5 aspects of all a great company profiles

Company profiles are a great tool to introduce your business to other business people. Often you will be told, “send us your profile and when we have something we will call you.”

What happens next?

When your profile arrives in the prospective clients inbox the person who receives it does three key things.

The first is determine if you used MS Word or if you care enough about your business to have a professionally designed profile. By having your profile designed professionally, you show potential clients that you care about what you do and how your Company will be perceived. This shows them that you will also care about the work you do for them when the time comes.

The second thing is they try to very quickly understand what you do. Here’s the thing, when your profile arrived, there was probably a deadline gig on the prospect’s table and they really want to get back to it. The only way they can do that is to quickly go through your profile then…

…(the third part) try to figure out if they can give you work and if so, what type of work your profile says you “look” like you can do. Your profile can discuss the moon and the stars, but, if it doesn’t look like it can deliver them, it is “saying” something else despite all the promises made in the profile with copy. This is a critical stage as many profiles are thrown away or filed in the never-to-be-looked at shelf.

Take away: Have your profile professionally designed, look the part you want to play. If you want million dollar projects then make sure your Company profile looks like a million dollars.

 

Cover for profile that situates your target audience

This profile AKSENT designed for Kinttony Waiyaki & Co advocates has a cover that is designed to situate an audience in diaspora. Remind them what home looks like and help them see that the client is conversant with Kenya,

Step 1: Situate your audience

As I mentioned earlier, your prospect is very unlikely to be sitting idly waiting to pore over your profile. This means that you will have to very quickly take them away from their crazy-busy world and put them in your world.

This is done by using an arresting cover that instantly stops them from what they were doing and calls for their undivided attention for a few seconds.

You should follow this up very quickly with a claim that instantly says the type of money value you are looking for in any project you might do with the prospect.

You should also very briefly tell your prospect who you are and why you are qualified to be given whatever project you are trying to get.

Strong arresting cover AKSENT did for Africa Trade Corporation (ATC).

A boast, though visual, that ATC has the stock you need for any project in its warehousing.

Take away: Force your prospect to enter your world, don’t let them go past page two with their minds partly on other issues, such as pending deadlines or going to get a coffee.

 

State the problem you will fix

This profile states the problem and the solution in the same sentence as well as makes a promise the customer can hold on to.

Step 2: State the problem you intend to solve

You can do this on various pages of the profile, especially when your company offers more than one product or service. It is, however, important for your prospect to know what problems you solve and how.

This can be achieved by the use of very short case studies instead of a description of your product or service, describe a problem your products and services were used to solve.

You can take this a step further by using actual photos from the site of the case study or using images of the products themselves.

Take away: Don’t talk about yourself, talk about the problems you have solved and if possible why you are the only one really capable of solving these problems.

 

Focus on little chunks of detail

Lawyers offer many services. In this profile we combined them all into three key areas of focus so that the audience can easily zoom into their area of interest.

Step 3: Focus on a few LCDs

An LCD is a little chunk of detail. ATC (the profile pictured in this article) have a huge inventory of a very wide range of products. All Africa Trade’s products, however, fit into one of three categories, Access Control, Time and Attendance and CCTV.

For us to create a profile that focused on the right LCDs, we went through all their products and further divided them into more categories. This process helped determine what products sold well and which ones only ATC had in the whole region.

We were then able to focus on those product types, the object of the first LCD group was to show the quality ATC had in stock for popular items and the reason for the second LCD was to show that ATC had variety. Variety means that ATC’s prospect can create solutions around their needs and not around what is available.

Take away: Don’t include every single thing you do. Talk about what you do well as peace of mind is always the first thing a prospect thinks of and what only you can do as a prospect needs to know why you differ from the rest.

 

Talk about yourself

Talking about yourself helps a potential client understand what type of person or corporate you are and how well you will gel together

Step 4: Talk about yourself

People work with people they know. So how will someone who doesn’t know you work with you? Only if they feel like they have gotten to know you through your profile.

If you can put in pictures of the building you are located at, put in, pictures of staff, talk about your ethos… basically, be open about your company so that prospects can really feel like they know you by the time they are done with the profile.

Take away: Be human in your profile, people work with humans, not huge buildings.

 

Keep your contacts big and clear.

Keep your contacts big and clear.

Step 5: Keep your contacts easy to find

This one is straightforward but people still sometimes forget it. Keep your contacts large, clear and easy for people to find.

That means separating out types of contacts. Group digital contacts together, group phone contacts together and group physical addresses together.

Take away: Make it as easy as possible for prospects to contact you.

Thanks for reading. To see more of the profile used in this blog post go here.

By Job Ballard
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