How Credits Work on Sorkins.com If you have a Sorkins.com unlimited account, you do not need to worry about credits and it is not necessary to read this information page. Click on a topic below for more information. What is a Credit? What is a company Profile? What is a Mini-Profile? What is a Mini-Profile download? How do I choose companies to view or download? How does viewing Business Research Bureau Leads use credits? How does Sorkins Largest List use credits? Click here for search descriptions. What is a Credit? (back to top) 1 credit equals 1 view of a Profile, Mini-Profile, or LEAD 1 credit equals 1 download of a Mini-Profile What is a company Profile? (back to top) Company Profiles can include any or all of the following: Ownership qualification, yearly sales/budget, number of employees (locally and nationally), year founded, multiple addresses with phone, fax, toll free numbers and website. Detailed descriptions which often give history on the company. Industrial classification in three formats: Sorkins SDIC Codes, SIC Codes and NAICS Codes. Top management including CEO's, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Department Managers as well as people in charge of finance, personnel, production, IT, marketing, public relations, purchasing, sales and board members. Also, you may find what CPA Firm, Law Firm, Bank, computer system or Internet provider a company uses as well as the insurance broker for Life/Health and Property & Casualty (you can find this information via the Who Uses Whom Search). What is a Mini-Profile? (back to top) A Mini-Profile is a brief listing of company name, address & phone, industry, sales, employee size, website and 1 contact (defaults to the top person of the company. Other names can be selected by way of the personnel function check boxes on the Combination Search page). What is a Mini-Profile download? (back to top) The information contained in Mini-Profile can be downloaded to a tab delimited ASCII data file on your local computer. The data file can then be loaded into a database or opened in Excel as a spreadsheet for mail merges or various other purposes (you can do a mail merge and print a mini-profile list of prospects). How do I choose companies to view or download? (back to top) All the Sorkins searches work the same way in that you will always be presented with a list of companies to choose from as a result of a search, with the exceptions of the LEADS data and Sorkins Largest List (Searches Explained) . You are able to use the various Sorkins.com searches to get a master list of companies that meet your criteria as often as you wish. You will never be charged for using the searches to narrow down the list of companies you may be interested in. You are only charged a credit if you select a company off the master list and click View Profile, View Mini-Profile or Download Mini-Profile. You are charged 1 credit for each company selected. How does viewing Business Research Bureau Leads use credits? (back to top) BRB's Specialty is to track companies on the move in the St. Louis Metro Area. Either moving into the area as a new company or moving to a new location within the area. They also track progress on proposed and underway construction projects. The BRB data is a time sensitive set of information that is posted for only 2 weeks at a time. This is information our BRB service collects and e-mails to BRB clients on a daily basis. When using the BRB information, you'll see that the leads are broken down by category. Once you choose a category you'll be presented with a list of companies. The company list is presented most recent information to oldest. If you decide to click through to the details on a given company on a category list, you'll be charged 1 credit per company viewed. If you decide to use these leads you can take a look at the various categories about once a week and get a feel for what is new and what isn't, based on the post date following the company's name. How does Sorkins Largest List use credits? (back to top) The final way to view Profiles and use credits is when viewing the St. Louis Largest Lists. These lists are a compilation of the 1800+ Largest entities in the St. Louis Metro area. There are 4 lists: Ranking by Sales Volume overall, Sales within industry, Sales by County, and Sales by Ownership type. You'll see the companies have sales, employee, year founded and other such information and are color coded by ownership type. On the left side of a given company is its rank number on the currently selected list. If you see a company that interests you, you can click on the rank number button and you'll be shown the company's Profile. You can view and page through the lists as much as you want at no charge to your credits. However, clicking on the rank number to view a Profile will use a credit. Occasionally, you'll notice a "Notes" button will be shown with a company. Clicking that button rotates through various footnotes about the company and does not use credits. In summary, you can choose between 4 types of output - Profiles, Mini-Profiles, Mini-Profile Downloads, or BRB leads. You'll be charged 1 credit for each company you look at regardless of the type of output you select.