QIC Inside Investor Relations - Volume 47: How to Make the Q&A Session at Investor Meetings More Interactive and Successful?

Whether it is an analyst meeting or a small group meeting with investors, the Q&A session is very important. It is an excellent opportunity to clarify doubts and misunderstandings in the investors’ minds while the company representative can highlight the strengths to investors. An outstanding Q&A session is often reflected in the company's transparency, raises the interest of investors, and even increases the chance for investors to track the company regularly - eventually becoming fans.

A well-prepared Q&A session can guide investors on how to evaluate a company

Many people may think that investors ask questions on the spot, and it is difficult to prepare and predict how the Q&A session will turn out. Without enough preparation, the outcome of each meeting will naturally be random and varies a lot. Therefore, the Q&A session will sometimes appear to be not very interactive. For example, there may be a long silence when waiting for investors to ask questions, or the meeting ends early due to a lack of investor questions. Sometimes even the must-ask questions are not mentioned.

However, investor Q&A can be more interactive and successful through proper preparation. A well-prepared Q&A session can even guide investors on how to evaluate a company.

Tips for preparing the Q&A session

How to prepare for the Q&A session at an investor meeting? We have the following four suggestions.

1) Formulating the key takeaways

There is often a lot of information to be conveyed in a meeting. If you can highlight the key messages in a designed flow to the investors, they are more likely to remember those takeaways and ask questions in return. It will be easier to get twice the result with half the effort.

Therefore, the first thing management should do is to discuss and decide what the key takeaways are for this meeting, and what impressions you intend the investors to have after the meeting. Communication is usually easier when the macro backdrop is positive, and the company's outlook is promising. When the visibility of the macro environment and the company outlook is relatively low, other than communicating appropriately and transparently, it is also helpful to think about things that investors may have missed. For example, when facing a difficult macro environment, sometimes it is a good opportunity to gain market share, or the company is in transition, so short-term performance may be weaker but long-term growth opportunities can be significant. It would be helpful to highlight the long-term benefits with examples or statistics.

After the key messages are decided, you can lead investors to pay attention to the themes and key points when you do the presentation or business updates in the early part of the meeting. For example, you can add a little more detail, arousing interest and inviting questions from the audience. After getting these messages, investors have a better chance to ask questions regarding these topics. In addition, it is worth noting that the presentation should be concise. Generally, it is best to keep the presentation within 20-30 minutes to have enough time for Q&A and interaction. For more information regarding what to communicate in a meeting, please refer to "Inside Investor Relations – Volume 9 –Key Elements of a Successful Meeting with Long-Term Investors”.

2) Collecting questions and drafting answers

First, you can collect the investor questions from past meetings and draft the answers. It is highly recommended to think about how to respond more appropriately, especially for questions that are not easy to answer, such as communicating negative information. Although some questions are easy, it would also be helpful to think about how to answer them more precisely and express them in a way that is easier for people to understand. Sometimes, we don’t fully understand why investors asked such questions or we don’t have information on hand, requiring some work to figure it out or do some research to reply more clearly and completely. For example, "Why did customers choose us?" Investors mainly would like to understand the advantages of your company compared with the competitors. It will be more convincing if you can prepare in advance so that you can discuss more thoroughly or give examples. For more information regarding communication with investors, please refer to " Inside Investor Relations – Volume 10 – What to avoid doing for investor relations management".

Meetings in English or non-native languages are more difficult to express than those in Chinese or native languages. The responses are often less precise or complete, and this difference is more significant for certain tricky questions. Therefore, we suggest you prepare in advance, particularly for difficult questions. It can also be more convincing if you can show charts or relevant information to investors.

In addition, it is also worth collecting the questions and answers at analyst meetings or public interviews from peers, customers, or companies in the supply chain.

You can classify and analyze investor questions after the meeting, which will help you understand the topics that the investors are more interested in and the trend of questions compared to the past. In addition, if you can get feedback from investors, it would also help you gauge whether your responses are clear enough or which areas can be improved.

3) Understand the investors

Researching investors is especially important for smaller investor meetings with only a couple of people. Understanding more about the investors and the institutions they work for, knowing you met the investors before or if this is the first time, and the language they speak, etc… often provide clues to help anticipate questions and topics they may focus on so that you can prepare accordingly. For investors who you have met in the past, you can refer to the notes of past meetings and respond to questions more appropriately. For more introductions to institutional investors, please refer to "Inside Investor Relations – Volume 2 – Getting to know institutional investors".

4) Asking rhetorical questions or adding comments

In the Q&A session, you don’t need to wait for investors to ask questions. You can propose questions yourself or take the initiative to add comments. Especially at the start of the Q&A session where a period of silence is common. This is a great time to share FAQs from other investors or proactively explain the issues that investors may have concerns about. In addition, the questions asked in the beginning often lead to subsequent questions. Therefore, the first few questions are very important.

In addition, while waiting for investors to ask questions at the beginning of the Q&A session, you can also invite senior executives to add comments or provide a summary. Doing so can often provide slightly different views or colors. The chairman and CEO can often provide more insight into prospects and vision while sales managers can give more detail on the market and customers.

QIC advisors consist of experienced professionals that have worked in major sell-side and buy-side companies. Leveraging our knowledge in industries and relationships with investors, we assist companies and investors to achieve effective two-way communication to enhance shareholder value. QIC also supports our clients with our many years of experience in corporate access services. We plan, schedule and execute tailor-made roadshows and targeted investor events for high-quality corporate clients. If you are interested in learning more about our services, you are welcome to contact us.

Contact: yvonnehuang@qtumic.com