‘We always bemoaned the fact that our careers were tied to major urban markets,’ says Beth Levine, president of Communications Strategies in Salt Lake City, Utah. But after leaving Burson-Marsteller and Dewe Rogerson in New York, working for Nationsbank in Atlanta, Georgia and then as president of her own consulting firm in Atlanta and then Utah, she says it’s just not true at all. ‘You can do your own thing and make your own life and change it to suit the changing phases of your life.’
Beth Levine is not alone. As telecommunications and the internet make distances between cities and even countries feel much shorter, the possibility of operating a thriving investor relations practice far afield of the major urban markets is becoming more feasible.
Improved quality of life is a major reason people set up in smaller cities or towns in places like Utah or Arizona, for example, where the pace of life is somewhat slower, the commutes more pleasant, the outdoor activities more accessible, the cost of living lower and, some say, the people friendlier.
About two years ago Carol Abrahamson, founder of Investor Relations Resources, took a vacation; now she operates her consulting firm from her one-time travel destination, Sedona, Arizona. ‘I was wowed by the visual beauty of the area,’ she recalls. So much so that by the end of the trip she was looking around at houses. Several months later she bought one, while keeping her house and headquarters in Palo Alto, the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, just in case.
Seven or eight months later Abrahamson sold the property in Palo Alto and left California completely. ‘It was a very impulsive decision,’ she says, ‘yet it makes sense. The quality of life in Palo Alto had deteriorated significantly, the traffic was as bad as Los Angeles, suddenly there was crime. I felt like I’d been there done that with just about everything. Very little there seemed to excite me.’
Working from Sedona has proven to be very much the same as it was in Palo Alto for Abrahamson. Most of her clients are still back in California, though she acknowledges some companies there do prefer to work with local IR consultants. ‘One out of ten companies finds out I am in Arizona and they don’t want to consider me. It certainly hasn’t hurt my income – it’s as strong as ever,’ she says. The costs are higher for her because she flies on her nickel. But she says, ‘It’s hardly noticeable, not even a rounding error.’
Gone fishing
Much of Abrahamson’s work is teaching companies the fundamental investor relations game, or ‘how to fish.’ Aside for meetings during the pitch cycle, it doesn’t require much face-to-face time. In Sedona, her workdays are remarkably similar to the way they were in Palo Alto, being on the telephone and e-mail all day long. Only the view out the window is different.
But the nights and weekends are dramatically improved, she reports. ‘People here value friendship. They are not so work-weary and work-driven. Here I’m surrounded by people who want to go out and have fun.’
Howard Christensen, president and CEO of Christensen & Associates, has his headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona and now has an office in Stamford, Connecticut. He acknowledges that he does have to travel, ‘But travel is part of the game wherever you are,’ he says.
For Christensen, living in Scottsdale allows him to be close to his favorite sport, golf, and even while on the phone or in a meeting he can look out the window at mountains and golf courses and know they are just outside.
‘There isn’t any penalty for living here because it doesn’t take away your brains,’ comments Christensen. In fact, being away from the urban sprawl seems to be an asset to his business. ‘There is an abundance of top quality people here who make great employees, and being here we have the ability to focus on clients’ work without distractions of living in the concrete jungle.’
Furthermore, an important part of Christensen’s work is operating investor relations training programs. In the sunny resort environment of Scottsdale the training meetings are almost always filled. ‘We did the same in Detroit, but nobody came. During the colder months our programs are especially popular because people like to enjoy the lifestyle here as much as we do.’
Like Abrahamson, Christensen says the initial period of engagement with a client requires more face-to-face time. Afterwards, it takes less time and using the phone is fine. ‘It doesn’t take that much time in the city – that’s your first reaction. But it’s not true,’ he says.
Street cred
For some transplanted New Yorkers, like Beth Levine, having had experience with the big guys in the big city became a very marketable asset. ‘In Atlanta I was turning away work because I was an IR professional in Atlanta with New York experience. It could have been a huge business had I pursued it,’ she says.
While in Atlanta, Levine was surprised to find a very well established public relations market and many sophisticated companies, but a relative dearth of good IR people and a less developed IR market. Similarly, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, William Bartkowski, CEO of BlueFire Partners, says experienced people are hard to find in the Twin Cities. In some cases companies looking for in-house investor relations professionals have had to lower their expectations because the pool is not as wide or as deep as they would have liked.
Certainly, having experience helps, but perhaps even more important are the personal connections to buy and sell-side analysts that can be somewhat harder to come by far away from the city or Wall Street itself. Even so, ‘Contacts at the NYSE or Nasdaq are less important today because of the ease with which you can contact those people and the ease with which they can contact you,’ says Bartkowski.
Despite the lifestyle and other advantages, leaving the city for a scenic town can be a double-edged sword. Having experience and contacts in urban market centers can be valuable, but getting local clients can be elusive. ‘In two-and-a-half years I have sent each Arizona company three different mass mailings, the standard ones I use for California and other western companies, and at this point I have not had any nibbles,’ says Abrahamson. ‘I have been really surprised. My marketing materials position me as a) a former Wall Street analyst, and b) teaching the how-to-fish model…I have really been scratching my head as to why I never got a single inquiry call in response to those mailings,’ says Abrahamson. Perhaps it is just a pure numbers game. There are 112 public companies in Arizona compared to 700 in the Bay Area. ‘Or maybe the market needs different things. Maybe I am not tuned into the service they want to buy,’ she wonders.
Uphill battle
In addition to the challenges of getting local clients, it can be harder to get national clients as well. When Howard Christensen first set up his company, it took a few years for New York companies to recognize them, he says. ‘They were concerned about distance. How can we possibly service them if not located on Madison Avenue?’
In some cases companies outside major cities can be less savvy than their city counterparts. ‘Sometimes it’s an uphill battle to get executives to understand why they need investor relations,’ says Levine. There can be confusion between the functions of public relations and investor relations. ‘I got called in to see one client by a PR firm because they heard the words stock price. The company wanted to raise it and thought they needed better media relations. What they needed was a basic IR program,’ notes Levine. ‘At the same time you can’t just go bombing in from New York and say Here’s how we do it and here’s what you need. There needs to be respect and deference.’
Another point that can easily be overlooked by big city transplants is that the regional investment houses and underwriters play a much more powerful role than they do in cities like New York. It’s easy to get caught in the trap of not realizing you have to pay attention to the powers that be in the local market, according to Levine. ‘If you want to get a client to New York, you can’t just bypass the locals. You at least have to have a courtesy meeting with them. They may be a great stepping stone. That’s especially true of brokerage houses like JC Bradford & Co; there could be someone from their office who could connect you to an important analyst in New York.’
It would be unfair if living and working in paradise didn’t have its rough edges; and it does. ‘If I didn’t get out of here often I’d go brain dead,’ says Abrahamson. That’s some relief for the rest of us.
