Step One: State Your Business

This section is all about explaining in as few words as possible what’s your business does, what product or service it makes, and who you sell it to.

One way of describing this is an elevator pitch. Let me give you an example my business creative agency secrets, has the strapline “marketing success unlocked”.

That is the quick version of what it is that we do.  We offer marketing success to people who previously found this a problem that they could not resolve. You notice that this actually is also incorporated into our logo which is two things, a C. A. S. initials and also a padlock which is open. Thanks to Ross Murray who is our wonderful graphic designer, he designed this for us and it was a great moment when we saw what he had created and how well it aligned with what our business does. You can contact Ross and Angela Murray at www.redspark.co.nz

We then have a longer version of our elevator pitch.

A marketing agency specialising in execution marketing for small and medium businesses.

And of course we have an even longer version, you can read this on our website in the about us page.

How do you describe your business?

Here are some ways that you can help to think through the different options

• What’s the company history?
• Who are the key personnel?
• Who are you trying to sell to, your target customers?
• Do you have some specific objectives of the business, this may be to grow it, to sell it, to create an income for yourself, to be a social enterprise?  There are many more
• Who are your competitors, what is unique, special or different about you?
• What’s your track record? In previous businesses and in this current one.  What sort of clients have you helped?
• Do you have case studies? Are they well known?  How did they reflect on your business?

Write down longhand the answers to all of these questions.

You may have some other questions that you think are particularly relevant to yourself. From this, you want to try and build 3 separate statements about your organisation.

The first one needs to be the equivalent of a strapline to go alongside the company name and logo. Here are some examples from clients

SD Talent, best practice human resource management for your team, outsourced.

Crossfire, trusted fire engineering.

Baucher Consulting Ltd, better tax stories for you: a better tax system for everyone.

Read the other posts from this series here!