Finding Business Success--After You've Gone Public
The job's not over just because you're post-IPO.
Now that gone public, you probably understand just how importantinvestor relations are. So here's a checklist of things you cando to make sure your life as a public company is a successfulone.
Executive time. You don't sell your dealonce-you sell it continuously. And except for largecompanies, it's the person running the show who does themeeting, greeting and, yes, the selling. Ideally, you should meetwith at least one analyst, broker or institutional investor permonth. At the very least, you should plan one day per quarter tomeet with at least five investors.
Publicity. You must leverage your ability to get in frontof investors who otherwise would not know you exist. That meansusing the press, print and electronic media. Publicity is importantbecause the dozen incoming calls from prospective investors whoread a story and want to learn more are worth more than 1,000outgoing cold calls. If you have a PR firm, it needs to focus ongetting your company exposure in the investment and businessmedia-and you need to give it the kind of events andmilestones it can work with.
Money. Get ready to spend some money. Unfortunately,promoting a company can't be done on contacts alone. You'llneed to pay your way into conferences. You might need to pay for aconsultant. You'll also spend quite a bit creating investorcollateral materials such as fact sheets, annual reports, newsreleases and article reprints.
