How do you start your Company Profile presentation?

How do you start your company profile presentation? Do you start with WHAT YOU DO or do you start with WHY YOU DO IT?

OPTION 1 - Start with WHAT YOU DO
This is a common way to start a company profile presentation. Company profile presentation is supposed to introduce your company to strangers (a very diverse audience) and the first thing you want to tell them is - What do you do?

Imagine you meet a stranger on a flight. She asks you, tell me about your company? What would you say? "My company sells ERP software" or "My company installs solar power plants on rooftops of commercial buildings". Most of us always start with WHAT.

OPTION 2 - Start with WHY YOU DO IT?
The bestselling author Simon Sinek, in his book, Start with Why talks about a new approach. We buy a brand because we believe in what the brand stands for and what the brand believes in. He cites examples of brands like Harley and Apple. Apple phones are extremely costly and so are Harley bikes but that's not why we buy them. We are not looking at mileage and doing a feature-based comparison with competitors. There is more to this story.

When you start with why you talk about what is all the hustle about. What is your company trying to achieve? What is the bigger purpose? What brings the employees to work every day? And this is not your standard vision and mission which is filled with jargon. This is something that touches the heart. It is written in simple English.

Look at your existing presentation and see if you want to try out this new approach. Is there a bigger purpose that your company aspires to achieve? Articulate it in simple words and call it your WHY.

Start your company profile presentation with this WHY and then talk about HOW you do it. Follow this up with WHAT you do (Sell ERP software to mid-sized companies). At the end, you will talk about your team, offices and other company details.

What do you think?