I received permission to republish some of these notes from a former colleague. I believe they are invaluable and useful across many scenarios, so I’m going to post some of them here.

Our clients get hundreds of e-mails everyday. We want our research to be a “must read” every time a piece shows up
in the In-Box.
• Focus on conclusions, implications, and opinions, not on news.
• Focus on key value drivers:
• The ones that are not obvious to the market make for our best reports.
• Put numbers in exhibits; put ideas in the text.
• Use effective exhibit headers that help tell the story.
• Detailed numbers in the text are really boring.
• Rehashing a company’s press release is really boring.
• Clients trust our numbers; no need to tell them the ten steps you used to get them.
• Short reports are almost always better than long reports:
• Exception – coverage initiation reports serve as foundation pieces that have to be fairly long.
• Use frequent comparisons to other companies we cover to provide context for the reader.
• Incorporate balance – every company has strengths and weaknesses.
• Write with energy, flair, and confidence – make every report interesting.
• Plagiarizing from within our shop is encouraged:
• If someone is presenting ideas in a way that is smarter, better, more interesting, you should adapt their style.
The greatest compliment we ever get from clients is “I found your report to be really insightful and it changed my
view on this company”. Writing effectively is a key to getting to this point