Your clients, investors and other stakeholders are more attracted to your company when they know your company history—the journey your company took to get to where it is today; the challenges it faced; the successes it earned; the setbacks and disappointments it battled through.

The corporate narrative of a company may be as dramatic, suspenseful and as intriguing as any other chronicle of courage, foresight and endurance.  The story of your company’s journey can be a powerful, corporate marketing device.

A well-produced coffee-table book which recounts your company history, along with appropriate photographs, is an excellent PR tool and a wonderful gift for your valuable clients and stakeholders. It is also a great talking point with staff and newcomers.

A well-written narrative of your company’s evolution from start to present can:

• accurately preserve the corporate memory
• narrate how the company developed to become the success it is today
• help inspire and motivate your staff
• build trust with your customers
• give your investors and other stakeholders confidence in the company
• help your company attract talent
• provide a true and accurate account of how your managers steered it through change

How to Write Your Company History

1. Treat it as a project and select a senior person to oversee it
2. Look around for other company histories or similar to see which ones you like in terms of appearance, size, presentation and style
3. Select a writer
4. Set up a meeting with the writer to explain your company beliefs and your product requirements
5. Agree on a project plan with the writer:

• budget
• timeframe
• research required
• people (inside and outside the company) to interview
• possible translation into other languages

6. Agree on a broad outline of the story. The outline may include such elements as:

• who founded the company?
• how and why they started the company?
• how has the company grown and evolved since its founding?
• what setbacks and obstacles has the company encountered?
• what have been the company’s biggest successes?
• who were the key players in the company’s history and what is their story?
• what is the company’s strategic mission today and how will it be achieved?

Writing the First and Subsequent Drafts

Have the writer complete an outline draft of your company history before he or she submits the first draft of every chapter as it is written.

Review and comment

Have the project manager and any other relevant people review and comment on the draft chapters.  Provide the comments for inclusion into the second drafts chapters.

After submission of all the second draft chapters, your company history should be close to what you expect. Everyone involved should review and comment on the entire book. Discuss and agree on the final revisions to the history with the writer.

Publish

Publish the history: in print and as an e-book.

Promote
Publicise and promote your company history. Announce in your trade press and local newspapers that it has been published. Post it on your website. Create links from your social media pages. Gift copies to your customers and shareholders.

Selecting a Writer

Jason has worked as a business journalist and editor of the Swiss bank UBS, for the German business publisher Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft, has written for a Swiss Expat Lifestyle Magazine, and has published the book The Lausitz Ring, a semi-autobiographical account of a business start-up and expat rebirth in eastern Germany.

To set up a meeting with Jason, call him on 0049 1522 383 5092

Jason’s Books on Amazon

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