processes. At the same time, most managers will appreciate the care, effort, and time taken by a team that mounts a significant effort; by day's end, strong professional and network relationships have been formed. TRIANGULATION The next step in manager evaluation is gathering information on the manager from numerous external sources in order to compare and contrast stories from different sources. Similar to the way a portfolio manager would conduct background checks on a company through questioning customers, suppliers, and the competition, we would also interview the competition (other portfolio managers with a similar investment style), customers (clients of the portfolio manager), and suppliers (sell-side research analysts and corporate management). The objective is to gather facts from various sources in order to confirm or refute a consistent positive pattern the team has developed on a particular manager. Competitors, while clearly biased in their viewpoints, often reveal pertinent information about their peers. This information must be used carefully due to the biases involved; however, at times this information can lead to meaningful insights. For example, competitors will often have insight into whom they are seeing frequently in finals and who is winning business. Competitors often know which firms are losing talent and which firms are gaining it; they can also provide information on which organizations are great breeding grounds for solid analysts. Information from customers can take several forms. Savvy manager-selection teams typically insist on reference checks from not only existing clients, but also new clients and terminated clients. The type of reference check typically speaks volumes about the manager under review. Managers who offer as references personal friends in the business or individuals or entities that do not have a solid understanding of the manager typically do so for lack of better references. Higher-quality reference checks would involve a seasoned professional with unique insights into the manager under review. New clients have often recently completed the same type of search currently being undertaken by the manager-selection team; as such, these conversations tend to be very useful in understanding how the new client became comfortable with the manager issues. Finally, terminated clients can at times be difficult to reach or may not be willing to offer much information, but every once in a while there is very useful information embedded in the conversation. Consistency in the information gathered is a key to identifying managers worth pursuing further, and inconsistent information at this stage will help identify managers with significant issues. A third source of external "triangulation" information is the supplier community. When evaluating money managers, suppliers of information to portfolio managers tend to consist of sell-side analysts and corporate management. Each manager uses the sell side and corporate management to different degrees. No two managers are the same in this regard, so one must be very careful to assign the appropriate weight to these conversations. For example, a manager that uses the sell side extensively and talks to brokers on a daily basis should be well regarded by the Street and should have excellent sell-side reference checks; lack of