How To Describe Your Business

Describing your business accurately can make all the difference. How many times have you used a product/service that wasn’t what you thought it was? Would you go back and use them again? Probably not. Description is everything.

A business has to deliver what it says it will. It has to fulfill the promise and when describing your business there are a few things you should add in to gain trust from potential customers mentioned below.

Company Summary

The company summary is exactly what you’d expect it to be. A short/medium description of what your business does. What do you offer, where are you located and what are your selling points? Try to put the 5 W’s of a Business Plan into a couple of paragraphs.

Location/contact details

This is a combination of where your business resides (physical location, for if someone wants to send you a gift for a brilliant service), online presence (website, social media etc) and telephone numbers for people wishing to give you a call.

Company History

When and where did your company start? Who started it and why? Your company history should be treated like a biography of business milestones. If the business is new – don’t worry – you can add in things as you go along (new staff, 1 year anniversary, 100th product/service) – especially if it’s online. Customers want to know where your company started and like to hear where it all began.

Products/Services

What are you offering to your customers? How much do these services cost and what do they entail?
It’s important to be honest in describing what your business does and not over-promise.

When customers buy a product, they are buying into an agreement with you – the supplier will deliver the product/service as you described it before money exchanged hands. While this sounds obvious, describing something inaccurately instantly leads to complaints, distrust in your business or people simply not using you again.

Pricing can be the difference. While you want to be the cheapest in the market, you don’t want to undercharge. You are in a business to make money but if you charge too much you’ll put customers off, so it’s important to get the right balance. We talk about pricing in the market research section of Passport 2 Success. You don’t have to put all your pricing online but having all your products and services in as much detail as possible will attract interest.

Tone of Voice/Messaging/Brand

How do you want your company to sound? The tone of voice and wording you use to describe your business will have an effect on how people perceive the service you provide. Making sure that the tone is uniform and consistent across all aspects of the business to add to the brand value (having different messages across different channels with a different tone can be confusing).

By breaking the descriptions down into these areas, it allows you to focus directly on each and adapt your description with the appropriate area to ensure that it is exactly what the customers expect. Once you’ve decided how your products or services should be presented to your customers, the next area will provide you with information on how you should be defining your business’ selling points to ensure that you’re not limiting what the business can achieve.