What to Include in a Company Profile: The Twelve Sections

Twelve sections turn up again and again in the company profiles that win contracts, whatever the trade and whatever the country. Deciding what to include in a company profile is therefore less a matter of inventing a structure than of choosing from a known list and weighting it for the person who will read yours. A hotel buying office, a property manager and a bank's supplier desk each turn to different pages first, and each skims past the rest. For one of them a section deserves a full page, while for another the same section needs only a single line. A borehole drilling firm in Machakos will lean on its rigs and its past projects, while a wedding photographer in Durban will lean on a portfolio and the faces behind the camera. Both still work from the same twelve headings in roughly the same order. Knowing the whole list lets you choose deliberately instead of guessing what a buyer expects to find.

Choosing the sections and writing them well are two separate jobs. If you want help with tone, order and turning rough notes into clear paragraphs, our guide on how to write a company profile covers that side in detail. The first job comes down to the parts themselves: what each section is for, what goes into it and whether your business needs it at all. If you would like all twelve laid out in front of you before you start, our tool lets you write your company profile in minutes once you have told it what you sell and where, after which you can add the names, numbers and photographs only you have. That way you are editing a structure rather than inventing one. Readers expect to meet the twelve in a fairly settled order, starting with the cover and ending with how to reach you.

Before going through the list, decide who is most likely to read your profile, because that decides how much weight each section gets. A corporate buyer registering suppliers will look first for registration details, insurance and references. A private client choosing an interior designer will care more about past work, photographs and the designer's way of working. A potential partner abroad may want your history and the markets you already serve. For each of the twelve sections, ask whether your main reader needs a page, a paragraph or a line. Writing that decision down before you begin will save you hours of polishing sections nobody reads.

What to include in a company profile first: the cover, the overview and your story

The first section is the cover page, and its job is to identify you even when the profile has been forwarded three times and printed by a stranger. It should carry your business name and logo, a single line that says what you do, the town or region you serve and a way to reach you. Many businesses also add the month and year the profile was last updated, which quietly shows that the information is current. Resist the temptation to fill the cover with a large stock photograph and a slogan. A clear photograph of your own premises, team or work does far more. The cover is a label before it is a decoration.

The second section is the company overview, a single paragraph that tells a busy reader what you do, for whom, where and since when. A courier business in Lagos might say that it collects and delivers documents and parcels across the mainland and the island for law firms, banks and online shops, with same day delivery booked before noon. That one paragraph gives the reader enough to decide whether to keep reading. It should also mention your size in plain terms, such as the number of riders, vehicles or staff. Many readers will stop here, so write it as if it were the only part they will see. Everything after the overview is supporting detail.

The third section is your story, which covers how and why the business started and the milestones that matter to a customer. An engineering workshop in Coimbatore might explain that it began repairing textile machinery and later moved into making spare parts, which tells a mill owner that it understands their equipment. Keep the story to the parts that build trust, such as new premises, a major contract or a qualification gained. Leave out milestones that only matter to you, like a change of accountant or a new company car. Two or three short paragraphs are usually plenty. A newer business can keep this section brief and let the rest of the profile carry it.

Sections four and five: mission, vision and values

The fourth section holds your mission and vision, and the fifth holds your values, and together they tell the reader what you stand for. The mission says what you do every day and for whom, the vision says where you are heading, and the values describe how you behave along the way. In a profile these sections should be short, often a sentence or two for the mission and vision and a handful of values, each with a line explaining what it means in practice. A value such as punctuality means far more when it is followed by a promise to arrive within the stated time window or call ahead. Our blog has separate guides to mission and vision statements and to core values, each with worked examples, if you want more depth. Whatever depth you give them, both sections belong in a complete profile.

Very small businesses sometimes wonder whether these sections are worth including at all. A sole trader offering bookkeeping in Swansea, for instance, may feel that a mission statement sounds grand for a one person practice. In that case it is perfectly reasonable to fold the mission into the overview and keep two or three values as a short paragraph under the story. What matters is that the reader understands what you care about, not that each idea has its own heading. Larger buyers, however, often expect to see these sections because their own procurement forms ask about them. If you sell to companies or public bodies, give each section its own small heading.

