What if you had a clone dedicated to IR?

Kevin recently came back from visiting PDAC, a giant mining conference in Canada, and how they approach IR is massively different to what we do here.

Not only do they spend 2-3x more on IR, but every business above a $20m market cap usually has at least one full-time IR resource. That is a lot more firepower than the equivalent ASX company.

So that got us thinking - what if you could clone yourself and this version of you focused solely on engaging the market and building investor demand?

1. What would they do?

2. What would their day look like?

3. What strategies would they double down on that you never had time for?

Curious to hear what others had to say, I reached out to a few community members earlier in the week and posed this exact question.

The responses I got back were genuinely unique and insightful on how they'd approach IR if they could drop everything else and focus entirely. Let's dive in.

 Ben

1. David Bert (ASX:EOS)

"If I had time to dedicate myself to IR I think the focus would be on building investor “journeys”.

That could be rolled out thoughtfully over time to engage investors and build deeper understanding and appreciation of the EOS business. 

With limited time, and always approaching deadlines, the risk is you can be reactive and some of this storytelling can get missed."

2. Martin Stein (ASX:ATC)

"My answer is create market awareness of Altech and its projects. Tell the story of what Altech is doing and engage investors for the journey.

Bring the shareholders along and keep them informed and updated every step of the way. After all, shareholders are the owners of the company and deserve no less than this."

3. Matt Forman (ASX:XPN)

"I'd set up a regular video strategy (minimum weekly content drops) that keeps investors educated and informed about our industry and how our business is positioned to continue to take advantage of the opportunities from massive AI distribution. 

I'd interview customers, industry vendors/leaders, partners and tell their stories."

4. John Rayment (ASX:ID8)

"TL;DR: 

1. Take what the business does and re-package it for an investor audience, and 
2. "Hit the road" to share it with as many people as I could.

When we’re talking to prospective customers, they generally understand exactly the problems that exist in the industry, and (usually!) quickly understand how our software platform solves them.

But often investors don’t have that industry knowledge and experience. Most investor presentations use far too much jargon and rely too much on the audience understanding the industry.

“Explain your business to me like I’m in primary school” is a fantastic aspiration, but it’s bloody hard to distill your industry, macro trends, the problems you solve, and why you’ll win into language easily understood by everyone.

It’s not something anyone can do, but it is possible with effort. For Identitii, and lots of other small caps, it’s a job for the CEO, who sits uniquely at the intersection of the business, its market and customers, and investors.

Once the alchemy is done and I’ve got a story about our company my children would understand, I’d literally hit the road to tell it, over and over again.

I’d learn to become the best InvestorHub platform user to engage our retail audience, use platforms, events, lunches and meetings to get face-to-face with as many professional and retail investors as I could, and adopt new, innovative ways to tell our story beyond traditional methods. And I’d do all of this in more than just Australia."

5. Dean Tuck (ASX:DRE)

"Sole job to engage the market and build investor demand?

Firstly I'd ask what the Americans/Canadians do differently that requires a full-time person(s). They'd be on phone/email with top 20, 50, 100 shareholders.

On phone/email with new buyers and sellers to understand why, welcome them, get intel and build relationships. On a plane quarterly to capital cities, seeing shareholders for coffee, lunch, drinks.

Technically capable enough to meet funds and strategics, feel out interest, arrange executive meetings.

Establish KPIs around meaningful metrics for social media, website, etc. Ensure website/socials are always updated based on feedback and stats. Monitor sentiment, provide feedback, manage messaging and content changes.

Attend conferences - budget permitting. Then I'd ask the Americans/Canadians again how to improve. Send them to America/Canada to see how they do things."

6. Anonymous - large cap

"If there was a second version of me that had time to engage the market and build investor demand, I’d spend more time directly engaging with shareholders to understand more about what they want from the company and what information they need but aren’t getting. 

I also think there is a lack of education out there for retail shareholders, which I think they would really benefit from and would potentially help them to understand corporate decisions. (e.g. I’ve sometimes seen retail shareholders questioning why we disclosed something when we did, and it’s been the direct result of ASX listing rules requiring us to disclose)." 

So there you have it.

Six unique perspectives on a fun thought experiment to end the week.

There are some clear common threads through here, but I am going to hold my analysis back a week. If you have an answer to the question - what would you do if another version of you could be full time on IR - I would love to hear it and feed it into next week's article.

Send me an email and let me know?

Cheers,

Ben