By Maureen Wolff, President and Partner
Companies planning to go public need to be able to hit the ground running on the day of the IPO pricing with an investor relations program. In order to prepare, Sharon Merrill President and Partner Maureen Wolff provides tips on what to do before and after the S-1 filing in the videos below. Continue reading
Filed under Investor Relations, IPO
By Jim Buckley, Executive Vice President & Partner
To kick off the New Year, we decided to renew an old Sharon Merrill tradition and take a lighthearted look at what’s in and what’s out in investor relations and related areas in 2012. Hope you enjoy, and have a happy and successful 2012. Continue reading
Filed under Investor Relations
By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media
As another year comes to a close, two things are probably on every IRO’s mind: New Year’s resolutions and next year’s investor relations plan. Every year, one of the most common resolutions is to get fit. People spend a tremendous amount of time and money developing new health and fitness plans to achieve that goal. This year, apply the same techniques to your IR plan in order to have a successful 2012.
Establish Achievable Goals
You may not be ready to compete in the Arnold Classic body building competition next year, but fitting into that new bathing suit by summer is certainly a realistic goal. When developing your 2012 IR plan, set equally realistic expectations. For example, expecting to grow your capitalization from a mid-cap to a large-cap in just a few months is likely an unrealistic benchmark. Instead, focus on more achievable metrics, such as meeting with a greater number of investors, attending more conferences, or increasing trading volume. Meeting these goals will support your ultimate goal of maximizing shareholder value. Continue reading
Filed under Investor Relations
By David Calusdian, Executive Vice President & Partner
*Originally appeared on OpenView Labs, the strategic and operational consulting arm of OpenView Venture Partners, a global Venture Capital fund that invests in expansion stage technology companies.
“In preparing for battle, I have always
found that plans are useless, but
planning is indispensable.”
– Dwight David Eisenhower
President Eisenhower could well have uttered the same quote about Crisis Communications. Developing a crisis communications plan is more about planning to mobilize for a potential crisis, than it is about writing step-by-step actions for specific pre-ordained scenarios. And this is what causes so many management teams to be confused about exactly what the components of a good crisis communication plan actually are. Here are five “Crisis Plan Essentials” to consider in order to get your team ready to communicate in a crisis.
1) Identify the Crisis Team
It’s important that the right people from the appropriate functional areas of the organization are ready to respond at a moment’s notice to a crisis and understand their responsibilities as members of the team. Along with the CEO and CFO, the team should include key people from public relations, corporate communications, investor relations, human resources, public affairs, sales and marketing. Make sure that at least two members of the crisis team have been media trained. A major crisis is no time to get your feet wet in media relations. Continue reading
Filed under Investor Relations, Crisis Communications
By Maureen Wolff, President and Partner
Nothing has more power to change a boardroom’s dynamics than the election of dissident directors – especially when they arrive as a twosome. I had the honor of moderating a panel discussion on shareholder activism at the National Association of Corporate Directors New England Chapter breakfast event earlier this month, where seasoned board members talked about the lessons they’ve learned in battling high-profile proxy contests over the years.
One of the stories, told by a former board chairman, involved the legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn. A manufacturing glitch had resulted in a steep drop in his company’s share price. After repeated attempts, Icahn was finally successful in having two of his nominees elected to the board. This occurred not long after the principal of another activist institution had been elected as a director, and not long before the company received an unsolicited tender offer at a substantial premium to the then-current share price.
The former chairman painstakingly recreated the scenarios that unfolded over the next few months as the board considered the takeover offer. At first, he focused on the gulf in interests and motivations between the newly elected “directors” and long-time members of the board. Unlike the established directors, who had long been personally committed to the company’s vision, mission and business strategy, the dissidents’ only interest was in immediately monetizing the company’s value for shareholders, he said. Predictably, these conflicting goals led to tremendous stress and friction on the board. Continue reading
Filed under Shareholder Activism, Crisis Communications
5 Useful Tips for Reading Body Language in a Business Environment
By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media at Sharon Merrill
In business, people aren’t always completely honest. I know…stop the presses! As investor relations professionals, we are constantly playing a poker game with Wall Street. So how do you know if someone is not being completely truthful with you? Read their body language.
Nonverbal communication, or body language, often sends a different message from the spoken word. The way a person shakes hands, gestures while talking, or even crosses their legs, sends subtle but clear signals about the real meaning behind the message. Even a simple touch of the nose may indicate that a person is being untruthful.
