What is executive profiling?

Executive profiling is one of the most underused communications tools that start-ups and tech companies have in their tool box. It’s something that many leaders will instinctively look to do when they’re creating their company’s internal culture. Leading the town hall, sharing newsletter updates, and onboarding new staff are all part of the job. Transferring this activity to your external communications, whether that’s your LinkedIn profile or media profile, is the vital next step.

Why use executive profiling?

People connect with those who share the same ideas and values as them. That’s why we chose to buy with certain brands for example. Building up the profile of your executives builds your brand and provides a credible human connection point. It also provides another channel of communication for key messages and marketing activity.

Developing your executive profiling strategy

Without a strategy and plan, executive profiling often falls behind – it’s a task can easily slip off a to do list. Especially as founders and marketers focus on all the other aspects of growing your business. But building up the profiles and positions of your key leadership team and founders can pay dividends. It has proven links to trust, and trust is one of the biggest drivers for sales. 

Leaders can often be so focussed on what their business does, that they forget the importance of who they are. ‘Why would anyone care about my story, it’s our technology that matters?’ is a key concern. And while that is true to a certain extent, you don’t want to just talk about yourself, you need to think of your personal brand and running parallel to that of your company. They compliment each other, bridge gaps that the other can’t, and, mostly importantly, jointly contribute to your brand awareness, sales and growth.

You can turbo-charge your growth by using your executives as a key part of your communications strategy.

Calm in the market chaos

We operate in a space where everyone has an innovation to talk about. Having a great founder profile can give you the edge you need to stand out with the media and with your potential clients too. Showcasing your passion and drive demonstrates your credibility, authority and influence.

Start-ups are in a constant state of flux, updating their position, developing new services and approaches. A steady hand at the helm gives confidence and brand-customer intimacy. Executive profiling means you can navigate those changes, reinforcing that there’s one clear vision and mission driving the company even as that company pivots.

People buy from people

Whether you’re taking market share from leaders or trying to sell in a completely new approach there’s one key element you need on your side. Trust. Having an active media presence and social media profile helps prospects get to know you before connecting. They understand your approach to their problem. They know there’s a real person behind the sales emails or the paid advertising. There’s benefits for attracting and retaining talent as well. People want to work with people they know, and who have a vision they can get behind.

A friendly face in a technical world

We spend a lot of time dealing with highly technical topics. It’s so easy to get involved in the efficiencies and specifications that you forget to translate that to the outside world. When you have a spokesperson sitting down to write and speak on a topic, they automatically adapt what they say for their audience. If you want to sell your solutions you’ll need the buy in of senior, often non-technical, stakeholders like the CFO and the COO. A strong executive profile acts as the bridge between the products you sell and the people who buy them.

More resources for executive profiling:

We’ve put together a free planning framework for executive profiling, download our framework and best practice guide for tech companies here.

We also offer executive profiling workshops to help marketing teams, comms teams and founders plan and implement successful programmes, find out more here.