Within the lifetime of your business, your company is going to need some essential items that communicate core messages about your company to others. Others could be investors, clients, prospects and the media.

Your company’s success could depend on how well you present your information – these communication items could land a huge, multi-million dollar deal, or blow that multi-million dollar deal to smithereens.

Every company should have the following items in the office, ready to hand out to the next person that walks in:

1. Your mission statement. Mission statements give new employees an idea of how your company operates, and what your values are. This statement also tells potential investors, media members and others what’s important to you as a company.

2. Company fact sheet. This should be a one-page sheet that gives media members, industry analysts and potential employees the important facts about your company at a glance. Your fact sheet should include the following:

• Date the company was founded
• Office locations, making sure to note the location of the headquarters
• Contact information
• Mission statement (abbreviated, if your mission statement is long)
• (optional) Names and brief biographies of top management

3. Product fact sheets. Each product you sell should have its own fact sheet. The uses are the same as the company fact sheet, and should include the following:

• What the product does
• Benefits
• Features
• Comparisons to other similar products
• Reliability statistics, or any other kind of reliability measurement
• Price

4. Biographies on the founders and upper management. Biographies of key players in your company show people the quality of your company and lets customers feel like they know the top echelon personally. Biographies should include:

• The person’s position at the company and number of years with the company
• Education
• Awards or honors
• Other relevant experience
• Publications that the member has been featured in or has written for

5. Company background. This is different from the fact sheet in that it is more of a story rather than a list of facts. It’s written in paragraph form and should flow like a story.

6. Current list of clients and/or partners. This will be of interest to potential investors, potential clients and potential employees.

7. Media kit, or press kit. These kits are pre-packaged marketing materials that are often used to promote a product or company. These are convenient to hand out at trade shows. Press kits include:

• A folder with your company’s logo
• A letter promoting your company or product
• Your company fact sheet
• Your product fact sheet
• A press release related to whatever you’re handing out the press kit for
• Any articles written by a third-party about your company or product
• Your company background
• Business cards

You’ll want to keep the folders and business cards or company background items in stock, but the other items you may not want to print because they’re more likely to change as time goes by. Keep these items as files on your computer so you can change them and print them easily and quickly.

It’s not a bad idea to combine a few of these items, like founders’ bios and your mission statement into one flyer or brochure. Your flyer or brochure printing budget will do double duty!

Also, be sure to update these items whenever there’s a change in the company. Keep a limited number of extras around the office, and order large quantities of copies when you know you’ll need them – for a trade show, for instance.

With these items at arm’s reach, you’ll be ready for anyone that walks through your doors!

Katie Marcus writes about the brochure printing technologies being used by businesses for their marketing and advertising campaigns.