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Well, hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Less Chatter More Matter, the podcast where we delve into all things communications, and I share a lot of the tips and [00:01:00] tricks I've learned over the years and I'm continuing to learn. I think that's the biggest thing about any communication or any profession, you need to be open to learning. We don't know everything and we never will, but the more you learn, Uh, the more valuable you make yourself and the more creative you can be with some of the solutions that you come up with. And speaking of solutions and creative solutions, that's exactly what I'm going to touch on today.

We are going to talk all things annual reports, and specifically, can we please, please, please rethink the way we do annual reports. Can I get a 'hell yeah' from the comms people who are listening to this? You know, a lot of the podcasts I listened to about podcasting actually say you shouldn't put content on that dates.

You know, that's a point in time sort of stuff. But you know what? Annual reports happen every year. That's why they called annual reports. And they also take up a ton of time in the lead up to the actual production of them. So to me, this is relevant all year [00:02:00] round, quite honestly. And, if you've ever worked in comms, there's a good chance you've had the misfortune of having to work on an annual report.

It is a super painful process. Anybody who's ever been involved in one will be able to relate. if you've somehow managed to avoid it for your career, good on you, and I really hope you never have to do one. But we are coming up to the end of financial year here in Australia, which means comms and finance teams are busily preparing for annual reporting season already.

So not just the annual report itself, but the annual general meeting, the AGM, and the release of results as well. So there's a lot that goes on. If you're not in a listed company or organisation, there's a good chance you'll also still do reporting, but it might just be on a different timeline. Typically, there is a section at the back of the annual report that is the audited financial statements, right, and then you've got the front section, which is the shiny bit.

It's all the stories. It's a [00:03:00] letter from the CEO, the Chair, et cetera, et cetera. Here's my gripe with annual reports. The way they're usually done is a colossal waste of time. And a colossal waste of energy for the months and months leading up to this thing people are working so hard to pull these things together, and for what?

It's really just about dressing up the results for shareholders. Let's be honest. Realistically, the requirement is really just for audited financial results, right? And that's it. It's, and so that's absolutely necessary to publish those things in the interest of transparency, to meet regulatory rules and regulations, which absolutely makes sense, and to let shareholders know how their investment is performing.

All of that stuff makes sense. I guarantee you though, a large proportion of the annual reports are not being read except for the bit that mentions dividends. Right? So here's the other challenge with annual reports. Apart from [00:04:00] them not being necessarily read in full, the very nature of them is annual, so it's just a point in time and half year results, if your company does those as well, are usually a very scaled back version of those and typically just focus on financial performance. So they're only relevant for a very short amount of time, but they cost a lot of time and money to produce. They're incredibly painful and the level of value is debatable. The other problem is that. They are, as I said, they're just a pain in the ass to produce, quite honestly.

Firstly, the letters from the CEO and the chairperson, you know, you write a draft, it goes off a review, it comes back, da, da, da, da, da, da. It goes to about 5 million different people before it's actually set in stone, and even then, right up to the finish line, there's often changes. So you're looking at multiple rounds of revisions and rewrites just on those two things alone, let alone the rest of it.

Because then it's like getting blood from a [00:05:00] stone to get information out of SMEs in the business to actually put the facts in, create stories, et cetera, et cetera. Then it's a multiple rounds of reviews, approvals, and verification of that content, which is a whole other ballgame. And apparently everybody is a qualified graphic designer in their spare time as well, which is awesome to have that feedback from them.

Now finally, if you're in a company that still prints annual reports, well then you've got printer's deadlines to meet, and you've gotta go over the printer's proofs as well, and you've got a factor in the time and the money to package and mail all of those reports as well. So it's a hugely time and resource and money intensive exercise in the way it's traditionally done.

Now there's absolutely value in putting positioning around results, and you totally should do that. And sharing good news stories with investors and other stakeholders, a hundred percent should be doing those things. My [00:06:00] challenge is how it's being done currently, because I can think of other ways that it can be done much more effectively and much more efficiently.

So today I'm going to share with you some ideas for your business or organisation in terms of your annual reports, and I'd love to hear your ideas as well. So if you have others, please get in touch. Happy to hear them all. I love this idea generation. It's what I'm good at and what I love. So idea number one, don't wait until the end of the financial year to share the good news.

And so by this I mean, have more regular, shorter interactions with your shareholders and stakeholders, right throughout the year. They can be your biggest advocates and supporters if they know more about how their money is spent and if you continue to be top of mind for them in a really positive way.

