Virtual AGM Best Practices

With the inability to hold in-person gatherings, the era of virtual events is upon us.

Before you go planning your AGM over Zoom, you should know:

In order to pull it off, it’s a lot more work than you might think.

51 Labs, a marketing firm for the M&A market, assembled a panel of experts to gather the data you need to know about producing your AGM online.

The panel:

LPs with combined attendance of 35+ AGMs this year.

GPs who pulled off flawless AGMs, garnering impressive feedback from their LPs.

Together, we went through the DOs and DON’Ts of Virtual AGM production so yours can go off without a hitch (VIDEO AT BOTTOM).

1) Best practice = practice.

In preparation for a virtual AGM or any other online gathering, you should be inundated with dry runs in advance of the actual event. 

You might be shocked to discover that our panel considers 3-4 dry runs the minimum.

Our best advice is to scale the dry runs so that the first one might be a simple 15-minute A/V check, but the fifth one might be a run through of the entire event conducted in real time--a “dress rehearsal.”

As you plan these dry runs, stay cognizant of your senior leadership’s time. For example, a managing partner may not need to be present at dry run #1 if the agenda only consists of checking cameras and microphones; however, attendance of senior leadership will be essential to the success of your final dry run.

Don’t be discouraged if you experience hiccups in your dry runs, or if they reveal holes in your planning--dry runs are designed so that things may safely go wrong. As you move through your practice, create a list of everything that goes wrong. Use that framework to develop a comprehensive what if list. Here’s a portion of 51 Labs’ sample what if list from an AGM client. If you walk into game day with concrete solutions to each of those what ifs, you’ll feel much more equipped to deliver a successful event.

2) Stop Zoom fatigue in its tracks.

Know how it feels to be on a 3 hour Zoom call? So do your LPs. Here are a few tips to make sure that you do not lose the attention of your attendees.

Conduct at least some portion of your event live. Whichever section you choose to execute live is up to you (we’ve seen successful execution of live Q&A, live fund analysis, etc.), but you will lose your audience if your entire event is pre-recorded. Mixture of pre-recorded elements and live sections seems to be the best balance between a polished product and an engaging approach. 

Declutter your slides. If you’re screen-sharing, presentations should be clean, easy to read, and engaging to look at. This may mean a departure from your firm’s typical approach to an AGM slideshow. Density is your enemy here.

Keep it brief. There are horror stories floating around of seven-hour virtual AGMs. Our recommendation? Keep it tight at 2 hours or less. While you may have enough material to justify more time, just know that after 120 minutes, you’ll be fighting a lot harder for the attention spans of your audience.

3) Identify the opportunity.

Since LPs will not be traveling to attend your event, there is a very real possibility that your turnout may be better than ever. LPs are celebrating the fact that they are able to attend many events across different states, time zones, and continents in a way that was previously impossible.

The inclusion of video is a huge opportunity to showcase leadership at your portfolio companies. People love to hear from CEOs, and your virtual AGM is the perfect time to get them on camera. If you have a particularly interesting sector focus, this is a great opportunity to show the portfolio companies at work. A little investment in good-quality video for your AGM will go a long way.

Finally, if someone has to miss the meeting, they can experience it later on with a private or password protected link. Being able to provide people with the full meeting experience after the fact--and not just a printed PDF of the deck--is a real game changer.

You may choose to do the minimum for your virtual AGM production under the assumption that things will return to normal by next year. The reality is, regardless of the state of our planet by this time next year, the expectations for AGMs have shifted for good.

Out of this challenge has come immense innovation and growth--so much so that for next year’s AGM, whether it’s virtual or in-person, you’re going to have to step up to the plate.

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HOST

Jordan Selleck | CEO & Co-Founder, 51 Labs

PANELISTS

Dana Johns | Senior Portfolio Manager, Maryland State Retirement & Pension System

Jill Kitazaki | President, Denning & Company

Christen Paras | Head of Business Development & Investor Relations, MiddleGround Capital

Julia Szlakowski | Director of Communications & Investor Relations, EIV Capital