ARTICLE

Persuasive Investor Presentations:
Make Your Next RoadShow A Winner!

By Jerry Cahn, Ph.D., J.D.

You're invited to speak to a group of money managers, analysts and investors. Whether you're speaking at an investor conference or in a small group face-to-face meeting, you have only one chance to make a lasting impression. In the 20-30 minutes allotted, there are five things you need to do to make your presentation a winner

Pre-presentation work. With thousands of investment opportunities, why should the audience care about your company? Serious players do their homework before they meet you.  Your company needs to communicate its value position in everything it does, including press releases, Websites, annual reports, tradeshows, white papers, etc. (It's called branding!)

Second, if you've made presentations in the past, should they determine what you do in this one? All-too-often, companies update old presentations, making each one longer than the last, and, more important, harder to follow and less compelling. At some point, a fresh perspective is needed. Is this time?

Ok, now for the five steps to a brilliant investor presentation.

1.  Define the Purpose.  There are so many things to say about your company, but what is today's focus? Are you presenting the strategic direction your company will take in the coming year? Are you demonstrating that the company is delivering on last year's promise? Are you introducing the company, so you'll be on people's radar for the future? And, within the first minutes of your meeting, communicate your brand's value proposition, to make sure they got it!

2.  Organize, so it's easy to follow.  Why are books divided into chapters, with a table of contents at the beginning? To make it easy for the audience to know what's coming. Tell your audience what they're going to hear, using an agenda. It should be divided into five sections, and make it easy for everyone to know when you've moving to the next one.

A typical investor presentation structure is:

-     Company Overview and Highlight,

-     Details on Company's Product/services and Customers/markets

-     Growth Strategy

-     Management's Expertise

-     Financial Highlights.

Conclude with five compelling reasons to invest in the company. And, end by thanking your audience for paying attention!

3.  Communicate powerfully. Less is More. Use concise, powerful language, not long words or jargon. (People “use” not “utilize”.) Use titles that communicate the point of each slide. Use good pictures, attractive graphics, clear illustrations and diagrams. (A picture is worth much more than 1000 words --because no-one will read the1000 words!) Make your charts audience-driven - communicating the point of tracking or comparing the date; don't just let the computer defaults select what's important and what's not.

4.  Tell an engaging story. The presentation is a combination of the story you tell and the PowerPoint “pictures” that complement your speech. Don't read your slides; let the words and the slides engage both the left and right parts of the brain.

5.  Deliver a confident, enthusiastic presentation. Own your presentation, meaning rehearse it. Then speak clearly, enunciating and pacing yourself. Maintain eye contact, to relate to your audience. Ultimately, the “Medium is the Message” – it's the combination of what you say and how you say it that develops enthusiasm. And, “selling is the transfer of enthusiasm!”

Finally, investor presentations don't have to be face-to-face meetings. In this post-9/11 world, where travel is more time consuming, a cost-effective alternative may be a Virtual Road Show. Use the Web to show your slides and speak over the phone, to reach several investors in many cities, simultaneously. For more information on how to deliver a dynamite virtual investor presentation, stay tuned to a future issue of this newsletter.