No, this isn’t a random reference to The Who, but rather a serious question that every organisation should ask themselves about their profile.
I’ve been attending a number of networking events recently. There’s nothing concentrates the mind so well, early in the morning, as having to introduce yourself and your company, over and over again. Or better (worse?) yet, having to stand up and sum up what you have to offer in 30 seconds to a room full of strangers. It forces you to think: to distil and refine what you want to say and to select only the most pertinent items of information, so that you can put forward the most coherent, persuasive view of what your organisation is about and why someone should be interested.
Networking events aside, every organisation needs to know what their core messages are. Try it now. Describe your organisation – what it offers and to whom – in a maximum of three sentences. Whatever form of words you arrive at should lie at the heart of all your marketing and PR. If it doesn’t or you can’t answer that briefly and convincingly, then your marketing communications programmes will fail to deliver.
Profile building is about working out what an organisation is, what it stands for and where it wants to be. Only then can you start work on a strategy of how to get there. If you don’t know where you are starting from, how will you know when you have arrived?
So, think about it. Who are you?
