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Your Bio Called and It Needs Help ASAP!
7 Steps To a Killer-Good Branded Bio
I worked with employees and entrepreneurs all week and the universal issue that came up with each of them was the dreaded bio. You know, the biography that should easily and quickly “sell” you to prospects, readers, listeners, and viewers. Well, apparently, it isn’t as easy as it seems, so: I thought that I’d share the how’s and why’s of a bio that boosts your brand. Click To Tweet.
The 6 Goals of a Great Bio
The blurb about you should serve 6 key purposes:
Establish Credibility
Position You as The Expert
Provide Legitimacy
Build Trust
Demonstrate your Brand DNA
Entice the right people to connect and/or hire you
Keeping these goals in mind throughout your writing exercise will ensure every word is chosen with purpose.
1. Remember: A Bio is Not a Resume— A bio is not the same as a resume. Click To Tweet It is not the place to provide a laundry list of jobs, education, accomplishments, etc. Instead, you need to link all your information together so that it forms one tightly knit description that culminates in you being heralded as the expert.
2. Connect Your Past to Your Present— Most of us have switched jobs or pivoted at one point. The common response is to simply ignore the past. But, the essence of a good bio is to connect the dots and explain why your past experiences serves you well in your current job. Gail Iwaniak of Stuffology does a great job of connecting the dots in this sentence: “Drawing upon her finesse in providing gifts to such high-profile celebrities as Margaret Thatcher, Charles Kuralt and Barbara Bush, Gail knows how to work with complicated people and issues too.”
3. Add a Benefit or Results Statement— You don’t merely want to list your experience, but to boast about how it will help others. Sales expert Alice Heiman’s profile accurately explains: “My clients increase sales 30% and more.”
4. Show Your Brand DNA— B2B does not mean “boring to boring.” Show your personality and point of view as attorney Melody A. Kramer does: “With 37 jury trials and over 500 court appearances under her belt, she is an advocate for resolution before litigation.”
5. Build Your Brand on the Back of Another Brand— Co-branding merely means using another brand to boost your brand. My LinkedIn profile, for example, states that I: “Developed strategy, positioning, brand names, and tactics for over 382 clients since firm’s inception for companies such as Proflowers, AMN HealthCare, Akzo Nobel, Univision, and FICO.”
To adapt this idea to the personal branding arena, you want to profile your “brand name” experience. Instead of writing “10 years of experience with a top advertising agency” change it to “10 years with Weiden + Kennedy.” If you worked for 15 years for Merck or Pfizer, add it!
6. Add a Fun Fact— Do you remember hearing resume writers tell you to delete anything personal from your resume such as the “Interests” section? Well, they were wrong! Every single time I write a bio, I always add a quirky fact. I’ve added my late mom’s synchronized swimming experience, uncovered that my client is a former Laker Girl, added a blurb about another client winning an Olympic medal and even wrote that a colleague is the youngest of 14 children! These are the additives that cause a great head whip effect and start a conversation.
7. Match the imagery—A branded bio hangs together because the vocabulary is consistent; see how founder Heidi L. Scott of HL6 Activewear writes: “The Aly Collection snowballed to life after Heidi met then 14-year old Aly Bledsoe, the youngest snow mobile competitor to ever go pro.”
Now it’s your turn. Revisit your bio and rewrite it to help it boost your brand! I always welcome your comments and questions via email.
To your sizzling success,
Liz