In today’s publication, we continue to learn how to independently draw up a competent business plan that will guide you through all stages of organizing your own business to achieve your goal. We have already tried to design the title page of the business plan, it’s time to move on to the second point – the description of the company.

Compliance with the order of sections of a business plan is extremely important for a better understanding of the entire process of establishing a business (at least on paper), and it should not be changed under any circumstances, since all stages of the business plan are a logical continuation of each other. In this article you can find a description of the main stages that must be present in every description of a business project. Unfortunately, ordering a business plan is now beyond the means of most entrepreneurs (a well-written business plan, compiled for submission to investors, costs about 80-100 thousand rubles).

What can and should be written about your future (or existing) company?

First of all, you should immediately warn that you need to write only reliable information. Otherwise, you won’t be able to get investments (if the business plan is aimed at this). Rest assured, potential investors will study your creation inside and out for all sorts of flaws. And if a distortion of factual data is discovered, then at best they will simply refuse you financial assistance, at worst they will make this case public, after which they will not even give you a ruble from other sources.

The description of the enterprise in the business plan cannot be reduced to just a brief description of the company. It is necessary to present the information in as much detail as possible. Firstly, this will make it easier for the investor to check your information, secondly, it will speed up the process of making a decision on investment, thirdly, it will lay some kind of “foundation” of trust (of course, provided that everything is confirmed), and, finally , will help you better understand your company's capabilities.

Therefore, it is necessary to describe not only the company itself - name, legal and actual address, information about the owner, number of personnel, etc., but also the nature of the services it provides, a description of the products produced or sold. It should be noted right away that the points of the business plan of an already operating company and one that is just planning to be created may be different.

Information about company owners

In this paragraph, it is necessary to list all persons related to the management of the company, indicate the ownership share of each of them in the overall package, the position held, and even the duties performed. Everything is simple, nothing superfluous.

History of the company's development

If your organization has already existed for some time, start describing the company from the very beginning:

• At what time and by whom exactly was the company founded?
• The initial goals and scope of the company’s activities, by the way, may not at all coincide with the current state of affairs. So, for example, in the description of the activities of the enterprise of the Thunder company, which owns Magnit stores, it is said that at its foundation it was a company selling household chemicals. Now, it is a world famous retailer.
• Current direction of activity
• What successes the company has achieved in its activities, how much the customer base has expanded, whether new branches have been opened - write everything that can impress an investor - certificates received, tenders won, you can even indicate reviews about your company in the media.

Sources of financing

This description should include all previous loans (if any), and detailed information about them - where, when, by whom, and under what conditions they were issued. You should also indicate exactly what amount is required for the implementation of the proposed project, on what terms, at what interest rate you are asking for a loan, from what month the implementation of the business plan began, and in what parts you will repay the borrowed funds.

And, of course, the most important thing is where exactly, for what purposes, the invested funds will be used. If they give you a loan, then get ready for the fact that you will have to account at the investor’s first request for every penny spent.

Personnel issue

Here, too, everything is quite simple: indicate how many employees are currently in the company (or how many are expected to be hired), describe the positions of each of them with a detailed description of their job responsibilities. Moreover, the list must include absolutely all employees, from the director to a simple cleaner - a complete description of the organizational structure of the enterprise. All information can be presented in the form of a small table, like this:

Job title	Responsibilities	Number of employees in this position	Salary amount
Director of the enterprise	--	--	--
Chief Accountant	--	--	--
HR Manager	--	--	--
Sales Manager	--	--	--
A development manager	--	--	--
Cleaning woman	--	--	--

Description of the company's advantages

At this point, reveal to the investor all your trump cards - what exactly are you strong in, what is your advantage over other market participants. You must show the investor that it is your project that is worthy of financing, that it is your business idea that will bring him the maximum profit. Here you can even indicate that your business has a more advantageous location, you have qualified specialists, you have a patent for a unique invention, etc.

