If you’re a smaller company – or even a larger company – perhaps some of your larger shareholders won’t get back to you when you reach out to them. Do you keep going back to them year after year?
The answer is “yes,” particularly if you have a specific issue for which you need to engage. If it’s important to you, you need to make the effort. An investor is more likely to engage if there is a concrete reason for it. Put together a list of bullets about why you want to engage. Does your engagement request look persuasive?
You might also tell them whom you propose would be on the call. “Hi, we’d like to talk with you about the two directors we added to the board last year so we can better understand why you voted against the head of our NomGov committee. We can have those two directors on the call if you want. Or, we can have the head of the NomGov committee.”
The next step is to know the right person to get in touch with – and, if they won’t talk to you, the best you can do is send them an email to update them on what you would be talking about if they did answer the phone. “No surprises” for your investors to the extent that you can keep them informed.
If you use a short presentation as a framework for your engagements, send them the deck and ask them to reach out if they have questions.
Authored by
Broc Romanek