We know process
Fund Marketing Doesn't Have to S*ck
Layup was built out of frustration.
Frustration over confusing, boring digital marketing. Frustration over agency models that don’t work for today’s financial clients. Frustration over hazy providers that overpromise and underdeliver. We knew we could do better.
We started with a bold idea: what if advisor channel growth could be predictable, repeatable, and guaranteed? What if alternative investment asset managers could stop worrying about where their next round of capital would come from, and focus entirely on serving investors?
That idea became a proven financial marketing framework. And that framework became Layup.
How It Works
Most fund marketing tries to reach advisors cold — a fact sheet here, an email blast there, a wholesaler call that goes to voicemail. It doesn't work because advisors aren't looking for a sales pitch. They're looking for a firm they already trust. Layup flips that sequence. We build the trust first, then start the conversation.
Part 1: Build Your Authority Platform
Before any advisor hears from you, we build the content infrastructure that makes your fund worth paying attention to. White papers, thought leadership articles, market commentary, and educational content, all written by former financial journalists who know what advisors actually read, and all built to pass compliance review before it ever goes public.
The goal isn't to produce content for content's sake. It's to establish your fund as a credible, knowledgeable voice in your specific alternative investment category, so that when an advisor encounters you for the first time, they already see a firm worth taking seriously.
Part 2: Pull the Right Advisors Into Your Network
Once your platform is built, we systematically identify and connect with advisors who are the right fit for your fund based on their AUM, their client base, their existing alternatives allocations, and their demonstrated interest in your asset class.
We don't blast. We don't cold pitch. We pull these advisors into your network — LinkedIn, email, and other relevant channels — so that your authority content is the first thing they see from you. By the time anyone picks up the phone, they've already been reading your fund's perspective for weeks or months.
This is the wholesaling model, rebuilt for how advisors actually make decisions today.
Part 3: Nurture Until They're Ready to Talk
Most advisors aren't ready to allocate the first time they encounter a fund. They need to see you consistently, across multiple touchpoints, over time, before they're willing to put your fund in front of their clients.
That's why the final part of the Layup system is a disciplined nurture program that keeps your fund top of mind through every market cycle. Targeted email sequences, ongoing thought leadership, and strategic engagement that builds the kind of familiarity and trust advisors require before they recommend anything to a client.
When an advisor is finally ready to have a conversation, you're not a cold call. You're already the obvious choice.
The result...
Advisors who enter your pipeline already understand your fund, already respect your perspective, and are already pre-disposed to recommend you. That's not a marketing outcome. That's a capital raising outcome.
What We Believe
Not convinced?
Numbers don't lie
Who We Are
Financial Journalists. Capital Raise Strategists. Advisor Channel Insiders.
Layup is led by Tim Sprinkle, a former editor at Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, and ALM Media, and author of three books including Screw the Valley, a look at America's startup culture outside Silicon Valley. Tim built Layup after spending two decades watching great fund companies struggle to communicate with advisors and realizing that the editorial skills he'd spent his career developing were exactly what those companies needed.
Our team brings together former financial journalists, content strategists, and distribution specialists who understand both sides of the advisor relationship: what fund companies need to say, and what advisors actually want to hear.