Here’s What You Need to Know About Writing Your Company Profile
Writing a company profile can be a daunting task. You may have questions like “How to Create a Company Profile?” or “What should I write in the company profile?” Both are valid questions.
In this post, we’ll look at the different parts of the process. Then we’ll take a difficult task and break it down into smaller achievable steps. Once the steps are split into bite-sized chunks, you can take each of them one at a time to develop a company profile that works well for your business.
Let’s start with a bit of background, and then we’ll move on to the steps.
Company Profile Background
We’ll start with some rudimentary information. Even though it’s simple, and you may already have an understanding, I’ll keep it brief and to the point.
What Is a Company Profile?
You can compare a company profile to a job resume. Does a resume offer your complete life story? No, but an overview of your work for the past few years. Including your skills, accomplishments, and strengths. Your business profile can be thought of as a resume for your company. It contains similar information found in a business plan, such as Executive Summary, Company Description, Organization and Management.
If you already have a business plan, you can use parts of it or use it as a reference for information to include in your company profile.
The Purpose of a Company Profile:
A company profile is used for one purpose, which is to present information. The details you could focus on include; your products and services, your target market, the number of years of operations, your specialties, a look at management, etc.
It’s important to note. You may have more than one profile, for example, one for a social media account and another to attract investors.
Think About Key Issues Before You Start:
To write an effective company profile, you’ll need to decide on a few key points. Let’s go over them briefly, and for the parts that need more details, I’ll follow up in later sections.
a.) Define Where the Information Will Be Available:
Where will you present your information? Naturally, this will depend on your audience and the purpose of your company profile. For a few ideas, have a look at the list below:
Social Media:
Sites Like Facebook and LinkedIn allow company pages on their platforms.
Brochure/PDF/ PowerPoint Presentation
A well-designed presentation in the form of a brochure, electronic document, or presentation is used for investors or a company looking to attract partners.
The brochure will be detailed and focus on the points most important to a prospective partner or investor. There may be a brochure to attract investors and a different one to attract partners, which is the best approach because you can focus on the benefits that appeal to each reader.
Website:
A company website is a good place for a company profile, and depending on the purpose, you may want information on your About Us page. Or you can have several pages, one for an overview of your business, one page to attract investors, and a page to attract professionals to join your workforce.
b.) Determine Who the Information Is For:
When you know who you are addressing, it will be much easier to write your company profile. If you’re writing to an investor, your copy will be much different than writing copy that attracts followers to your social page.
You want to tune into your audience and address their needs. Find out all you can about the people that read your company profile.
You’ll want to determine their age, level of education, the industry they work in, etc. The more you know, the better you can tailor your writing towards your audience.
You can find out more about the type of person your targeting by searching online, using the example below.
Let’s say your targeting a small business investor.
You can search for “characteristics of a business investor” in your favorite search engine and also search on the phrase on X, Facebook, and YouTube.
From your search results, note the characteristics. Take some time to consider what each means. When you’re writing your copy ensure, you address the points you find.
For example, you may find one of the characteristics of an investor is they don’t like taking risks.
Address the risks associated with your business in your writing, which demonstrates you know a little bit about them and how they think. It also opens the door for dialogue. Do the same for the most prominent points.
c.) Thoughts About Presenting Your Information
What you write on your company profile will depend on the purpose of the profile and who is the intended reader.
A Facebook business profile will differ from a business profile intended for an investor. Your profiles will all focus on your company. The style and how much information is what differs between the profiles.
Let’s look at writing a company profile from a different perspective.
If you’re meeting someone and they ask, tell me about yourself?
How do you reply?
Do you say I’ was born on March 8th, 1963, in a small hospital in the city? I started school at the age of 4. I started high school in the mid-seventies, etc.
No one replies like that!
Most replies give a little background about themselves, which might include what line of work they are in, their hobbies, a bit about their family, their goals, and ambitions.
Let’s look at another example:
You are called in for a job interview. You are asked; Tell us about yourself. You reply something like, I’m 38 years old, with a wife and two kids. I have a strong background in the computer industry, with 22 years of experience in programming, and I’m interested in working for your company. I feel I can benefit your company with the experience I have.
The two examples above both talk about an individual. The first one goes into too much detail and is off point, and the second gives a quick overview.
Did you notice that each had a different audience? The first example was meeting someone personally, and the second was on a professional level at a job interview.
When writing your company profile, think of the above examples. You want to give your readers relevant information without overloading them or boring them.
Types of Company Profiles to Consider:
When writing any important paper, you need to determine who will read it and the result you want.
There are different types of company profiles, such as professional company profiles, about us pages, and social media business profiles. When you determine the type, you can adjust your writing style and tone. You also have a better grasp of the information to include.
Let’s briefly go over each:
Professional Company Profile:
A professional company profile is used when you’re providing information to other companies, investors, and possible partners. Naturally, this type of profile will differ from writing one for your LinkedIn company page.
Investors and partners will want a lot of information, including profits revenues, a look at your management team and workforce, strengths, and outlook for growth and sustainability.
A professional profile will take you the most time and needs the most information, such as facts and numbers. It will also require the most work to make the content flow nicely and keep the reader’s attention.
