Plan For A VSM – Or – For A “Stringently Limited In-Person Meeting” In 2021… Now

It’s October 2020, and the chances that public companies will be able to responsibly host in-person Shareholder Meetings any time before October 2021 are virtually ZERO - unless in-person attendance can be strictly rationed to include only the most essential attendees.

So Lesson-One - if you decide a VSM is the right way to go for your company - which it almost certainly is: select a service provider and reserve your time-slot ASAP - since demand for VSMs - which greatly exceeded the supply of first-class providers in 2020 - will surely be higher in 2021.

Most important, perhaps, begin your Meeting Plan and Playbook now, we advise…to learn from the sometimes hard lessons of 2020 and avoid “hard knocks” from investors in 2021. Many investors, as reported in our last issue, felt totally disrespected in 2020 - and quite rightly so.

We guarantee that in 2021 the investors who DO tune in to these meetings will be cutting issuers little slack, and extending virtually no forgiveness to companies that serve up a thoughtlessly planned and poorly executed “slam-bam, thank you ma’am” Meeting of Shareholders.

There is little doubt in our minds that VSMs, with or without Covid-19 in the background, are indeed “the wave of the future.” Quite simply, they are the best and most cost-effective way to make “Meetings of Shareholders” available to the biggest and widest number of interested parties…not just on the day of the Meeting, but throughout the year.

But this is true, please note, ONLY IF the proceedings are worth the time and effort of attending - to your Shareholders, and to prospective shareholders as well: If not, they are a total waste of time and money, we say…So please see the tips in our last issue - and the revised and expanded tips in this issue to make your Meeting of Shareholders an event worth visiting. Above all, bear in mind that this is supposed to be a “Meeting of Shareholders” - and make a decent effort to deliver on that premise.

Very important to note as you begin your own planning: The majority of publicly-traded companies have essentially NO items of business on the agenda - and no pressing issues in the wind that would impel a rational investor to tune in to the Meeting…much less to cast a vote on-line…or even to ask a question of the management team that could not be asked using the company’s Investor-Page…at one’s own convenience.

But if you are a large-cap or mega-cap company - or have history of large in-person attendance - OR - have “issues” that might draw a bigger than usual number of wannabe attendees, and questioners…be sure to plan accordingly.