What should you include in a professional profile?
A key paragraph introducing your company is a must – but don’t ignore the professional profiles of your key people. Anyone who is out there networking, making calls, or working with clients is representing your business. A well written professional profile is an essential part of your sales and marketing toolkit.
Done well, it can bring your company to life and demonstrate your credentials through your people. Done badly and people either don’t know, or don’t believe, that you have a great team. We advise that people invest time and energy, and possibly a little copywriting assistance, in preparing a template profile (you may hear this referred to as a boilerplate) that can then be used in the following places, amongst many others:
- On your LinkedIn profile
- In your proposals where you outline the team
- On your website
- As a footer on press releases
- As a speaker profile if you’re hosting or speaking at an event
- On directory websites
- On trade association websites
Key elements of your professional profile template
To get you started, have a think about answering the following questions:
- What do you do and for whom?
- How long have you worked in your industry?
- What is your particular expertise or specialism?
- What were the moves / highlights in your career?
- What impressive clients have you worked on?
- What examples do you have, with proof, of what you can deliver?
- Have you received any awards or accolades?
- What qualifications do you have?
- What are your values – why do you do what you do?
We would suggest that you start with a 200 word profile and then re-purpose it into the various formats, by cutting in down, to use in the various contexts. We would also recommend that you incorporate key search terms for online profiles. However, in doing so, don’t lose sight of how it reads to a real person.
Here are some examples of my own profile in different settings:
- Bryony’ LinkedIn Profile
- South West Business Who’s Who
- Bristol Media Profile – see Key People
- Our website
- Marketing Donut Expert
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | @bryonythomas | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If this blog is of interest to you, you may also like to read:
- Blog: One piece of content, 20 ways to use it
- Blog: Three reasons to present your company as a team
- Blog: Copywriting, seven reasons why medium matters
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Do you have examples of any great professional profiles?
Please do use the comment function to share your own examples of professional profiles that you think tick the box.
Published on 7 September 2010