Many Wall Street firms have hired body language experts to train analysts and portfolio managers to identify the nonverbal cues that executives give. So it’s beneficial for CEOs and CFOs to recognize these signals, to ensure they aren’t unwittingly conveying the wrong message. Continue reading
A Halloween Lesson with Apologies to Charles M. Schulz
By David Calusdian, Executive Vice President & Partner
Year in and year out, Linus sits in the neighborhood pumpkin patch trying to impress Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally with a personal introduction to The Great Pumpkin. She forgoes trick or treating to wait for the Great Pumpkin as he “flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world.” But every year, The Great Pumpkin disappoints, and as Linus puts it, there’s “nothing compared to the fury of a woman who has been cheated out of tricks or treats.” Now there’s a holiday icon in desperate need of reputation management. Here are three tips to reestablishing a positive personal brand whether you are a fictional cartoon character, disgraced athlete or corporate executive.
1) Determine Your Desired Brand Identity
Before you begin the reputation rebuilding process, decide what you want the essence of your new personal brand to be. Philanthropist? Industry expert? Respected business Leader? After you’ve determined your desired personal brand, develop a strategy to take action and then communicate to your key audiences. For example, in the years after Jimmy Carter’s failed presidential re-election bid, he re-branded himself as a humanitarian very successfully through his work with Habitat for Humanity. As for The Great Pumpkin, I’d recommend taking the same approach as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and finally make good on his toy delivering promise. Continue reading
Filed under Reputation Management
By David Calusdian, Executive Vice President & Partner
I recently spoke at the NIRI Fundamentals of IR Seminar on “Media and Communications,” and the part of the presentation that generated the most discussion was on how to conduct “media training” for CEOs, CFOs and other corporate spokespeople. Of course, the most difficult part of media training can sometimes be convincing the executive that they need help. But once you clear that high hurdle, there are three basic steps to help prepare senior management for a successful interview.
1) Establish key messages. Without significant interview experience or preparation, your CEO is likely to a) offer rambling responses to questions, b) divulge too much information, and/or c) miss an opportunity to convey the messages you want to get across to customers, investors, employees or other important stakeholder audiences. Prior to the interview, create three to five key messages and supporting proof points that you want to make sure appear in the story. When you are developing key messages, think about the audience for the particular interview and the points that you want to convey to that specific stakeholder group. Look at it this way: if you were writing the article for the reporter, what messages would you include? Those are the messages that management should use in the answers to the reporter’s questions whenever possible. Politicians often do this very well. For example, earlier this year British Labour leader Ed Miliband famously repeated his position on strikes taking place in the UK in several successive questions during a BBC interview. Continue reading
Filed under Media Relations
By David Calusdian, Executive Vice President & Partner
The firing of Red Sox manager Terry Francona offers a few valuable lessons in crisis communications, especially those relating to the unexpected departure of an executive. For those of you outside of Red Sox Nation, let me offer a little background: the only living manager of Boston’s professional baseball team to win a world series (twice!) is now unemployed after missing the playoffs following a disastrous September collapse. To be technical, Francona wasn’t fired; the team declined to pick up the option on his 2012 contract. While the debate over letting Francona go is an ideal subject for a sports-focused blog, the way the decision was communicated offers two valuable lessons to anyone in crisis communications.
1) Take a Deep Breath: When a decision is made suddenly to release a senior executive, care should be taken to think through the communications timeline. The Red Sox put Francona in front of the microphones the day after the final game of the season for no reason other than to discuss the final calamitous loss. If ownership had even an inkling that the team would be sending Francona on his way, why put him in front of reporters to awkwardly answer questions about his future? To make matters worse, the very next day Francona held a press conference to announce his departure, which was then followed by another media gathering by the Sox brass to discuss the action. Why two additional separate press conferences? The Sox would have been better served to have one well rehearsed press conference (including Francona and the Sox higher-ups) to address the disastrous end of the season and announce that the time was right for a managerial change. In any crisis situation, take a deep breath, think a few steps ahead and plan all messaging and timing of external communications accordingly. Continue reading
Filed under Crisis Communications, Media Relations
By Dennis Walsh, Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media
It’s that time of the year again. Four times a year, institutional investors that hold more than $100 million in assets under management are required to file a Form 13F with the SEC that lists the securities held in their portfolio and the number of shares owned…45 days prior. Every quarter when I’m going through these filings for my clients, I have a similar reaction as Adam Sandler in “The Wedding Singer”:
The 13F filings provide a snapshot into the makeup of a company’s shareholder base at the end of each quarter. While they offer some insight into how a company’s ownership has been trending, they fail to provide who the shareholders are in real time. It is extremely frustrating when the markets are under pressure and volatility is high – as it has been in recent weeks – to not know who owns your company’s stock. During the recent rollercoaster swings in the market at the beginning of August, the publicly available shareholder data was current only as of March 31 (ownership data as of June 30 wasn’t due to the SEC until August 15)! With all the buying and selling that has taken place, a company’s shareholder base could potentially be wildly different since the end of the previous quarter. Continue reading
Sharon F. Merrill
Chairman & CEO
Maureen T. Wolff
President & Partner
Jim Buckley
Executive Vice President & Partner
David Calusdian
Executive Vice President & Partner
Dennis Walsh
Senior Consultant & Director of Social Media
