Getting Your Message Across To Investors

The Shareholder Service Optimizer’s Top-Ten Tips

1. DECIDE ON THE OVERRIDING MESSAGE you need to put across to your audience: …and how each of the subordinate messages relate to it: Most of the time – whether you are gearing up to visit with investors or preparing a 200+ page proxy statement – the over-riding message you need to convey is a surprisingly simple one: “We are good people – and good corporate citizens – and very good stewards of your money: We deserve your support on the matters we are putting forward during this visit (or in this big fat document)…and your thoughts and reactions are important to us.”
2. KNOW WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS for the specific message(s) you are trying to deliver…and what their “HOT BUTTONS” are: This is really the number-one rule of communicating successfully – but much more honored in the breach than in the observance. Perhaps it’s because people are too busy to do their homework – and to customize their messages for different audiences. Perhaps it’s because so many people think they need to use corporate-speak, or legalese, or to vet and rehearse their bullet-points to the point that all the life goes out of them…
3. GRAB THE ATTENTION OF YOUR AUDIENCE! This is much easier said than done, we know – especially if your message has to be wrapped in a proxy statement: It’s the number-one challenge, we’d say…But it should be item-number-one if you want to “get your message across.” Throw the old template out the window and design a document that DOES attract – and deserve attention: Keep reading down for specific ideas…
4. MAKE YOUR MESSAGES PERSONAL: The more you can personalize the “tone” – and turn your discussion or your document into a dialogue rather than a monologue – the more successful you will be in terms of getting it across. Years ago, it was well nigh impossible to “personalize” messages to the many sub-sets there are in a typical company’s shareowner population… but that was then. Today, it’s not only easy to send personalized emails, or brief video clips, or even written materials that are specifically designed for sub-sets of your ownership base – and to send reminders, and thank-yous …customization – and personalization – rather than a one-size-fits all approach, is the most cost-effective way to get results.
5. CUT TO THE CHASE! Put your main messages right up-front: Back to throwing out that old proxy-statement template…and why we say…again…check out Prudential’s 2011 doc.
6. WORK HARD on CLARITY: Still another reason for throwing out the old template, starting from scratch and building the message around the overriding message rather than mindlessly following the proxy  rules in numerical order. Make your points in logical order. Stick to short sentences in plain English. Avoid jargon and legalese. Try to write as if you are speaking to a “regular person.” Hire a good headline writer and a good sound-bite writer. Relegate “minutia” to the very end of your documents. Avoid minutia entirely in live conversations if you want to “get your message across.”
7. BE CONSISTENT: Virtually every writer and observer in this issue makes the same point: Consistency counts big with investors. Make sure that everything you say and do IS consistent with your “overriding message” – and with the image you want to cultivate. Be sure to communicate regularly, in good times and bad.
8. USE STRONG VISUALS: Good “visuals” will attract and hold attention better than any old blah-blah-blah we’ve ever seen or heard. They will help HUGELY to “get your message across” and will help to carry your readers, or your listeners, to the “goal post.”
9. LISTEN…observe…react…refine: Many of the large investors we’ve interviewed over the years cited the same big complaint: “People come to visit us, then proceed to do all the talking. Not only do many of them forget to ask us what WE think, they seem to be deaf, dumb and blind when their messages are NOT ‘getting across’ the way they’d like them to.” Test-market both your written and in-person communications, we say: Ask if the messages are clear…Listen to the responses… Observe how people react…and refine accordingly.
10. HOLD ATTENTION: A HUGE challenge, when messages are complex and audiences are busy. More reasons to put your main points way up front and to use every trick in the book (like brevity – and headlines, sub-heads, soundbites, charts, graphs and other snappy images that will add “color” - and keep the reader reading on. Ask for action way up front. Keep reminding readers why you are writing… And relegate all the trivia to appendices.