We’ll focus on a professional company profile in the next section, but first, let’s go over a few others.
About Us:
An about us page is found on many websites, which offer information about the website and, in some circumstances, contain company and personal information.
After all, not all websites are business-based. Some may be personal blogs. Some are hobby sites, etc. So when looking at about us pages, you’ll find various writing styles.
You’ll want to match the style of your website when writing an “About Us” page.
For example, if you have a party bus business, you want to focus on experiences and having a good time as opposed to using a tone that is too serious.
With about us pages, you want to ask questions like the following:
- What would someone looking at our “About Us Page” Want?
- Do they want to contact us for more information about our products and services?
- Are they looking for a link to their site?
- Do they want to sell us something or pitch an idea?
Are they looking more into the company? For example, a client may want to do business with you but require a bit more background before proceeding. They may be looking for some of the following :
- How long we have been in business
- The size of the company
- If it’s family-owned, or a corporation
When you ask questions like the above, you get a sense of the information you want to be included on your “About Us” page.
Social Media Company Profile
For social media sites that allow company pages, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, you can put information about your company in the appropriate area.
Most social media company pages are designed to get people to follow the page. A company with many followers has a marketing channel allowing them to increase their revenue with a click of a button.
Many companies tend to go after a lot of followers so that their page is perceived as popular. Sure everyone wants their page to have thousands and thousands of followers. I feel it’s more important to have quality vs. quantity. Let me explain why.
If you have a million followers on a page, it looks important, and it’s easier to get more people to join. But let’s say you purchased those one million followers, and now you have a page that’s perceived as popular. People are starting to join because of your page’s popularity.
You now have a valuable channel to market your products and services.
Or
Do you?
You don’t because you purchased followers with no value and are not interested in what you have to offer, and many of them probably aren’t real.
With fake followers, your offers are being broadcast to no one. When you test your campaigns, you won’t get far because the data is skewed.
The company profile you want to display for social sites must revolve around your customers and clients. Focus on WIIFM (what’s in it for me.) Customers have one thing on their mind when they deal with a business, and that’s themselves.
With that said, why should people follow your company page? What is the benefit for them? Will you offer tips, discounts, specials, etc.
Figure out what they will benefit from, which will be an important part of your social media company profile.
Writing a Company Profile
We briefly touched on this type of profile in the previous sections, and now it’s time to go through the steps in more detail.
1. Define the Purpose of Your Professional Company Profile
When you have a clearly defined purpose, it will be much easier to write and convey the right message instead of writing without direction.
What is your purpose for creating a company profile?
Some examples include the following:
a.) Attract Investors and Raise Funds
Attracting investors is an important step for some businesses, and without investors, they may not be able to grow or even keep the doors open. A company profile will help spark interest for the right investors. Your company profile will not close the deal. Instead, think of it as an introduction and a way to spark interest.
b.) Attract Partners
Getting a partner in a business can be a blessing or a curse. When you find partners who share the same values and vision, chances are you can make it work. When you have a difficult partner who wants to change everything that’s working causes tension and harms the business.
If the purpose of your profile is to attract partners, you’ll want to emphasize your values, vision, and what direction your company is headed.
You’ll also need to focus on the benefits of becoming a partner, which may include the potential growth of the market and your company.
c.) Build Brand Awareness
If you want to build brand awareness, then your focus will be on your products and services.
Building brand awareness is a long process, and it’s rarely achieved through one method, but a combination of many marketing campaigns will help build a strong brand.
A company profile is one of those methods you can use to build brand awareness.
d.) Attract a Workforce
If you want to attract talented people to your workforce, a company profile can help.
You can set your main focus on the benefits of working for your company.
Mention points such as the benefit packages you offer your employees, how they can grow and depend on a strong and stable future working for your company. Talented people want stability and room to grow in their field.
e.) Offer Public Information
Some large corporations offer information about their company. It’s like branding your products and services.
The concept here is to brand the company as a whole. With this type of profile, you may want to build a storyboard including the initial concept, how the company was established, founders, the challenges, and successes.
2. What To Include in Your Company Profile:
Basic Information:
The first thing you want to include is the simplest, and that’s your basic company information.
Ideas and Vision
Next, you’ll want to include a section for your company ideas and vision. You can start by providing the history of your company. You may want to use a storyline with dates.
You can start with how the founders came up with the idea and when the company was established. From there, you can focus on the highlights. For example, in 2009, we opened our second branch in Chicago with great success!
If your vision hasn’t changed since the start, write about how you started with your vision and how it hasn’t changed over the years because it matches your core values.
Next, you could move on to how you plan to move ahead and ideas for growth and stability.
Your Workforce
In this section, you’ll want to focus on your employees and may even want to include your turnover rate, employee relations and competence, and the talent of your workforce.
For example, if you’re in a high-tech industry, talk about the talent you have in your workforce and some of their special skills.
On the other hand, you may be in an industry that depends on manual labor that statistics show high turnover rates. If your turnover rate is less than the industry average, you could write why people work for your company in a high turnover rate industry.