So think about like, for example, maybe an email every couple of months with a quick summary and pointing back to stories on your website or a short video from the CEO, or even just a text message once a quarter [00:07:00] that has a link to a PDF summary or a special page on your website. Again, just a quick summary of the financial performance and business performance for the last quarter, links to existing stories already, so you're already using content that you're, that you're already putting out there anyway. Don't reinvent the wheel. Now, of course you're still going to have to do those twice a yearly financial reports if you're a listed company, but that can be wrapped into these smaller updates.

Again, just a link. That's all it has to be. So, the benefit of this approach is A, it's far less time consuming to produce if you keep it simple and do it right, but it's also keeping your achievements top of mind throughout the year, which gives confidence to shareholders more frequently. And that's what we want, right?

We want them to feel confident that we want them to keep their investment with us. We want them to keep donating to our organisation if we're a charity. So you have to have these regular touchpoints with people to be top of mind in that really positive way. And as I said, [00:08:00] it also just means you can repackage your existing material that you are already creating for those external comms channels in real time.

You don't have to try and rewrite it later on. You also don't have to try and draw this information out of people, you know, six or 12 months down the track. It's already there. So that's idea number one. Idea number two, if you haven't already, digitise your annual report. Now, I know there are organisations that still print some copies of their reports for a very good reason.

Their audience is not digitally savvy, and so that does make sense, right? That said, I would still be encouraging people to encourage your audience to go digital, so you may, you know, a couple of times a year reach out and say, give them the option to switch over to a digital format or send them a letter that has it already on there, um, or a QR code to the actual report online.

And say, but if you'd like a printed copy, here's where you can [00:09:00] order one and just have a few in stock. Again, this is gonna save you a lot of time and a lot of money, and also encourage people to get on that digital bandwagon. The benefit of digital is, as I said, you can just simply send an email or a letter with a QR code and people can access a report on their own devices at any time that's convenient for them.

And that's how people work now. We are working on the fly. We are gathering information on the fly. We're reading things on the go, so it should be really accessible for them anyway. There is a spectrum here with digitisation, like you can just do a really simple PDF file, super simple, right through to a full bells and whistles interactive website experience if you wanted to.

But if the aim is to simplify and reduce the inefficiencies in this process, don't overcook it. The really good part about a digital report is it can also be shorter because you're simply just linking to existing content. And [00:10:00] this is really important in an environment where we have a cost of living crisis and lots of people are doing it tough, sending out a heavy, glossy printed book boasting of your achievements probably won't go down well, it's not a good look. People aren't stupid. They know that thing cost a lot of time and a lot of money. And if they believe their investments or their donations are being spent on that kind of thing, when they're relying on their investment for their retirement, for example, or they thought their money was going to a charitable cause, not to something being printed, it is not a good look for your company or its leadership.

Now I've spoken about positioning results in this current environment in a recent article I wrote on LinkedIn, so I will link to that in the show notes rather than getting sidetracked here with a whole rant about that. Now, of course, the other benefit of digitisation is the environmental one. You reduce waste exponentially by going digital, even if [00:11:00] the printing company you're using is using recycled paper, there's still loads of waste from off cuts during the printing process, not to mention the waste from pollution from like inks and dyes, delivery processes, et cetera. The whole supply chain has inherent waste in that process. So if you're a company that is proud of its environmental recorde or is trying to build your ESG credentials, go digital.

Okay. Idea number three. Please stop writing War and Peace. Keep it short and simple. If you think the majority of the recipients are reading every single line of that report, think again my friend. Yes, there will absolutely be one or two who have a lot of time on their hands and are very detail oriented and we'll go through line by line.

I guarantee you though, very much in the minority. As I said earlier, a shareholder's primary concern is the dividend payout, let's be honest, and they want to know the overall performance of the company to give them an [00:12:00] indication of whether they should keep investing you. They want confidence, right? That their investment is in the right place. For nonprofits, as I said, people want to know that their money is going towards the cause that they signed up for, not just going on operational and admin costs. Then they're probably more interested in the outcomes you're achieving. Also, we know people are time poor. They just won't read long emails, let alone long printed documents if there's nothing in it for them or there's no risk of not reading it.

Right? So here's where I'd suggest a new approach. And this is just an idea. Test it, try it. Maybe it won't work for you, but think about a maximum four page PDF or just an EDM with some really clear headings throughout. It contains three things. Number one, a short introduction, short, just a couple paragraphs from the Chair and the CEO, and that can link off to longer letters for both of them, for people who are interested or maybe it's a [00:13:00] short video message from them.

Cool. Great. Even better. The second thing is an infographic highlighting the key results. So this would be figures, so the key numbers and some of the key business achievements perhaps. And again, link out to the full audited financial results for those who want to read them in detail, if it's a half yearly or full year update.

And then the third thing is just thumbnails and a short, enticing sentence and a link off to content that already exists on your digital platforms that demonstrates your strategy is having the outcomes you promised. That's really important. You need to show that you are actually making progress and give them real life stories and examples of how that's working.

