Setting out your stall and goals
‘I always begin with the end in mind: what that success looks like,’ says Mary Winn Pilkington, senior vice president of investor relations and public relations at Tractor Supply Company, when asked why – and when – the firm puts on an investor day.
‘The key thing is you’ve got to have news,’ she continues, though that doesn’t necessarily mean new news. In her view, an event-driven approach works best. ‘You might have management change, maybe you’re rolling out a new strategy, a new innovation, or you think there’s something that’s misunderstood by the market,’ she explains. ‘You’ve got to think about what the goal of the investor day is.’
Under Pilkington’s IR leadership, Tractor Supply has itself gone from a formulaic approach – an annual investor day held on the Tuesday following President’s Day weekend – to one driven by what the company is doing or what the market needs to hear.
Pilkington explains the thinking behind the first Tuesday after President’s Day schedule: quite simply, it coincided with the firm’s annual sales meeting, when store managers and vendors came together, so it made sense to bring in investors and analysts, too. But because it wasn’t event-driven, it wasn’t something the investment community felt it needed to attend each year, she says.
The day itself was also an issue. ‘Imagine you’re a sell-side analyst and you’ve taken your family skiing over the holiday weekend,’ she explains. ‘And Tractor Supply wants you to be in your seat at 9.00 am on the Tuesday. That’s also the same day two mega-cap companies in retail release earnings. So you never have full attendance and you never get anybody’s full attention.’
You cannot input culture into the financial model, but it has an impact
In 2019, Pilkington and Tractor Supply ‘broke the mold’ with a stand-alone investor day in the firm’s hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. It has since held events to showcase management – Hal Lawton was named CEO of Tractor Supply in January 2020 – and to give the investment community a taste of the less tangible but arguably valuable elements of the company’s story.
‘Tractor Supply is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 but still a lot of people don’t know us,’ explains Pilkington, adding that the firm operates in small towns and rural locations. ‘So we always want to help the investment community understand our business and, more importantly, understand our customer, because we are a lifestyle retailer: our customers are incredibly loyal and our culture is our secret sauce. You cannot input culture into the financial model, but it has an impact. It makes our team members work harder – we have an all-time high on our customer satisfaction scores.’
Helping the investment community understand that key intangible and experience Tractor Supply’s culture first hand leaves analysts and investors with ‘a real halo of positivity and helps them rethink relative valuation – which is what we’re all striving for,’ Pilkington says.
You’ve got to think about what the goal of the investor day is
