How To Maximize Investor Communication

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

The goal is to keep your funders psyched, not surprised.

Just finished reading an email from a company I’m working with and it filled me with joy.

This person communicates so well. Every two weeks I get an email with a quick update telling me how the company’s doing.

If you’re running a young business — especially in disruptive times — you probably want to over-communicate with your key stakeholders, and your investor(s) are as key as it gets.

Here’s how I recommend you go about doing this:

  1. Start with the Playbook. Outline your mission and what’s most important right now at the very least. Never miss an opportunity to beat this drum.

  2. Then include a quick dashboard view that includes several god KPIs, such as revenue, engagement, new product placements, and maybe trends like month over month growth. Keep it real simple — bullet points with references like “105% to our revenue goal.”

2. Answer these four questions:

  • What has me excited? (builds investor confidence)

  • What’s keeping me up at night? (eliminates surprises)

  • What are my priorities? (shows you have your act together)

  • How can you support me? (ask for introductions or deck reviews etc.)

3. Support each answer with KPIs. If you’re psyched about a growing account, say how much they’re growing. Is it 10 percent or 100 percent?

4. Schedule this important time to communicate in your calendar — every other week or monthly at the very least.

Doing this lets you build a nice communication rhythm that your investor will come to appreciate or, if they’re like me, absolutely love.

Let me know how you communicate with stakeholders.

Sincerely,

Enjoy this article? If you would like to see simple, practical tips in your inbox every week sign up for TwoTip Tuesday to help scale your change-the-world business.

All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!

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