The importance of deep reading your materials

In the investment management industry, investors usually spend more time with a manager's written materials than with the manager itself.

Current and potential investors are reading a range of materials produced by managers, such as presentations, DDQs, factsheets, performance reports, investor letters, emails, website pages, and white papers.

Because investors spend a disproportionate amount of time with a manager's materials, when problems occur in materials it impacts the perceived quality of the manager.

Common issues and their impacts on a manager's reputation include:

• If information is disorganized, the investor may think the manager is disorganized.
• If different materials say different things, the investor may lose trust in the accuracy of the information.
• If there are grammatical or factual mistakes, the investor may worry that the manager is mistake-prone in its investment or operational processes.
• If the design and layout are amateurish or outdated, the investor may think the manager lacks professionalism.
• If the materials are convoluted, the investor may believe the manager is unclear on what it does or is trying to hide information.

Why problems with materials occur

Keeping materials free of errors and flaws is a difficult process in any business. However, at investment managers, there are additional challenges stemming from issues and practices such as:

• Materials are constantly being updated, adjusted or customized.
• Different people are maintaining different materials, and they aren’t fully coordinating.
• There is imperfect knowledge flow within the manager, or disagreement on how to describe key aspects of the business.
• Materials are produced under tight time constraints, which leads to quality issues.

When problems occur, they can be hard to notice. Investment manager marketing and investor relations functions are often under constant pressure from deadlines, heavy workloads and frequent information requests.

These day-to-day demands make it harder to devote the time and attention needed to identify flaws in materials. The solution is to take a step back and conduct a "deep read" on a periodic basis.

How to approach a deep read

A deep read is the best way to quickly identify any issues in investment manager materials. A deep read means:

• The entire materials set should be reviewed by one or more readers.
• Readers should find a time and a place where they can carefully read the materials from start to finish, with little to no interruption.
• Readers should focus on the details (grammar, formatting, internal consistency, etc.) as well as the big picture (what the materials directly or indirectly communicate to investors).
• At least one reader should be someone with strong writing and proofreading skills.

If the manager lacks the time to do a deep read, or wants an external perspective, the manager can bring in an outside expert. (Reviewing materials is one of the services we provide.)

Rapid improvement

An in-depth materials review is a valuable exercise that can identify short-term fixes, as well as longer-term opportunities for improvement.

Grammatical errors, inconsistent information and formatting mistakes can be quickly fixed, thereby reducing or eliminating flaws in a critical part of a manager's marketing and communications effort.

Sometimes, there are other issues that take longer to address. If mistakes are happening frequently, internal process changes may be needed. A specific presentation or document may need to be restructured to improve its quality and effectiveness. A manager may need to clarify its top-level messaging structure, or bring in a designer to upgrade visual quality.

Investment managers with high-quality investment and operational processes should ensure their reputations aren't being unfairly impacted by problems in their materials. A deep read is the fastest way to find and fix any issues.