the industry and understand what you're selling understanding. Also the buy decisions and what people go through to to make a decision to hire someone. And then prioritization to time, and then great communication skills. Oh, and one of the most important communication skills and I'm going to do it now is knowing when to stop talking. So once you have the order, get it out of the room. But once you've won, don't then shoot yourself in your foot. And I see it all the time.
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Good advice. Good advice. So let's talk about the anatomy of a prospect. How do you find a prospect for what you do? And then how do you bring it through the sales cycle and ultimately close it?
00:07:22.000 --> 00:09:56.000
Yeah, good question. So and I think everyone's sales cycle is different. Interestingly, in my world, where a lot of times myself or my bankers that work on my team are the first people talking directly to prospective prospective companies that we might work with. A lot of times, we're not cold calling those companies directly. Our world is very much referral oriented. So in many cases, were first talking with the referral source, the accounting from the law firm, the financial advisor, the private equity firm, to understand situationally, what's going on, and understanding what they're hoping to accomplish. Right. So if it looks like there's a fit There's an interest and we can add great value and it's a it's a, it's a situation we want to get closer to, then we build out a team, we begin laying the tracks to build the relationship, understand how we can helpful listening. Most Most importantly, listening, a lot of times the clues for what they want to accomplish incrementally to the right type of firm they're looking for to execute for them, it's going to be in the clues of how they describe what they want to do. So you listen, you get your arms around it, ultimately, we're hoping we're not pushing them. We're hope. We're hoping they actually say to us at some point, there's a lot of ways to paraphrase this, but okay, how would this work? If If we were to do this or we were to choose you, how would this work? Once that switch is flipped, right? Once that part of the conversation shifts, and they say how would this work, then it changes in your educating around. Here's our process here. How we evaluate and get deals approved to work on or companies approved to work with them. It we get into things like fees and costs and timing, but always selling that, whatever they're going to pay us, right? It's going to be fractional or minimal, relative to the value that this should produce. And that logic holds true in our environment. In most cases. Once we're hired, there's a big, oh my gosh, we're hired and then the real work begins, right? Because once you're in the door, then you have to deliver on everything that you would said, you're going to do our engagements typically run called four to eight months. So it's a long process when you start an effort for a company to sell the company take the company public or raise material capital, amount capital for them. But it's a it's it's a you're in this together, right? So we work through with them, hopefully getting to a close and accomplishing what, what they wanted to do. And then there's usually a big celebration at the end.
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So can you mentioned that this is a referral based business and it's Very similar to my role at a law firm. And so in order to get those referrals, I have to, you know, really nurture my, my network, I have all sorts of little tricks, you know, to stay in touch with almost 15,000 people, which is daunting to think about. And I noticed you do that as well. So I and I'm here to learn from guys like you how you do it. And I've seen you do this, because I've spent time with you I've seen you know, you reach out and lend a helping hand to my son when he was looking for an internship and the job and, and those things are really appreciated. You're, you're you were kind enough to get me into an exclusive event at a conference and you know, people don't forget those things. I remember those things. And so you always have that kind of good guy. aura in my mind, right? You occupy that part of my brain. So when somebody needs investment banking services, I obviously think of you right because because you've put some some Some good seeds in the ground if you will. And and so talk to me about your philosophy of maintaining those relationships in the marketplace and having me feel the way that I feel toward you.
00:11:12.000 --> 00:14:45.000
Again, my our philosophies where we're trying to accomplish the same things, our philosophies might be a little different, as as we get into this, and you know what, there's, there's not a right or wrong, right, there's just what works for the individual person, my personal philosophy relative to development is less is more. And I, I may have that luxury other over other business developers, because I have so many channels, and I have so many potential constituents. So what I'm constantly doing, my teams are constantly trying to do is weed out and essentially consolidate and compress the number of firms or relationships that we're actually working with to source transactions from because it's at the end of the day, if you can provide more value to your referral Partners then they're providing you, right? So it's, it's an interesting equation. But ultimately in our world that's, as you know, Carl, that's in a lot of ways the way it works if, if I can be more valuable to their practice, for working with me and wanting to send me things, I know I'm going to have a relationship that's going to last a long time and hopefully grow into something very valuable. So we would rather have fewer firms, fewer private equity, fewer mez funds, fewer venture funds, fewer law firms, fewer accounting firms, and go very deep with these firms. So we try and get to know the heads of business development, the heads of the corporate practices, and the accounting firms, the head of the tax and audit practices and transaction advisory, the founding partners that are venture mez funds, and private equity funds, because they're going to be the ones making decisions, right? So if they know you're on a short list, it can be very meaningful to know that you're, you're seeing the opportunities that we have, and I'll tell you we're also very data intensive. Meaning the firm the entire firm is supportive of what my teams do. So we have internal analytics that show us this is going to see the Remember I told you about the OCD part, we're going to be able to see where the firm professionally is spending all its money. We're going to be able to see the private equity venture mez funds law firms that are bankers, any transaction they're working on with one of those other constituents whether referred to us or not, we're going to see it, we're going to have all the analytics as to which firms are doing the most transactions, we're going to have the data as to who's sending the sending us the most, who are we sending the most, then we can wait all that. And it can help us determine member time management. Where do we want to spend time very powerful when you walk into a meeting with the head of a private equity fund or the head of corporate at a law firm, and I've got a piece of paper that I can put in front of them that shows him every transaction our people have worked on every dollar we've spent on them everything they've sent us full knowledge of all the transactions that they've executed. And we can see where we stack. And a lot of times they it's like a head scratcher, like, wow, we don't even have that. But it's it's a, it's a powerful tool. And I think as time moves forward, you're going to see more firms leveraging the power of that technology. So you ask for the students, what else can they do? I'll tell you knowledge of the technologies that are being used to develop business and track within the organizations that they might be working for, where are dollars being spent? Who are they working with? Who has sent them things? Who are they sending things to, can be very powerful in demonstrating the strength of the opportunity of a relationship?
