Don't you hate it when investors go beyond the numbers?

MarketWatch's Chuck Jaffe examines the quandary faced by one investor in her 60s who owns a fund that generated annualized returns of 30% for the past five years, and was advised by her financial advisor to sell the fund because it wasn't the "right fund" for her.

Instead the financial advisor advised another fund that also generated 30% annualized returns over the same five years, but had other characteristics that were better for her.

Scandalous! Irresponsible! Communism! You might declare.

Or it could be a sign that the investing world has evolved beyond, far beyond, plain numbers.

Read Jaffe's column to learn more about the specific points as they related to the case of the 60-something investor, but in general, funds are now getting vetted for all sorts of things beyond performance, like kinds of risk, consistency, yada, yada.

The important point for you fundsters is that your marketing strategies, which you've undoubtedly evolved at least somewhat, will need to continue to evolve.

Things like solutions, and client-focused products, value adds, and so much talking and engaging of the public.

You need to move beyond baseball scores with your funds to value propositions and rationales about your funds that you never had to address before.

Some may call these propositions "schticks," "mumbo jumbo," or worse, but at the end of the day, when an investor or advisor asks "Why should I buy your fund?" you're going to have to do a lot more talking than you did in the past.

How are you going to answer them? 

Edited by: Ning Zhou


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