Back in the old days, companies were definitely more secretive of their goals, objectives, and especially financial data than they are today. What has changed over the years is that they finally started to understand that transparency equals customer loyalty.

In the recent weeks, few bloggers such as Rand from SEOMoz gave away his entire financial data on his blog and Stoney from EmarketingPerformance gave a pretty transparent post about their company’s 5 year plan.

What this transparency creates is loyalty, enthusiasm and sense of community from the readers and possibly future clients. People do business with other people they know. How to you get to know the company? The usual PowerPoint presentations and “customized” 11 page proposals won’t work.

Company transparency is still new and many people are fascinated by those that share their “secret” information. Tell your prospects where you are, where you’re going, where you’ve been and if it’s relevant and interesting it will inspire them to be a part of your company.