Personal bios are found all over the internet and marketing material. Most people use them the exact same way, which is to take some time to speak about themselves and introduce themselves to potential clients. Their bios typically talk about their background—who they are, what some of their interests are and try to portray themselves in a favorable light.
In nearly every case, everyone is making the same mistake. They are making their bio about themselves!
This may sound like an oxymoron. Who else should your bio be about? While obviously your bio should be about you, it should not be written for you. The trouble with talking about yourself is that it isn’t doing anything for the consumer. What’s worse is that the impatience of people is at an all-time high, and most people are unlikely to read through your bio.
So what should you do with your bio? Your bio should be written in a way that talks about yourself while simultaneously expressing benefits for the client.
For example: Talking about how you enjoy golf doesn’t mean anything to a potential client. Talking about how you’re an avid golfer who is well-versed in every area course and the housing and clubhouses, making you the premier expert to buy or sell a golf course home, is a subtle difference, however, a very important one.
You can apply this to nearly every aspect of your bio. Just take a moment to ask yourself a couple of questions on each point. Is this point relevant to the consumer, and how can it be?
A professor once told me about a high-level job interview he went on where he was told that he was lucky to be called in for that interview due to how awful his resume was. He was taken aback, given how much time and effort and careful crafting he had done to it. The reason he was told it was so terrible is that his resume did what most of us do, which is list out the key tasks that he had done at each position. What he was told he should have done is write about the results of him performing those tasks or being in those roles. True, this is a small difference, but, at the same time, it is a massive one.
Personal bios are absolutely important but should be made for the potential clients, not for themselves.
Michael Darmanin is COO of Sellstate Realty Systems Network, Inc.
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