Investors respect hard-working business owners willing to face a market head-on. On the other hand, today’s top investors prefer to work with persons whom understand the principle of business relationships. Monitoring and leveraging investor relationships can help your business succeed beyond your imagination.
Why should you care about your relationships with investors? Investors are human. If you make a promise in a business relationship, you have to keep it or you lose your credibility. Building a business requires the same dedication to your angel investors and/or VC monitoring progress. If you’re not sure how to control the outcome a relationship, consider these proven steps suggested by our experts at C.L. King & Associates, to make sure you keep investors happy.
1. Create Boundaries
Some investors attempt to control your business; with this unacceptable behavior, you can decide how to leverage the use of funds while reducing interference. Unfortunately, you have to create boundaries before you accept an investor’s help to make expectations known.
If you consider an investor your “friend”, problems will arise when your company does not produce a desirable return. Keep the relationship professional. Be truthful with your investors so they are aware of your situation before anything goes wrong.
2. Provide Feedback
Feedback is an invaluable asset when building a business. An investor wants to know about your company’s processes, plans and eventual profits from their involvement. You can control the amount of communication given to an investor by providing feedback, offering other suggestions and working through misunderstandings quickly.
Create a foundation for mutual respect and regard for an investor’s concerns. Provide feedback to help them understand where you intend to place focus and effort in the business. If a problem arises, the level of communication will help you keep investors at ease. A strong business relationship requires nurturing and commitment; develop standards to measure the success of your relationships by the amount of feedback investors are willing to take from your presentations.
3. Document Commitments
Know what investors expect and keep records of every commitment you have. Documentation places the commitment right in your face. You cannot adjust a commitment that is signed, agreed on and ready to place into action. Small business owners have a tendency to fluctuate on certain agreements because situations change. You have to learn how to work through hard times to get work done effectively. With documented promises in your face, you will have no other choice but to find a creative solution.
Never accept a challenge you cannot meet. Do not make a promise you cannot keep. Investors speak highly of business owners willing to put their necks out for success, but tread lightly in terms of financial support.
Keep your requests under control and do not place emphasis on new accounts you cannot fulfill. Investors want to work with owners who can handle their responsibilities without excuses. If you want to keep an investor happy, say what you mean and mean what you say from day one. Every engagement after day one is the foundation you will continue to build over the course of your business relationship.
C.L. King Corporate Access is a strong partner in building investor relationships with a long-standing commitment and track record of facilitating meaningful dialogue between public company managements and institutional investors. By leveraging our first-hand account knowledge and deep relationships, C.L. King brings together investors and the company managements they would like to meet in such forums as non-deal road shows, one-on-one or group meetings, and conference calls.
C.L. King’s Corporate Access team partners with Equity Research, Sales and Trading to provide buy-side investors direct access to corporate management teams through a variety of effective programs. Since 2010, C.L. King has hosted over 5,000 one-on-one or group meetings among nearly 200 different company managements and institutional investors in key cities throughout the U.S.
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