Leadership and Management
In this section, you could have a short Bio for your top executives. You can include their expertise, qualifications, and achievements in the company in the bio.
Investors and partners look for a strong management team. They want assurance that if problems occur, the management team will know what to do and take the necessary action to get the company through difficult times.
Business Activities
Many companies deal with a variety of business activities compared to one core purpose.
In this section, you want to list all the major activities you deal with, whether profitable or not. You may be hesitant to omit the nonprofitable ones. But if you gain an investor, they will be performing their due diligence, and if they find a major venture, you omitted it may scare them off.
Emphasize the nonprofitable sections are in the growth stage because naturally, if they are areas, you’re losing money, and they add no value to the company. Why are you still dealing in those activities? You can mention you are getting out of these markets and the reasons why.
I want to note that you only want to list those activities that generate your majority of revenue. There may be areas where you’re testing the market or try new things. If you don’t have enough data for those activities, then there is a lot of value in mentioning them or grouping them as test markets.
You don’t want to present false or skewed data. Investors are aware that businesses may have many activities. Some are profitable, and others aren’t.
When you mention, you have a business venture that was once profitable but isn’t anymore is something that occurs in the business world.
Investors like to see the action taken when something wasn’t profitable. From the action plan, the investor can determine the strength of the leadership, and investors want strong leadership.
Research and Development
If your company has a research and development department, then it’s something you’ll want to include in your company profile. You’ll want to highlight the areas where you’ve had the most success and groundbreaking results.
You can also detail how this research and development will grow and position your company in the marketplace.
Certification:
Certification is an important point to mention in your company profile. Detail what the certification is and how it benefits your company and what it allows you to do in the marketplace.
When you have a certification that is standard in your industry and something you need to operate, then you’re not going to highlight it as much. Still, you will mention it so that the reader knows your company is certified for the industry standards.
Special Processes or Procedures:
Highlight any unique processes that your company uses to achieve great results. Do this where you’re not giving away any trade secrets but highlighting how your process allows you to do more to provide the products and services for your customers?
Awards:
For any substantial awards your company has received, this is your opportunity to show off a little bit. Highlight your achievement, especially when you have achieved extraordinary results. Focus on the achievement and how difficult it is to reach that goal.
You don’t want to come off as arrogant, but you want to focus on your ability to provide excellence.
Import Export:
If you import a specialty product, that’s something you’ll want to mention in your company profile, especially if it’s an exclusive product.
The same goes for exporting. That’s something worth mentioning, especially if there is a lot of volume for your exports. You can also mention what countries depend on your product the most.
When you highlight your export, your highlighting that your company not only does business nationally but internationally, and that’s something attractive to many investors.
Equipment:
In the section, you want to mention any special equipment you use and how that equipment benefits the company and operations.
If you want, you can detail how the process would be without the machinery and how the equipment enhances operations.
If you built or designed the tools yourself, that’s something you may want to highlight.
Intellectual Properties:
Suppose your company owns intellectual property such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. It will be something you want to highlight in your profile because those issues can add to a company’s value, which investors like to see.
Other Areas:
You are free to mention any other areas that an investor or partner would find useful.
Formatting:
You want to format your professional company profile using a professional style. You can search for “professional document style examples” in your favorite search engine, YouTube, or Facebook to get more information about formatting.
The format you use does leave an impression on the reader. A poorly formated document will hurt your creditability.
Style and Presentation:
How you present your document will also affect your credibility. A professional well thought out document will improve your credibility. The information affects the deciding factor, but the way the information is presented will influence a reader’s thoughts towards the company.
Again in your favorite search engine, YouTube and Facebook, enter the keyword phrase “company profile template.” In my experience, I have seen many ugly templates out there. They look like a poorly formatted word document with a frame around them.
You’ll see the latest search results for yourself, and looking at them will give an example of what not to do. However, I did come across a few templates that looked remarkably good, and you may want to consider paying someone to create a professional design for your profile.
Rewrite Your Company Profile Using a Pro
Suppose your goal is to create a professional company profile to attract investors. You have to keep in mind your content has to flow naturally. It has to convey confidence, and it has to tell a story while being factual and accurate.
Here’s what I would do in this case. Not everyone is a gifted writer. I would write the company profile. Then once it’s complete, I would wait a couple of days and go over it again. When you are away from it for a couple of days, you come back to it and see it from a different perspective. I would edit and rewrite and add anything I missed. I’d leave it for a couple more days, come back to it, and polish it one last time.
My next step is to hire a talented writer to rewrite the complete company profile. Since you took the time to come back to, rewrite, and polish it, we know the information is accurate. The writer’s job is to put the magic in the content and make it come alive like a story without distorting or exaggerating the information. Their job is to take a normal piece of information and work on the flow of the content and make it come to life.
Note you don’t have to use a storyline. But when you can, the writing comes to life, and it’s easier to keep the reader’s attention.
Conclusion:
Well, there you have it. We have gone over many parts of a company’s profile. By looking at samples, you’ll gain more insights and see what’s out there. I found a well-written article by Caroline Forsey called 7 Creative Company Profile Examples to Inspire You. Caroline reviews some high-profile companies while examining each company profile.