Best Strategies for a Smooth Earnings Call

Four times a year, at the end of every quarter, publicly traded companies conduct earnings calls to discuss their financial performances — their achievements, their setbacks, and their future plans. This is exactly why an earnings call is significant for numerous companies and businesses. This is a chance to impart their story, their success, and their goals to the public and various influential people such as investors, analysts, journalists, and more. Because of this, making sure your earnings call is a success is more crucial than ever. 

Here are strategies to ensure a smooth earnings call:

Pick the right time and date

The first thing you need to accomplish is to pick the right time and date. Earnings calls are usually conducted at the end of every quarter, usually within a month after that quarter is completed. This means that there’s a great chance other companies will have their earnings call the same date as you. You need to avoid this as you might have a lesser audience and miss out on having investors and analysts to listen to your call. Look ahead and pick a target date for your call. You can also try and analyze when did other companies conduct their previous earnings calls. 

Utilize a reliable large conference call service

For your earnings call to run smoothly, you’ll also need a reliable large conference call service. You need one that can really handle large audiences and offer cost-effective conference call solutions as you conduct your large event call.

People all over the nation and around the world will listen to your earnings call so your conference call service needs to handle hundreds and thousands of participants and be able to offer international toll numbers. It should also have seamless conference call features that will help enhance the call. This can include branded greetings, operator assistance, and more. 

Use a script

A script can help you stay focused throughout your earnings call session. With a script, you can make sure that you get the structure of your earnings call right, including the introduction, the safe harbor statement, and the presentation of data. This is also your chance to highlight all the notable achievements of your company and reassure the audience in case there are setbacks. 

Moreover, using a script does not mean you should let yourself sound too formal or robotic. It’s all right to sound casual and comfortable. That way, you can be more confident as you go through your earnings call. 

Prepare to address the tough questions

Once you have a better grasp of the discussion that will take place in your earnings call, you need to be prepared for the tough questions. You can expect that analysts and journalists will come up with the toughest questions to see if you can back up the data you just presented or to know more about the status of your company. Make a list of the tough questions that your audience will most likely ask in the call and try to come up with the best answer for each.

Manage the Q&A carefully

Being prepared for the tough questions is not all, you also have to carefully manage the Q&A at the live session. As the presenter, you have the right to accept or decline the questions that will be asked by the audience. Be sure to avoid irrelevant questions as much as possible or questions that cannot be answered by the current data. 

Make your earnings call accessible

After the earnings call, it’s time to distribute it. It’s expected for companies to archive their earnings calls and post full recordings of their sessions on their websites. It’s also effective to accompany the recording with a transcription of the earnings call. This way it’s more accessible to the public, and can accommodate those who didn’t have the time to join your earnings call live, but hope to see the data in their own time.

Keep these strategies in mind the next time you do your earnings call. These simple yet meaningful tips can help you go through your call with little to no conflict, and make it more efficient and informative for the audience and for your company.