Sections six and seven: what you offer and who it is for

The sixth section describes your products and services, and it is where many profiles lose their readers by being either too thin or too crowded. Each service needs a name the customer would recognise, a sentence on what is included and a sentence on who it suits. A printing shop in Quezon City, for example, might describe its business card service, its large format banners and its packaging printing, each with typical turnaround times and the kind of client who orders it. Group related services together rather than listing every variation separately. If you offer a lot, show the main groups and invite the reader to ask about the rest. The goal is that a reader finds their own need within a few seconds.

The seventh section explains who you serve, and it is often missing even from otherwise good profiles. It covers the types of customers you work with, the industries you know, the areas you cover and, where useful, the size of job you take on. A commercial cleaning firm in Birmingham might say that it looks after offices, dental surgeries and small warehouses within a set distance of the city, with contracts from one visit a week upwards. This helps the right readers recognise themselves straight away. It also politely discourages enquiries you cannot handle well, which saves both sides time. A reader who sees their own kind of business named in your profile is far more likely to call.

Sections eight to ten: the people and the proof

The eighth section introduces your team, starting with the owner or managing director and the people a client is most likely to deal with. Give each person a name, a role, a line about their experience and, ideally, a recent photograph. A small architecture practice in Kigali might introduce its two partners, its site supervisor and the draughtsperson who prepares the drawings. If you rely on trusted subcontractors, it is fair to mention them as part of your wider team, as long as you are clear about how the arrangement works. Clients buy from people, and this section turns a business name into faces. Keep it updated whenever someone joins or leaves.

The ninth section is your track record, which usually means a short list of clients and two or three projects told in more detail. Each project can follow a simple pattern of what the client needed, what you did and what changed afterwards. An events company in Nairobi might describe a three day conference it ran for a regional bank, covering the venue, the guests and the fact that every session started on time. Always ask permission before naming a client, and respect a client who prefers to stay anonymous by describing them by sector instead. Photographs of the finished work make each project far more convincing. This section is where the claims in the rest of your profile become believable.

The tenth section lists your credentials, which include business registration, tax compliance, trade licences, insurance cover, professional memberships and any certifications. Which of these matter depends heavily on who reads the profile. A security company bidding for a contract with a shopping centre will need to show its operating licence and guard training, while a home bakery selling at markets might only need its food handling certificate. Corporate and government buyers often check these details before anything else, so make them easy to find. Include registration numbers where buyers expect them, and keep copies of the certificates ready to send. A credential that has lapsed is worse than one you never mentioned, so check the dates before you send the profile out.

Sections eleven and twelve: why choose you and how to reach you

The eleventh section explains why a client should choose you, and it works best as three or four specific reasons, each backed by something in the rest of the profile. A reason such as a warranty on all workmanship, a named account manager for every client or delivery on weekends is easy to believe because it can be checked. Vague reasons like quality, reliability and professionalism are claimed by everyone, so they do little on their own. If you can link each reason to a project, a credential or a customer comment, the section becomes much stronger. Our blog has a separate guide with examples of reasons that customers find convincing. Its natural place is near the end, just before the contact details.

The twelfth section gives your contact details and the next step, and it should make getting in touch feel easy and low risk. List the person a client should ask for, a direct line that someone picks up during working hours, an inbox you check daily, your physical address if clients visit, your website and your opening hours. Explain briefly what follows a first enquiry, for instance that you will come and measure up within a few days or send a written quote by the end of the week. A plumbing firm might add an emergency number for out of hours callouts. Put your phone number and email in the footer of every page as well, because readers often decide to call halfway through. A reader who has to search for your number may not bother.

Once all twelve sections are drafted, read the profile from start to finish as if you were the buyer, and check that each section answers the question it is there for. The cover should say who you are, the overview should say what you do, and the story, values and team should say why you can be trusted. The services and customer sections should show the reader where they fit, and the proof and credentials should back up every claim. Finally, the closing sections should give a reason to act and an easy way to do it. Where two sections say the same thing, merge them, and where a section adds nothing for your reader, cut it down to a line. Then leave it for a day and read it once more, because gaps that hide on the first reading tend to show up on the second.

A complete profile also makes the rest of your marketing easier, because the same sections can become the pages of your website. The overview becomes your homepage introduction, the services section becomes your services page and the team and story become your about page. With the website live, you can turn to our AI SEO Tools to find the search terms your customers actually type and see how hard each one would be to rank for. For now, work through the twelve sections one at a time, starting with the overview because everything else depends on it. Fill each one with facts rather than adjectives, and ask a trusted customer to read the result. Their questions will show you exactly which section needs more work.