This applies not only to the overall performance of the company, but also to the performance of services and/or products. Tell why your product will be more interesting to the consumer than a similar product sold by competitors. It is understood that before writing this paragraph, a detailed analysis of competitors in this region will already be carried out, which will be reflected in one of the further sections of the business plan - “Marketing Plan”.

Financial efficiency of the company

There is no need to describe cash flows for the entire existence of the company; it will be enough to provide a report for the last 3 years. This data should include the following information:

• Expense and Income Report
• Cash flow statement for a specified period of time
• Enterprise balance sheet

All this must be prepared by the organization’s accounting department. The specified information does not need to be entered directly into the “body” of the business plan; it will be enough to provide a link to the appendices to it.

Problems to be solved

There are problems in any business (of course, except for those that are still being planned), so if you don’t indicate them, then they simply won’t believe you that they don’t exist. You can outline the issues that need to be addressed in general terms; a whole section of the business plan will be devoted to this separately. We can briefly dwell on changes in regulatory documents, increased control by the relevant authorities, the “intrigues” of the ongoing crisis, etc.

Description of your product or service

At this point, you can give full rein to your eloquence, which, however, should not “run ahead” of the real facts. Describe what exactly your product or service is, why you expect there to be demand for it, what the development prospects are - in general, everything you can.

At this point, you can complete the “Description of the Company” section and move on to the next stage of drawing up a business plan - description of services and products.

All companies are the same, no matter what they sell. They all have a young and promising team, the best product at competitive prices. And of course, everyone has a mission, if not to save the world, then to provide enough of their services and products to keep everyone happy.

These are the types of texts we see on websites in the “About the Company” section. And it seems that these texts are written just for the sake of being written. To fill a blank website page. Best case scenario.

How to correctly write a text about a company, and what its purpose is - read on!

How to write a text about a company

When you write to your clients that you are “a young promising company that ....” you simply shout that you have nothing to say, so you fill out a free page of the site, just to fill it out.

This does not mean at all that the text “about us” should be selling and sell goods and services. His task is to build the company's image in the eyes of potential clients.

Believe me, 95% of clients come to a company having previously received information about it. Where do people get information about the company? Of course, first of all from the original source, on the company’s website. Therefore, use this site page as a separate tool that helps build an image.

Look at your company through the eyes of a client and ask yourself, what do you want to know about the company at the selection stage? And the client who visited the “About the company” page is most likely at the selection stage, otherwise why would he read about you if he has already purchased something from you and is familiar firsthand with you.

So start writing about what the client is thinking. What questions does he ask himself, what worries him in cooperation with you.

To make it easier for you to understand what the text of a page about a company should be, use the following ideas:

1. Storytelling or how to tell legends that people believe. If your audience is creative and creative people, then business style is not your strong point.

Write the history, the legend of your company. Tell us that before you could not find a solution to some problem, and then you tried such a product and found a solution, but you encountered many obstacles, then you came up with the idea of ​​​​developing a product for your audience and making people's lives more effective... People love stories. In addition, through a story you can convey your principles, your views, caring for the client and solving the client’s problems.

You can tell the success story of your client in the text about the company, but this relates more to the results and cases that your clients receive.

2. About yourself in numbers. Do you have anything to be proud of? Write about yourself in numbers! 3000 grateful clients, 2 years of successful work in the market, 20 launched business projects of clients who became successful, 100 houses built, 300 students who passed the exam, and so on.

3. Your principles. You can write a text about the company using your own rules and principles. By doing this, you will show that work is not just a pastime and a hobby for you, that you take your work seriously and work for the client’s results.

4. Cases and results. People don't need goods, services, they don't need a drill or even a hole in the wall. They need something else - to become better in the eyes of their beloved wife by hanging a beautiful picture. That is, this is the result for which the client bought the drill.

Use cases from your clients who solved their problems thanks to your product or service. If you have famous clients, use this. After all, who wouldn’t want to use the service that Gazprom uses?

Your customer's success story would be great for a product business. And a case with specific results is for the service sector.

