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Getting Your Stock the Respect it Deserves

written by Tracy Hughes | May 27, 2022

“As a start-up CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.” — Ben Horowitz

The concept is simple (or so it is advertised) — if your company performs, your stock will too.

This a fantasy and is not how it works.

Over the years, I have seen many companies have newsworthy events hit the newswire, and the results have been nothing short of a “flatline”, in that absolutely nothing happens. The silence is deafening – the company concludes no one cares.

They are wrong.

The fact is, there are endless oases of wealth seeking opportunity every second of the day. And what is even more exciting is that more often than not the investment dollars, the perfect Board member, or even the right client that would jettison the company into an infinitesimal successful stratosphere, is often sitting right in front of them thanks in part to the marvels of our online universe.

Having been seated front and center for too many dramatic failures over the years, it is my mission to identify #whatworks, share it with our audience and continue to cheer for more successes for all of the dedicated, hardworking professionals invested in building a stronger capital market.

We need you to succeed.

On that note, allow me to share with you some general tips on how to get started down the right road and be the best you can be. These tips work and will help you grow your audience and build your business. Note the following tips for #whatworks are for companies in the public markets but generally work for any business…

“There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.” — Bill Belichick

  1. Ask for Help. Stop, review what you deem to be your company’s alleged challenges in securing shareholder interest and then ask a professional you know with a track record of success about what they think is really slowing you down
  2. Then Listen. Now this is a tricky one. You can fill your day with people who can waste your time extending nonsensical advice. Before you ask someone for assistance, ask yourself why this person is qualified to give you feedback. I mean you wouldn’t ask your friend what’s wrong with your car if they are not a mechanic? So why ask anyone what speed bumps are in your business model that are slowing you down will only – do just that: slow you down, and worse, waste your time.
  3. Act. Did you take notes from the expert you sought advice from? No one wants their time wasted. If you have sought advice from an expert, and then ignored their advice – they will not invest in helping you in the future, nor will they introduce you to anyone ever again. Smarten up. Again, do NOT ask advice from someone you neither care for, nor respect or it will bite you in the ***.
  4. Assess your Marketing Tools. Most companies, never ever — ever ask anyone: what do you think of my marketing deck? 99 out of 100 decks that I review are below average and many are damn near repellant. Lesson 101, if you don’t like your marketing deck, no one else does. This is the #1 reason your may be dropping investor interest. Does your deck introduce your business properly or identify what you are selling clearly? Do you know who you are selling to as so many decks I must endure seem to be missing this critical element. If you are a publicly listed company, you are marketing to investors…so ask yourself, what would you want to see?
  5. Get your Elevator Pitch On. Can you describe your company in one sentence? What about your elevator pitch? Are you able in 90-seconds to reel out the 3 most competitive reasons why an investor, a potential investor – should get you on their radar? And practice it…. as nothing pains me more than to hear companies during one of our InvestorTalk.com’s in the morning sound like they need to start all over.

And so, everyone out there calling me and saying “Oh no, it’s a bear market!” need to lose my number. If your wasting time investing in communicating excuses, your not investing in developing your business and building an audience. You know it. There are no shortcuts but there are formulas with proven success and having an audience matters. So those of you who believe your investment audience will magically appear when you announce your corporate milestones, often disclosed through poorly written news releases — well, it doesn’t happen that way. Focus your energy and direct it into the positives that you can accomplish in your day towards getting your business boat to the other side….

This has been your Tracy Talk for Friday, May 27th.