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 Delupa. Delupa is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment
process. Delupa offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. Delupa scales the velocity of an investment team's idea generation. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. Delupa captures data from all company reported sources including from footnotes, MDN as
and investor presentations. The Loop's data sheets include gap to non gap adjustments, guidance and all company specific APIs. Each data point is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. The Loop's Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click bulge bracket.
Banks and major multi managers are trusting the loop of further use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date. Visit delupa.com/business Brewer to create a free account and learn more about how Delupa can increase your team's speed to differentiated insight. As always, nothing in the show is financial advice. Please consult an investment advisor before making investment decisions.
Everything in the show is for entertainment purposes and educational purposes. And do your own due diligence. 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. 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.