5. Open your face. Show your regalia and certificates - this way you will form the image of the company as a professional in its field. Show the faces of the employees, write about them, who does what in the company and who is responsible for what.

The view from behind the scenes is always mesmerizing. And if you write a text about the company and employees, using interesting facts from their biography, related in general to the company and the professionalism of the employees who solve customer problems, then, firstly, you will distinguish yourself from hundreds of thousands of other companies that have not done this. And secondly, you make full use of all the advantages of this section"text about the company."

How to write a text about a young company

It’s one thing when a company is rich in experience and clients, when there are results that can be boasted, but it’s a completely different thing when there is nothing special. What should I do? And here the same storytelling will help you. A story about why you can be trusted, facts from your biography, a story about your everyday life in business, what you are already doing to improve the lives of clients and how it will help them.

Melt the hearts of your customers by building empathy by being honest about how you may not be the best company on the market because you're just getting started and that's why you value every customer. By doing this, you will only inspire trust with your honesty and openness. People love transparent people, those who are similar to them, and not those who have gone very far.

Tell us who you are, what you have succeeded in, show your principles on which you rely in life and business.

In any case, no matter what format you choose, when writing a text “about the company”, you stand out from the general background of competitors by showing how you can solve other people’s problems. And this is the most valuable thing that clients need to know about you.

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Do you think that your texts are not read because your content is bad? Not at all. Your texts are not read because you do not use catchy headlines.

Try your hand at the 10-day business game “Your Start”, in which you will start making money from your business, using your talents and strengths!

The owner of the company must be able to effectively present his business. Next, we’ll look at how to learn how to do this correctly so that investors are interested in you.

Negotiations with an investor are much easier when he clearly understands what your company does. As the creator of your own business, you will need to talk about it almost daily. To make a story effective, you need to be able to present a clear and concise presentation.

Let's look at 7 questions, answering which correctly will guarantee that you will be able to effectively represent your company :

1. What do you do?

Name the company and tell us about its activities. For example: “Socialcam is an application for mobile platforms that makes it easy to create videos and share them with users.” There is no need to consider the problem, start from the very essence.

Many people make great efforts to convince others of the exclusivity of the idea. The best option, and even preferable, is when it is simple. There is no need for clever phrases, etc., you must convey the essence in words that everyone can understand.

It is necessary to carry out the correct adaptation of the material. An investor shouldn't have a hard time understanding your idea.

If problems arise with a simple product description, a story about user actions can be effective. For example: “Hello, we present Google.” We intend to create a site with a compact window. Users will enter any questions there, and we will offer them resources with suitable answers.”

The correctness and effectiveness of this option is much higher than, say, this: “Hello, we represent Google.” We analyze and collect information from the whole world into a database through network indexing.” Will the investor really understand everything? You will probably lose it.

The key task is to develop in the investor not a thorough understanding of the intricacies of the product, but an interest in it, a desire to continue communication, to learn more about your product.

1. What are the market volumes?

There are two methods for estimating market size. By entering an existing industry (for example, loans for small businesses), you have the opportunity to analyze it. When creating a new product or an entire area (for example, “Slcak”), it is possible to estimate the number of customers who are likely to be interested in your product, and perhaps they will pay for it.

For example, the Bellabeat company produces women's fitness trackers. There are N women aged 14-45 living in the USA. The fitness tracker can last 2 years. Accordingly, the possibility of increasing market volumes is limited by the value of M gadgets.

There are two ways to estimate the size of the market and your likely share of it: top-down and bottom-up. The first involves determining the entire volume of the market and analyzing the likely share of it (how much you can cover). The bottom-up method requires an analysis of where similar products are sold, what sales volumes and what % of this volume you can provide. It is recommended to use the bottom-up method, since it eliminates the main disadvantage of the top-down method – the lack of specification of the client. According to the example described above, the problem may be the inclusion of all women in the market, regardless of age, nationality or other criteria.