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All right, can any lasting thoughts that you want to leave our audience with before we sign off?
00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:52.000
Oh, I would say remember that the business development job, it's it's it's a treadmill, right? It's not It's not like a traditional job. Where you have a core function? Or you're doing the same thing, day in day out? Yeah, I would say, another personality trait you have to be comfortable with is that business development people typically are not executing or providing the service, right. So you have to be comfortable being on a treadmill, and constantly replacing the opportunities that you're creating. But I would say the positive side of the flip side of that is that you're typically in an environment where you're meeting a lot of people, a lot of different people, and no days to say, right. So that type of fast paced environment is fun to you. And you're really good at Match Game because a lot of it is putting pieces together. You met someone two years ago, and it could be a fit now. If those dynamics of a career are exciting. This could be the thing.
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Thanks, Tim. That was great advice. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on rainmakers
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You bet Carl. Be safe.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:12.000
Welcome to rainmakers. I'm here with Ken grider, managing director and head of business development for Raymond James. Welcome, Ken.
00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.000
Yeah. Good morning, Carl. Good to see you.
00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Good to see you. So hey, look, what do you tell us what you're doing your job day to day? What is your mandate there at Raymond James, it's a big investment bank with a lot of professionals. And you kind of feed the engine, don't you?
00:00:28.000 --> 00:01:47.000
Well, you know, it's a it's a tricky question. I usually like to try and hear other people in the firm describe what I do, and my team does, because everyone will have a different lens into it. Right. So I think the members of the team are the only people that probably have a full picture of what we do, but it is it is business development, but it combines multiple coverage channels, which I think makes it a little bit unique in industry so my teams have coverage, or try to develop business opportunities for the investment From a multitude of channels, so we have coverage of private equity venture mezzanine institutions, we have coverage of our financial advisor network, which is a quasi proprietary channel, fourth largest in the country, but approaching 15,000 financial advisors. And then we also have a professional coverage effort around law firms and accounting firms, so incremental to trying to develop opportunities for the investment bank, from all of those channels combined, there's actually a bigger effort to try and simply create cross referral opportunities independent of the investment bank, for all those channel constituents. And really, that's what creates the goodwill and drives the engine. So when they have something they can give us, they really want to get it over to us.
00:01:47.000 --> 00:02:07.000
So Ken, for the students listening to this, that, you know, let's take it back to the very basic level. So an investment bank buys and sells companies right. And it raises capital for Companies you, you'll take companies public. And then you also have a wealth advisor network,right?
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:30.000
And we do. I mean, at the end of the day, the firm is an investment bank. So we're doing things that have balance sheet implications or financial implications. So owners looking for liquidity growth capital. And sometimes both of those at the same time we can accomplish and we can accomplish that in the public markets and or private markets. But right, we're trying to, we're trying to do something usually capital or balance sheet oriented.
00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:39.000
It sounds very complicated, but I've seen you doing your job and you look like you have fun doing it. Do you enjoy it?
