Keeping your Company Profile High

When the paradigm is Change
 

Ten Minutes is all You Have to Spare

Can you imagine rewriting your business plan, or even your Executive Summary, every time you need to introduce your company to a business prospect?  Something shorter -  less unwieldy to work  with - would be nice.  The Office 97 Ten Minute Business Profiler is designed to help entrepreneurs and strategic managers organize, and reorganize, their company profiles as often as this era of constantly rising expectations demands.

Flexible on time Presentations

Unlike your business plan - a tome that you’ve probably sought professional help in producing - a company profile gives you the flexibility to update your company information on a regular basis - in your own words.

Hopefully your vision and your long-term objectives don’t change very often, but you are surely not going to update your business plan every time you hire a new executive.  Heaven forefend. Your company, however evolves day by day – with new milestones, new alliances, product introductions, expanded management, improved technology, and upgrades that reflect changes in your industry.
 

Wizard Tips:

·        Use the Wizard to reorganize your points for each presentation you need to make.

·        The Wizard generates a template which you can edit, update and rewrite to tailor your company profile to suit any purpose.

Writing your own company profile will allow you to update your company information as often as you need to without hiring that battery of consultants most business plans and executive summaries require.  It also, you will find, will you articulate deftly the envelope you are pushing your company towards.  As David Finn of Ruder Finn public relations points out,  “Businessmen cheat their audiences, and themselves, when

Organizational Wizardry

In an increasingly entrepreneurial, information-based business environment, where all the paradigms continue to shift, and old technology is yesterday’s new media, entrepreneurs need to pursue multiple objectives at the same time if their business is going to grow.   The Business Profiler Wizard suggests the most obvious and common purposes for a company profile.  At some point you will need to introduce your company with each of the wizard's primary Business Profiler objectives in mind.

The key to keeping up to date is organization.  Each time you write your profile, you go through an organizational process that begins when you identify the purpose of your profile - Whom are you are trying to reach and why. Everything flows from your purpose: the subject categories you include, the order in which you make your points, the style you use to present yourself in, and your “call to action”.  All of these vary depending on your purpose.

The first time you write a company profile, you may be seeking capital.  However, it is almost certain that you will have other uses for a company profile sooner rather than later.  Clearly every company needs financing.  But what about a contract?  It happens

Ten Minute Business Profiler

Resource Center

Additional business  essentials, links, information and tips

·         Help with your template

·         Using Power Point

·         Using Publisher

·         Using Word

·         Using Front Page

that a contract, which lenders consider collateral, is one of surest means of financing for small and medium size businesses.  On the other hand, you may wish to pursue a strategic partnership, which is a way for small companies to grow by combining strengths with other businesses, large and small.  Finally when all is said and done, a business must continuously communicate with its clients and customers to establish corporate identity, reinforce branding, and - after the IPO - maintain investor relations.

A Template for all Reasons

There is no reason to reinvent the wheel every time you need to introduce your company; even when your purpose is different or your information has evolved.  Once you create your first document, you should save it as a Word document.  The next time you use the Wizard, with different objectives in mind, you can copy the paragraphs or phrases that remain the same, and paste them into the appropriate pane in the writing section of the Wizard, using keyboard commands.  (See the Wizard’s FAQ’s “help guide” for help with editing commands.)

The next step taking your company public.  Not necessarily with an IPO, but by using all the resources technology and the Internet can put at your disposal: market research, contract bidding, finding investors, making a competitive analysis, co-marketing, conducting global trade.

Working together with other Office applications, you can utilize the whole gamut of multimedia formats for the final version of your Company Profile.

The fourth article in this series will offer tips and resources on going to the next level.

 technology and the Internet can put at your disposal: market research, contract bidding, finding investors, making a competitive analysis, co-marketing, conducting global trade.