1. What is the pace of your work?

It is very important for an investor to understand how quickly you complete your work. How much work was done in the allotted time period?

The investor wants to be inspired by your achievements, to see how much work you have done during the creation of the product. This rule applies to all companies (both the youngest and those that have been operating for more than one decade).

Many investors primarily evaluate product development and customers, and all other actions - raising funding, events focused on business development - fade into the background.

1. What is the essence of your unique approach?

There is some similarity to the question “What problem does your product solve?”, however, the requirements are higher. An investor needs to understand what your knowledge is in the field of a given problem, how it differs from the knowledge of others. Such knowledge, as a rule, comes after long and deep communication with the client audience and a thorough analysis of existing products. Sometimes they are based on personal experience.

For example: mail from Google. The uniqueness lies in the positioning of the product as a personal database for documentation and communication. Is the user deleting something from their own database? Gmail has provided enough free space that there is no need to delete data collected during communication at all. The originality is not that people have email. She was there long before that. Uniqueness does not come from higher quality. Exclusivity lies in the specificity of character and simplicity of language.

Often investors can gain more insight by understanding the uniqueness of a startup's approach rather than by describing the company's work.

There is an important nuance here - there is no benefit from enthusiasm. If you have a bad approach, then, despite the assertiveness of your presentation, you will fail, your position will only worsen. For example: “Dude, yes, I’m 100% sure that regular email today, oh, how poorly it works.”

1. What is your company's business model?

Startups are conventionally divided into 2 categories: those who know how to make money in the future, and those who don’t. Accordingly, businessmen from the second group begin to earn money either from advertising when they reach a sufficiently large size, or by copying a common business model in the relevant industry. Few companies in the second group create their own business models, the essence of which lies in the product itself (how the market will change after its introduction). An excellent example of such a situation is “Freemium”, distributed on a shareware basis.

Apply a simple and understandable business model to your company. If advertising brings income, you should tell the investor so, because he will understand it without you.

1. Who does your team consist of?

Investors are interested in some aspects of your company's life. How many people founded it? Is the technical founder present? How long have these people known each other? Do any of them work full time? How is the company's capital divided between the founders (preferably in approximately equal shares)?

If there are certain qualities related to the project under discussion, it is worth informing the investor about them. For example: you decided to establish a rocket manufacturing company, and in the past you worked with rockets at the SpaceX company. It is very good to have experience in rational problem solving if you intend to work in a fairly complex or regulated area.

There is no need to talk about school achievements and grades in the certificate, or about work experience at Google.

1. What do you want?

If you want an investor to provide financing, ask. Ask questions if you have them, don’t be shy. But, be reasonable: “What do you think?” - there is no need to ask this, “Is my idea good?” - the same.

Help the investor help you! He wants it.

Work through the questions

If you were able to answer the questions above, try to formulate your answers as clearly as possible. It is necessary to get rid of jargon, acronyms, slang of advertisers and marketers, all ambiguous concepts, among which, for example, “platform”. Make the answers even simpler than you think necessary.

There is a good technique to achieve this. Try to describe the work of your startup in a couple of sentences. Send this text to any smart friend by e-mail. Let him give his own explanation of what was written. If specific questions come as a result, the presentation needs to be reworked. Use e-mail, this eliminates the explanations that are present in the case of direct communication.

Learn to give easy, simple and understandable answers, and describe the main essence in a couple of sentences. This skill will allow you to easily create good presentation materials.

You shouldn't put any "coolness" into your answers while editing them. Observe 2 key requirements - clarity and understandability. There is no need to show aggression, intrusiveness and similar qualities.

Conclusion

Most investors are more interested in progress than brilliant ideas. A lot of great ideas don't initially seem like they are when they're first considered. Accordingly, you must be able to demonstrate development, constant progress in your activities, your intelligence, assessed by the answers to the questions discussed above. These skills will become a really important signal for the investor, and, naturally, a positive factor for you. If an investor can understand what you do, you have a good chance of success.