That's it. Nothing more, just those three things in that PDF or that email, and you're already ticking so many boxes. If you remember back to episode six of this podcast, we talked about tailoring our communication for different audiences. [00:14:00] So this tactic that I just shared means we're tailoring to both the strategic thinkers by just having the shorter overview and the context and the detail thinkers by having links off to more detail.

We're also tailoring to the visual learners by having those infographics and we can tailor to the auditory learners if we include a video. So it's a win-win across the board. It's much shorter, much easier, and it's catering to the styles of your audiences, which is exactly what we want to do. Idea number four, ditch the written approach all together.

Kind of. So how about turning what would normally be something written into a video and or a podcast? A video message can be really succinct, feature a hype reel of the achievements for the past quarter or whatever, that you can then repackage across other channels. So it has a much more effective and efficient [00:15:00] nature to it, because you're just reusing content, right?

Not reinventing the wheel. It also means it's much more enticing and engaging than written materials if you do it right. What I mean by that is avoid the talking head, the CEO or Chair just staring straight down the barrel and ah, we've gone to a different angle, so suddenly it's interesting again. No, no, doesn't work.

Instead, maybe the CEO or the Chair or both narrate the story of the achievements and you've got video, photos, even an infographic, an animation that is showing on the screen at the same time. So you can, you know, mix it up, but make sure it's not just, you know, bugalugs staring down the camera saying, I'm so proud of what we've achieved, yada, yada, yada.

Boring as batshit. Now, like all videos, I would recommend keeping it to a maximum of three minutes and even that's quite long. Um, because unless they're super interesting, nobody is watching longer than [00:16:00] that. And of course, make sure you have closed captions. All those sorts of things as well, especially like, not just for people who have, uh, disability and need those closed captions, but a lot of people, uh, in fact, 60% of people are looking at content on their phones and mobile devices rather than on a PC.

And oftentimes they're doing that on buses, trains, in a car, in a meeting sometimes. So more people are watching video without the sound on and just reading the captions. So you'll want that in there as well. Also perhaps think about a podcast feed. So this is great again, for audiences who are on the go or are just predominantly auditory learners or just love podcasts.

And you don't necessarily have to redo the audio if the audio from the video you've done makes sense without the visuals, you can absolutely just take that audio file, top and tail it, pop it in a sound file, bada boom bada bing, you're done.

That said, a podcast interview with the CEO and the Chair might also be a great idea. [00:17:00] So it's much more interesting than a person talking nonstop like I'm doing right now. Just don't over-script it, because we all know those sound absolutely terrible. Here's another idea. Perhaps get a couple of other people in the conversation who represent different stakeholder groups.

So you could have a team member, a trusted shareholder, like a long-term one who you know loves your business, uh, and a customer as well as the CEO and chair, and those stakeholders could interview the CEO and Chair, have a really interesting conversation coming at it from different perspectives. So just an idea, putting it out there.

If you pick up what I'm putting down, awesome. If not, totally awesome as well. So that's just a few ideas to get you thinking. Let's quickly recap. Number one, perhaps do shorter, more frequent updates rather than waiting for the half or full year results so that you stay top of mind to your stakeholders throughout the year in a really positive way.

Number two, if you haven't already, please digitise [00:18:00] your annual report, it saves money, it saves time, it saves the environment, and it better reflects the expectations of the community. Keep it short and simple is tip number three. So have those links off to the full detail for those who want it. Reuse existing content you've already got on other digital platforms.

Essentially build the annual report throughout the year through your regular content creation processes. And number four, consider going audio visual. So this caters to those different communication styles that we talked about and can be a lot more interesting and engaging than simply supplying a newsletter or a booklet.

And it's content you can repurpose in a lot of different ways through different platforms really easily. Ultimately though most of this comes back to what we always bang on about here is what is the outcome you want to achieve? What do you want people to know, feel, or do after engaging with this update, whatever that looks like.[00:19:00]

And think about your audiences. What do you know about their behaviours? You know, are they really busy people or are they not so digitally savvy? And how can you layer on those different communication styles so that you're meeting more of their needs throughout the production process? So if you start with your own demand and keep your audience central to your thinking, then your decisions around how you engage with your stakeholders become so much clearer.

So all those ideas I just shared, Yes, great ideas, but also what is, is the outcome you want to achieve and keep your audience at the center of your thinking. So thank you for tuning into another episode of Less Chatter More Matter. If you're finding this podcast helpful, please do me a super quick favour and rate and review on your podcast app of choice.

It helps me to know that people find this content valuable, and it means more people are more likely to stumble across my humble show and learn as well. As always, check out the links in the show notes and keep [00:20:00] doing amazing things. Bye for now.