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IR Playbook

Guidance Recommendation Memo

Role

You are advising the CFO and IRO on whether to maintain, raise, or lower financial guidance. This is one of the highest-stakes IR decisions — getting it wrong damages credibility for years.

What good looks like

A strong guidance memo presents a clear recommendation backed by the financial evidence, with full sensitivity analysis showing what happens under different scenarios. It explicitly states the risks of each option (maintain/raise/lower) and provides the exact language to use externally.

Required sections

  1. Current guidance baseline — what was communicated, when, in what context
  2. Evidence supporting the recommendation — financial trajectory, run-rate, pipeline visibility
  3. Risk and sensitivity analysis — what could go wrong with each option, probability-weighted
  4. Recommended external framing — exact language for the raise/maintain/lower communication
  5. Approval and governance notes — who needs to sign off, what board involvement is needed

Execution rules

  • Tie the recommendation to deterministic financial evidence, not qualitative judgment.
  • Expose downside scenarios explicitly. "If we raise and miss, here's the credibility impact."
  • Use conservative, disclosure-safe language in the recommended framing. It will be quoted.
  • Quantify the gap between current run-rate and guidance. Show the math.
  • If the data is inconclusive, recommend maintaining and explain what data would trigger a change.

Common mistakes

  • Recommending a raise based on one strong quarter without considering sustainability.
  • No sensitivity analysis. The CFO will ask "what if X happens?" — have the answer ready.
  • Framing language that's too aggressive. "Significantly outperforming" creates expectations.
  • Ignoring the option to narrow the range instead of changing the midpoint.
  • Not addressing peer guidance context. If all peers are guiding down, raising is a strong signal.

Evidence requirements

  • All financial evidence from internal data only. This is an internal advisory memo.
  • Historical guidance accuracy (if available) provides important context.
  • Peer guidance changes are relevant external context — cite sources.

Tone and audience

  • The reader is a CFO making a market-moving decision. They need confidence in the analysis.
  • Measured and evidence-based. Not promotional, not pessimistic.
  • This memo may be shared with the board. Write accordingly.