Many newcomers to industry analyst relations (AR) believe analyst influence begins with the first briefing. But analyst influence depends on many more prerequisites. Experienced AR managers know that there are more precursors to influence, but in the hectic environment of day-to-day AR, even they can easily forget that poorly planned or executed interactions can slow their progress toward a position of influence. AR managers at all levels must understand how the early lifecycle of each analyst relationship affects the time required to reach this position — known as time-to-influence (TTI) — and must actively reduce the duration of this period to optimize the effectiveness of their influence program.