Chapter 3 - Care and Feeding of the All-Important Investment Professional

If you want to raise money and/or build greater market capitalization — and I know you do or you wouldn’t be reading this  — study and live by the following imperatives. Follow these, while making sure you answer all the questions, and you will experience a positive reception from individual investment professionals (IPs) and the investing community at large. Again, for our purposes, an IP can be an analyst, trader, money manager, retail broker, newsletter writer, or anyone in the financial industry with the ability to impact your stock.

IP Imperatives To Live By:

1. Besides your immediate staff, the IP is the most important person to your company.
2. IPs are not dependent on your company — you are dependent on IPs. Work with and provide them information so that they become active cheerleaders for your company’s stock.
3. The IP is not “interrupting” your daily responsibilities — he or she is essential to the success of a publicly-traded company.
4. IPs do you a favor by listening to your company pitch. You are not doing them a favor by going to see them. They have plenty of companies to choose from among the 13,000 or so publicly-traded companies. It is your responsibility, working with your IR team, to convince them that your company should be a part of their portfolio.
5. The IP is as much a part of your business as anything else — including the science, technology, research, sales, and other departments, corporate partners, if any, employees, offices, etc.
6. The IP is not a cold statistic. He or she is a person with feelings and emotions. Treat the IP with respect, just as you would want to be treated if the situation were reversed.
7. The IP is not someone with whom to argue or match wits. If you do, you may find yourself winning the battle but losing the war.
8. It is part of your job to satisfy the needs, wants and expectations of IPs, and, whenever possible, to unearth their fears or resolve any complaints or reservations that might prevent them from committing to your company.
9. The IP deserves the most attentive, courteous and professional treatment you can provide. Respect his or her time by arriving or calling promptly at the scheduled time.
10. The IP is the lifeblood of a public company. Always remember that without IPs you would not have a public company, because there would be no research reports, no market-makers quoting your stock, no institutional holders providing a steady base for growth, and no retail brokers pitching it to new public investors — all the elements necessary for your company’s ultimate success.