00:02:39.000 --> 00:04:23.000
Yeah, I don't know what else I would do. And interestingly, they pay me for this, but it's rather intense. At the same time, I think you almost have to be an OCD personality to be able to play this type of matching game. And that's really what it is. I mean, if you roll everything back, you have a whole bunch of different constituents, to the different channels, that you're trying to develop opportunities from. So if I were to kind of rank it, why it almost requires a chameleon like personality, because there's going to be different personalities and personas for all the different type of people you're dealing with. Some people are very intense, very detail focus oriented. Other people want to develop your relationships and work with people they enjoy being around. So, a chameleon like relative to the different types of personalities you're encountering. But then there's a substance piece. I think the world is littered with business development professionals who believe they can, if they're, if they're good, fun people to hang around, and they're good at developing relationships. They can be effective in a business development job. I would tell you, that's a plus. But usually in professional or more sophisticated environments. What people are seeking out first is that you have good grounding knowledge around the type of things that you're selling, because they want to use you as the first stop to try and understanding if something is is interesting. If something is possible, and what a potential engagement or relationship could look like, in relationship to the value you can bring, once once you can check that box and have that level of conversation, right, the the personality that is endearing, that is magnetic that people want to be around. That's the second piece. That's a really, really nice tackle.
00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:36.000
So now if if somebody is, you know, a student coming up or in another industry, and they say, wow, I really want to do it, but that guy does, what Ken Grider does, what should they be doing to prepare for a career like yours?
00:04:36.000 --> 00:05:44.000
I, I'll go back to how I answered the last question which the underpinning basics that are active in an industry, you know, what are the what are the types of services or products that are being sold, that you would be trying to develop business for? First, begin by understanding the market that you want to work in? Right? What What is it you're selling? What's the value? Why do people need it? And what is the buying decision that they go through to decide who they want to work with? Understand that. I think separately communication classes, skills and reading people mirroring people. And then I'll tell you probably agree this, Carl, how much of this job in a development role is just time management? Right, prioritizing your time, this entire effort in business development, is trying to prioritize and use your time at its highest and best use. And so you got to be able to juggle a lot of different things, and then figure out how to manage that time and identify where your time is most valuable being spent really every minute of every day. So I would say those three are good places to start.
00:05:44.000 --> 00:06:04.000
So I got my MBA and I think it's helped me in my career, I don't know that it would have been necessarily vital that I get it but certainly, you know, to be director of the Business Development Group, it's helped me maybe to get that promotion. I see you got your MBA as well. Well, how important is that type of degree for a job like yours?
00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:24.000
You know, I listen, I have it right. So I can't be graduate. At the same time I work with many MBAs that are over thinkers of things. Listen, I think there's some some knowledge that transferred in the NBA and from a credentialing perspective, it looks nice. Right?
00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:24.000
Okay.
00:06:24.000 --> 00:07:09.000
And if you get some great professors, and you do great in the program, hopefully there's an alumni network that can also be very helpful to you. So listen, do I say net net, it was a plus. In a development role, I go back to the top three things that I mentioned earlier. You know, be a master of the industry and understand what you're selling understanding. Also the buy decisions and what people go through to to make a decision to hire someone. And then prioritization to time, and then great communication skills. Oh, and one of the most important communication skills and I'm going to do it now is knowing when to stop talking. So once you have the order, get it out of the room. But once you've won, don't then shoot yourself in your foot. And I see it all the time.
00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:22.000
Good advice. Good advice. So let's talk about the anatomy of a prospect. How do you find a prospect for what you do? And then how do you bring it through the sales cycle and ultimately close it?
00:07:22.000 --> 00:09:56.000
Yeah, good question. So and I think everyone's sales cycle is different. Interestingly, in my world, where a lot of times myself or my bankers that work on my team are the first people talking directly to prospective prospective companies that we might work with. A lot of times, we're not cold calling those companies directly. Our world is very much referral oriented. So in many cases, were first talking with the referral source, the accounting from the law firm, the financial advisor, the private equity firm, to understand situationally, what's going on, and understanding what they're hoping to accomplish. Right. So if it looks like there's a fit There's an interest and we can add great value and it's a it's a, it's a situation we want to get closer to, then we build out a team, we begin laying the tracks to build the relationship, understand how we can helpful listening. Most Most importantly, listening, a lot of times the clues for what they want to accomplish incrementally to the right type of firm they're looking for to execute for them, it's going to be in the clues of how they describe what they want to do. So you listen, you get your arms around it, ultimately, we're hoping we're not pushing them. We're hope. We're hoping they actually say to us at some point, there's a lot of ways to paraphrase this, but okay, how would this work? If If we were to do this or we were to choose you, how would this work? Once that switch is flipped, right? Once that part of the conversation shifts, and they say how would this work, then it changes in your educating around. Here's our process here. How we evaluate and get deals approved to work on or companies approved to work with them. It we get into things like fees and costs and timing, but always selling that, whatever they're going to pay us, right? It's going to be fractional or minimal, relative to the value that this should produce. And that logic holds true in our environment. In most cases. Once we're hired, there's a big, oh my gosh, we're hired and then the real work begins, right? Because once you're in the door, then you have to deliver on everything that you would said, you're going to do our engagements typically run called four to eight months. So it's a long process when you start an effort for a company to sell the company take the company public or raise material capital, amount capital for them. But it's a it's it's a you're in this together, right? So we work through with them, hopefully getting to a close and accomplishing what, what they wanted to do. And then there's usually a big celebration at the end.