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

Let's play a game. Yes, just like that right away. I will tell you everything about your company (or about your customer’s company, if you are a hired scribbler) and I will not make a mistake even once.

Firstly, you are developing rapidly and want to invite me to fly to the top with you.

Secondly, you probably have the best quality services and products.

And thirdly, you are highly qualified professionals who are ready to answer all my questions.

Sound familiar? I've seen several hundred similar texts. And to be honest, they got me. So let’s not create dullness and boredom, which are already enough in our lives, but let’s try together to create something “like that” and write in the “about the company” section.

What will a professional offer you?

Before starting to write this article, I decided to surf the Internet in order to find out how to correctly write about a company according to the so-called gurus. I read several articles, but didn't find anything new in them.

What advice would I never agree with?

1. Write storytelling (stories about how your company was created). First of all, I'm so drawn to to quote Peter Griffin. And secondly, he’s damn right: people who make decisions and allocate budgets don’t have time to read about how one day Vasya and Petya got together and realized that they needed to sell concrete.
2. Talk about your principles and rules. By mentioning this in your text, you are signing in blood. Think carefully before you write that you will deliver the goods in an hour. What if the client relies on you, but the courier drags along for half a day? As a result, you will let the person down, and you will also receive a bunch of minuses both in your karma and in the “reviews” section.
3. A good article about a company should sell something: exchange a subscription for a gift or a group membership for a discount. By doing this, you only lower your price. As one Siberian gopnik once told me: “If you want to be, you have to live up to it.” Do you want to become a leading company in the market? Do you want large and respectable clients? Then there is no need to do such cheap favors to anyone. Behave with dignity and get worthy clients.
4. Publish photos and biography of employees. At first glance, this idea may seem like a good idea, but it's not. These photos are needed only by you and your employees, and you need them in order to stroke your pride. Answer honestly, would you look at photos of operators and couriers who work in your favorite online pizzeria? I think you'd rather look at a photo of a pizza.
5. Order text from them. Yes Yes. At the end of each advisor article you will find a powerful call for cooperation. Why do you think they went on and on about this for 10 pages?

How to write a good company section: things I don't mind agreeing with

Not all guru ideas are doomed to fail. But again, only because it is a truth known to everyone. This is not a new technique that they themselves came up with. This is a standard, oldest sales technique, which consists of a completely simple thought:

Show the client how you feel wholeheartedly about their problem, and then solve it.

This is all. Yes, it's that simple.

A few more sensible thoughts about how to write an article about a company:

1. Deed, not word. Publish cases, real success stories with all the proofs.
2. Figures and facts. The average person viewing your page sees it like this:

Hello! We are blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah by 20% per year blablablabla blabla bla bla 30 years on the market blablablablabla bla bla bla blabla 86 successful projects blah blah blah blah blah in 7 countries blablablabla blabla bla bla behind80 thousand rubles blah blah blah blah blah by phone 234-56-78.

So you understand, right? This is how I smoothly bring you to the third part of my article, in which the heat will begin.

By the way, we have a lot of instructional articles that contain a lot of practical advice with a history of many years of practice. To receive all this wealth as quickly and reliably as possible, I advise

New companies appear every day. And for each of them they prepare their own website, which is filled according to the standard scheme: cards with products, a section for reviews, a blog, an “About Us” page. We can talk about all these elements for a long time. Today we will take a closer look at how to write “About the Company” text.

The “About the Company” section is one of the most visited on many resources. Therefore, never fill it out “for show.” It should look so that you want to read it avidly. And in order to achieve this, you need to know some of the subtleties of proper commercial writing, which we will be happy to introduce you to.

How to write “About the company” text for a website

Before you write anything at all, you need to know everything and even more about your object. This is the only way you can adequately present it to readers. In this case, newbie copywriters try unsuccessfully to Google some information about the company, and then, when the search does not produce the desired results, they make up facts on their knees. Under no circumstances should you do this. The correct option is to enter into direct contact with the customer and find out from him everything you need.

