Investor Relations: 12 tips to better business from an industry veteran

• -IR expert shares the strategies that have helped keep Tahoe Resources growing in the markets

  -Questioning tradition, controlling the narrative, and face time lead the way

  -In a market crowded with investment options, the personal touch helps

*** FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION IF PROPER CREDIT GIVEN ***

Vancouver, BC/ TheNewswire.ca / August 21 2014 / Ira Gostin isn't a household name, but he's an important guy to many people. His employer, Tahoe Resources Inc. (TSX:T.THO, Stock Forum), is at an all-time stock high with a $4.3 billion market cap and a large investor base, and the job of keeping that base happy and informed belongs to Gostin.

While CEOs and Chairmen get the camera time, the Investor Relations officer (IRO) - the role Gostin fills at Tahoe - is usually working feverishly behind the scenes; answering calls from shareholders; taking questions from Canadians, Americans and Europeans looking for a winner; sending out press releases; updating websites; putting out fires; knocking together conference displays; keeping insiders happy; and sweating on every few cents up or down the share price might travel.

It's not hard to find an IRO, but it can be hard to find a good IRO.

Gostin's a good IRO.

"A lot of investor relations folks come from the finance world," he said during an interview with Stockhouse this week. "I'm a marketing and communications guy. The programs and initiatives we've built are a little different to the traditional programs as far as focus and how we get our messaging to the public. You have to be a little creative in a world not overly famous for creativity."

Gostin has 12 rules for strong IR that he says give Tahoe the best possible connection with its investors, turn potential shareholders into long term shareholders, and help management communicate with the market properly.

Gostin agreed to share his 12 rules for effective IR with Stockhouse.com:

1. THE CALLBACK

Everyone gets a callback the same day they contact us, or at least an email back. I'm amazed how many retail shareholders will actually call a company for information, and they're generally surprised when they receive a call back. I find it alarming that some companies don't return calls, but it is so important.

2. QUESTION TRADITION

There are a lot of IR programs that just do what has always been done. But the traditional approach means you're never outside the middle of the pack. To me, to soley put out news releases, occasionally update the website, and buy a few banner ads--that's just deadly. Everything we do has to have a real return and a strategic purpose. I track everything we do. We need to see results.

For instance, there are newsletters and metals websites that everyone advertises with, and I look at the demographics and their analysis, and since our Tahoe Resources trades at a premium and has positive attributes, banner ads aren't justified. There's just no return on the investment for us.

I talk to shareholders and ask where they get their information. We're in our first year with Stockhouse because it came up so many times in conversations that people use their site to look up company valuations.

3. MIX IT UP

I spend a lot of time talking to the institutional side but also the retail side and while they have questions for us, I have questions for them. We work to identify who our investors are and identify the best ways to communicate with them; it's so important. An IR campaign should have multiple components of communications. Identify the message and the audience and come up with the best way to communicate that message.

We started a corporate social responsibility program, and a lot of what we're doing with that won't fit in a press release, but it can go in a company blog, or various social media platforms. A press release costs money, you pay for distribution and pay by the word, and those are fine for the financial community, but some investors look for information in other places between quarterly reports. Ultimately, we want to keep the conversations going.

As far as multimedia, it's important and expensive, but we're putting video in place and trying to share what the mine looks like to those that can't visit, and give them a feel for why we like working in Guatemala. Any time I look at analytics, I track how long people are on the website, and the multimedia is what keeps them there. It helps bridge that gap where people are investing in people, not just a name in their portfolio.

4. SOMETIMES 'CONVERSATION' IS LITERAL

Part of my job as the IRO is to take calls from shareholders or potential shareholders and coordinate a meeting for them with an executive. I'm the first point of contact for most investors and it's important for the CEO to talk to shareholders, especially the larger shareholders. I maintain a calendar of who we talk to and when, a CRM of sorts (we use IPREO's BD Corporate), and note how often we talk to them. You have to make time to talk to people who are going to buy your stock. I mix it up; sometimes it's a call for the CEO and other times, the COO, if a shareholder wants to know about social responsibility, I'll get the head of CSR on the call. I'm the gatekeeper but I'm also the facilitator.

5. CONTROL THE NARRATIVE

If your company is in a slump, it's important to identify why it's happening, and quickly. As an example, at Tahoe, we had an incident in 2012 where there was some erroneous news out there that caused a big sell-off of our shares. We got a statement out quickly that stabilised things, and then we immediately took a handful of larger shareholders and hit the phones to explain to them what was going on. Transparent access is important, for the market to see a response from the company as well as immediate and thorough follow-up.

Similarly, in good times, it's the same way. When you're on a roll, you should be out there telling the story, and you want your shareholders to have a level of expectation of information flow. There's an old adage in marketing: when you need marketing, it's too late to start. You can't start a communications and outreach program when things are bad, you have to establish it as a corporate priority and keep it going to ensure transparency and information flow. You talk about the good news, explain the bad, and share your strategy of how to turn any negative situation around.

6. SHARING IS CARING

I think transparency is a really big deal with most investors, and Tahoe takes that stance as corporate policy. The people I look up to in the IR business, in mining and in the general industry sense, are available to shareholders, and the information sharing process is smooth and consistent. Good or bad, there's information out there, and the shareholder can get to that information in many ways. SEDAR is great because it's an information dispersal platform, but I don't want to send someone there to search through mountains of documents; I want to make it easier for people. So, for Tahoe, everything is on our website, so we can drive traffic to the press releases, keep pictures updated, and make it interesting. I want that shareholder who visits the website once a month to see if there's an update and to see that there's plenty of info there. Also, I want the first time visitor to have everything they need to make an investment decision.