00:09:56.000 --> 00:11:12.000
So can you mentioned that this is a referral based business and it's Very similar to my role at a law firm. And so in order to get those referrals, I have to, you know, really nurture my, my network, I have all sorts of little tricks, you know, to stay in touch with almost 15,000 people, which is daunting to think about. And I noticed you do that as well. So I and I'm here to learn from guys like you how you do it. And I've seen you do this, because I've spent time with you I've seen you know, you reach out and lend a helping hand to my son when he was looking for an internship and the job and, and those things are really appreciated. You're, you're you were kind enough to get me into an exclusive event at a conference and you know, people don't forget those things. I remember those things. And so you always have that kind of good guy. aura in my mind, right? You occupy that part of my brain. So when somebody needs investment banking services, I obviously think of you right because because you've put some some Some good seeds in the ground if you will. And and so talk to me about your philosophy of maintaining those relationships in the marketplace and having me feel the way that I feel toward you.
00:11:12.000 --> 00:14:45.000
Again, my our philosophies where we're trying to accomplish the same things, our philosophies might be a little different, as as we get into this, and you know what, there's, there's not a right or wrong, right, there's just what works for the individual person, my personal philosophy relative to development is less is more. And I, I may have that luxury other over other business developers, because I have so many channels, and I have so many potential constituents. So what I'm constantly doing, my teams are constantly trying to do is weed out and essentially consolidate and compress the number of firms or relationships that we're actually working with to source transactions from because it's at the end of the day, if you can provide more value to your referral Partners then they're providing you, right? So it's, it's an interesting equation. But ultimately in our world that's, as you know, Carl, that's in a lot of ways the way it works if, if I can be more valuable to their practice, for working with me and wanting to send me things, I know I'm going to have a relationship that's going to last a long time and hopefully grow into something very valuable. So we would rather have fewer firms, fewer private equity, fewer mez funds, fewer venture funds, fewer law firms, fewer accounting firms, and go very deep with these firms. So we try and get to know the heads of business development, the heads of the corporate practices, and the accounting firms, the head of the tax and audit practices and transaction advisory, the founding partners that are venture mez funds, and private equity funds, because they're going to be the ones making decisions, right? So if they know you're on a short list, it can be very meaningful to know that you're, you're seeing the opportunities that we have, and I'll tell you we're also very data intensive. Meaning the firm the entire firm is supportive of what my teams do. So we have internal analytics that show us this is going to see the Remember I told you about the OCD part, we're going to be able to see where the firm professionally is spending all its money. We're going to be able to see the private equity venture mez funds law firms that are bankers, any transaction they're working on with one of those other constituents whether referred to us or not, we're going to see it, we're going to have all the analytics as to which firms are doing the most transactions, we're going to have the data as to who's sending the sending us the most, who are we sending the most, then we can wait all that. And it can help us determine member time management. Where do we want to spend time very powerful when you walk into a meeting with the head of a private equity fund or the head of corporate at a law firm, and I've got a piece of paper that I can put in front of them that shows him every transaction our people have worked on every dollar we've spent on them everything they've sent us full knowledge of all the transactions that they've executed. And we can see where we stack. And a lot of times they it's like a head scratcher, like, wow, we don't even have that. But it's it's a, it's a powerful tool. And I think as time moves forward, you're going to see more firms leveraging the power of that technology. So you ask for the students, what else can they do? I'll tell you knowledge of the technologies that are being used to develop business and track within the organizations that they might be working for, where are dollars being spent? Who are they working with? Who has sent them things? Who are they sending things to, can be very powerful in demonstrating the strength of the opportunity of a relationship?
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:51.000
All right, can any lasting thoughts that you want to leave our audience with before we sign off?
00:14:51.000 --> 00:15:52.000
Oh, I would say remember that the business development job, it's it's it's a treadmill, right? It's not It's not like a traditional job. Where you have a core function? Or you're doing the same thing, day in day out? Yeah, I would say, another personality trait you have to be comfortable with is that business development people typically are not executing or providing the service, right. So you have to be comfortable being on a treadmill, and constantly replacing the opportunities that you're creating. But I would say the positive side of the flip side of that is that you're typically in an environment where you're meeting a lot of people, a lot of different people, and no days to say, right. So that type of fast paced environment is fun to you. And you're really good at Match Game because a lot of it is putting pieces together. You met someone two years ago, and it could be a fit now. If those dynamics of a career are exciting. This could be the thing.
00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000
Thanks, Tim. That was great advice. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on rainmakers
00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:56.000
You bet Carl. Be safe.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