To collect as much data as possible, . This is a small questionnaire where all working aspects are clarified. It is advisable to do it not in a Word document, but in an online form, so that it is more convenient for the client to enter answers.

Brief is a very functional and effective thing. Once you've compiled it, you won't have to worry about coming up with different questions for each new person. The finished list can be used for everyone, occasionally making amendments, depending on the specifics of each task.

Here is a list of items that should be added to the brief:

1. Company name, time of its appearance, activity.

2. All about the products provided by the company: characteristics, features, advantages, disadvantages.

3. Target audience. At a minimum, you should know her gender, age and income. Ideally, it is necessary that the customer...

4. Presence of competitors. Ask the client to identify 2-3 competitive firms, indicate their names and provide links to them.

5. Company advantages, compared to others. Let the person you do the work for tell you what they are proud of about their work.

6. Personal wishes.

7. Contact details client for feedback.

Formulate questions so that people understand what you want from them. And then they will give you the most complete information, which you can then use for your own purposes.

One of the main features of the “About Us” text is that it does not have a clear structure. The experience of many copywriters shows that some unusual solutions work much better than templates. However, there are a few details that are best not to be ignored:

• greeting and introduction;
• a short description of what the company does;
• main advantages;
• successes and achievements;
• personal qualities of employees.

In addition, some authors argue that the “About Us” text should also include. Invite the reader to go to the information pages of the site, look at the product catalog, or subscribe to the e-mail newsletter. Just don’t encourage him to make an order or purchase. While you are just introducing your audience to your company, direct demands will inevitably scare them away.

How to make the “About Us” section interesting: examples

Today we will take a practical look at how to make “About the Company” pages readable and attractive to potential clients. You don't have to study a lot of professional literature - just follow a few simple rules.

Communicate with your audience in a lively manner.

In such cases they say: “You are not writing for officials.” And at least for officials - aren’t they people? Even they want to read light texts on the Internet, not to mention businessmen, managers, students and housewives. Refuse officialdom and speech cliches. Talk to the reader as you would a friend. He will appreciate it.

Talk about the client, not yourself.

Even though the section is called “About Us,” the customer should still be the central figure in your story. Of course, you need to describe the company, the product, and the team, but a good author will turn everything around in such a way that even this information will not look like empty boasting, but will once again emphasize the benefits of the customer.

Tell stories and jokes.

Add photos, illustrations and infographics.

Letters are much better perceived when they are diluted with visual materials. In the texts “About Us” - even more so. You can add pictures of your boss or team, scans of certificates, photos of satisfied clients to the page (with their permission, of course). And if your material contains numbers, God himself ordered them to be highlighted clearly.

Record a video.

Dry text is one thing, addressing clients directly is quite another. If you are the owner of a company, know that the latter looks much more advantageous. Firstly, it adds warmth - the client immediately sees that this is a real person in front of him, and not a team of online bots. Secondly, it shows your interest in engaging your audience. Thirdly, the video will demonstrate that you yourself are well versed in the subject of the conversation. By the way, you don’t have to compose the speech yourself. You can order it from, who will write a text specifically for your style of conversation and your language characteristics.

They will always be irrefutable proof of what you say. The text for the main page looks much more convincing if it is diluted with numbers. Not “a flexible system of discounts,” but “a 25% discount on every third purchase,” not “a dynamically developing company,” but “in six months of work, we managed to conclude 5 deals with leading companies and received more than 200 positive reviews from clients.” Do you feel the difference?

If you adopt these principles, your text is guaranteed to be popular with readers. Otherwise it can not be. People feel when someone is trying for them.

Conclusion

The main thing when composing text for the “About the Company” section is knowledge of your topic and the ability to find contact with the audience.

If you have never worked with filling out the “About Us” tab before, it’s worth practicing first - offer your help to some businessman for free or for a symbolic amount. Over time, if you produce a quality product, they will offer you more and more generous payment for your work.