7. DON'T BE WHITE NOISE

I think ultimately shareholders want to hear from the CEO on a regular basis, but it's really a fine line for each company to identify what that sweet spot is in terms of how often that communication comes. How much do you want management out there? How much of their time do you devote? Any time a shareholder can come by and talk to the CEO, virtually or in person, even just a quote in a news release, it's important. I'm really fortunate to have a CEO who is very well spoken and does great interviews, so I can send him out on just about anything. Our President and COO is also a very strong communicator and able to discuss what's going on from the operations standpoint. We don't have to do a whole lot of prep. Just point them in the right direction.

Because we're a single mine company at Tahoe, we don't have much to say between quarters, so we try to maximize the opportunity when we have it and get a lot of information out. Many juniors have so much time between drill results, but shareholders want to know about other aspects of company, or even just that everything is going according to plan with community programs, social aspects, operational updates. We try to maximize that quarterly release and, at the same time, make sure it's solid information. We try to limit the guesswork and find a balance to put out the right amount of info; we want to be a reliable source of information, not guesswork.

8. CONSISTENT MESSAGING

Bullet points and elevator pitches are the mainstay of the IR business. It's something all execs at any company should have down--it keeps your messaging focused and it also keeps you compliant with material disclosure. Everyone should be on the same page. We circulate quarterly bullet points, so everyone knows what we're saying and how we're saying it. At conferences, we have a team meeting and make sure we're all on the same page as far as all messaging goes. You must be continuous and consistent if you want to avoid miscommunication, indecision, and any negative appearance.

9. SOCIAL MEDIA

There's this whole feeling that social media has no place in IR. I think that's a really broad statement, and each company in each sector needs to look at which pieces of the social media spectrum work for them, and use them to their advantage. There are a lot of legal aspects to IR that are important to keep in the forefront when you're dealing with social media, but to cast it aside is a mistake. Of equal importance, while the numbers may drive the street, it's still about relationships and building trust. Those are huge pieces of the IR puzzle, and social media tools are invaluable in achieving those goals.

Social media is so multi-faceted that each company has to identify what's the right fit for them. We do outreach through the website, the blog, some sites like Stockhouse, Linkedin and point-to-point email. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all have their place in the marketing toolbox and have to be judged on their ability to deliver the message to the right audience.

For Tahoe, we're focused on tools and options to keep our message out.

We use Linkedin a lot for recruiting, but I support that by making sure we have newsflow and press releases on our Linkedin account to build that profile.

And we always keep the message consistent.

10. TRACKING SUCCESS

As far as metrics go, you have to consider a bit of everything when figuring out if you're winning. If your company's share price appreciates and you're delivering strong value to shareholders, that's a good indicator. If you're having those conversations with shareholders and they're happy with the direction of the company, that's a good sign. Further, if the media feels you're open and transparent, and fund managers feel they have access to senior management when they have questions, you have a successful IR department.

11. EVENTS AND CONFERENCES

When I go to an investment show, I do a fairly large email distribution beforehand to let people know I'll be there and our booth number. My role at the event is to just have conversations. I want that retail shareholder to have the same access to the Company that an institutional shareholder does, and to talk to someone who is at the mine regularly, spends time in the community and has up to date information. I spend eight to 10 hours standing at the booth just having conversations and I love it. It's a great way to connect and get new people into the story. We try to use a lot of different marketing tools to drive traffic to our booth.

We keep track of conference attendees info and push emails out to them. We try to show them why we're a good investment. If they know I'm available, it makes things far easier going forward. We've been fortunate to be at a point where we don't have to cold call and harvest leads. We don't do that. We rely on the people who come to us or people at a conference expressing interest.

At Tahoe, we make our presentation as informative to that multimillion dollar fund manager as we do for the individual, so we spend a lot of time streamlining the messaging and graphics, and making sure the design is fresh and communicative. We want someone to go through it and feel like they have more answers than questions.

12. THE ELEVATOR PITCH

"Tahoe Resources is the new leader in silver. With our Escobal mine in Guatemala, which we built on time and on budget, we are well into commercial production with two great quarters under our belts. Our goal is to deliver long-term shareholder value. Industrial demand for silver is getting stronger and stronger with demand from the electronics and solar power sectors, the medical field and other new industries. The increased demand is starting to push the commodity prices back up, and we're right there to take advantage."

Not bad, eh?

--As told to Chris Parry at Stockhouse.com

*** FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION IF PROPER CREDIT GIVEN ***

About Tahoe Resources Inc.

Tahoe's strategy is to responsibly operate the Escobal mine to world standards, to pay significant shareholder dividends and to develop high quality precious metals assets in the Americas. Tahoe is a member of the S&P/TSX Composite and TSX Global Mining indices and the Russell 3000 on the NYSE. The Company is listed on the TSX as THO and on the NYSE as TAHO.

For more information about the risks and challenges of Tahoe's business, investors should review Tahoe's current Annual Information Form available at www.sedar.com.

Media enquiries and requests should be made to:

Tahoe Resources Inc.
Ira M. Gostin
Vice President Investor Relations
Tel: 775-448-5807
investors@tahoeresourcesinc.com

This information article was prepared by Stockhouse Publishing for free redistribution and publishing at the expense of Tahoe Resources as a Stockhouse Publishing marketing client. For more information on Stockhouse, visit http://www.stockhouse.com.

*** FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION IF PROPER CREDIT GIVEN ***

Copyright (c) 2014 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.