Vision Capital Venture, Ltd.
The first step in choosing a resource manager is to choose one who has both the knowledge of what to do, now and the future. This entails having a plan, a philosophy and a proven track record of performance, based upon successful experiences from those upon whom trust has been placed in the past.
The next step in selecting a resource manager is to find a manger whose philosophy builds upon that philosophy that agrees with your own. There is no point in being led uncomfortably along a path that is incompatible with your own. There is no value in convincing you that the manager's philosophy is the right one, and that you have been following the wrong one, if you cannot be certain that either is in fact, the truth. If you have the benefit of learning from your own experiences, positive or negative, and find that those experiences synchronize with that which the resource manager uses as a basis for historical perspective and for forward projection, then, you are already making a decision that is based upon fact and logic, rather than a feeling that you've gathered from some less reliable source.
If you have a mindset that tells you that change is inevitable, within some reasonable bounds, then, you will agree that some changes in your direction over time are necessary, rather than simply locking in one strategy, without the looping presence that constant feedback provides, in order to correct and balance your direction, rather than relying on rules that don't change as necessary over time.
Example - In the 1920's, worldwide excitement over stocks led to single-minded focus on the expansion of opportunities there, in spite of never before seen ratios of risk to value. The overwhelming opinion at the time that mechanization, consumer transportation advances in rail, personal mobility through automotive technology, and the mass media appearance of radio and entertainment would provide a generation of opportunity for vast growth of personal wealth. Those who followed this philosophy were soon swallowed up by the collapse of the asset markets, from real estate to stocks, and victimized by the effects of the Great Depression. Far from being a historic lesson, a very similar atmosphere repeated itself within the past 20 years, with the advances in technology, in mass and personal communications, personal computing, networking, and an exploding real estate market, due to one-time demographic effects, convinced many that double-digit, low-risk opportunities were here to stay. In a similar fashion as in the 1930's, but, only managed due to some public sector responses to the Great Depression, such as banking regulations, central bank policies and social safety nets, an alarming number of businesses and individuals have again found themselves over-leveraged, or, at the very least cutting back on their earlier expectations, relying on government intervention designed only to 'buy time' until some 'recovery' can forcefully assert itself beyond the impacts of rising debt, stagnant income levels, reduced individual opportunities and globalization effects that have a combination of benefits and risks.
Many of these changes are far beyond the grasp of most individuals. And, some changes are even beyond the reach of some who are involved in advising others on how to profit from or reduce exposure to current and projected environments.
Your resource manager must have the confidence to use combinations of references from well-known experts in the field, adding relevant historical perspectives, in addition to having a set of proprietary tools that stand independently to account for conflicts and disagreements in those professional inputs, resulting in a coherent management strategy for maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks over all time frames.