Are you trying to write your own bio?
If so, you’ve probably discovered how hard it is to give your bio a personal touch—without making it sound like a personals ad—while still making prospects feel like they’re in good, competent, professional hands.
Whether I’m writing my own bio or someone else’s, I find bio’s the most difficult type of copy to write.
How many of us compress our lives into 300 words or less in a real-life conversation? Only the most annoying ones, that’s who. It seems that bio-speak has practically developed into its own language.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bio that sounded like an actual person wrote it—rather than the Johnny Five Robert?
The following 12 questions are designed to help you produce the raw information to write bios that are engaging, interesting, and not full of the “Bio-Speak.”
But before you get started, please read these instructions
A. Set a timer for 26 minutes.
This is very important. Do not skip this step! If you’re a Level-9 Procrastinator like me, you’ll never start this exercise if you don’t give yourself permission to do it quickly. This doesn’t have to become a 3-hour, story-of-your-life writing intervention. (Unless you want it to.)
B. Answer the questions in a rambling, conversational style.
You might even write them in the body of an email you pretend to send to a friend. Don’t worry about perfect sentences. This exercise is not designed to help you craft your bio. It’s simply to help you dig up all the good, fresh stuff buried in your brain, which you can then use to craft your bio. If you hate writing and are better at thinking on your feet, then speak your answers into a recorder or iPhone and transcribe them.
C. Let your answers sit for a while.
Then bold the answers that seem interesting, unexpected, insightful, profound, or just plain feel like you.
Now you’re ready to go. Here are 12 questions to get you started and to keep you from writing a bio-speak bio.
1. How did you arrive at running this business? What path brought you here?
2. What are you known for professionally? What do you have a knack for?
3. What’s the one problem you are best at solving for your clients? What do your ideal clients say about you?
4. Who have you worked with in the past? And what have you done for them?
5. What are you most passionate about professionally? What most excites you about your work & the contribution you can make?
6. What are you passionate about personally? What do you really enjoy? What can’t you stop talking about?
7. Where can we find you when you’re not working? What’s your favorite way to spend a weekend or a Sunday afternoon?
8. How long have you been doing what you do?
9. Where did you grow up and why aren’t you there now?
10. Any volunteer activities you’re crazy about?
11. Any awards or medals, or even medallions? Personal okay, too.
12. Anything else you’d like to tell people about yourself?
You can use this bio for your LinkedIn profile, for your website’s About page, or for a speaker bio. If you’re designing a website ‘About Us’ page, here’s an article with tips on writing your company About Page.
Topics: Social Media Marketing
Are you trying to write your own bio?
If so, you’ve probably discovered how hard it is to give your bio a personal touch—without making it sound like a personals ad—while still making prospects feel like they’re in good, competent, professional hands.
Whether I’m writing my own bio or someone else’s, I find bio’s the most difficult type of copy to write.
How many of us compress our lives into 300 words or less in a real-life conversation? Only the most annoying ones, that’s who. It seems that bio-speak has practically developed into its own language.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bio that sounded like an actual person wrote it—rather than the Johnny Five Robert?
The following 12 questions are designed to help you produce the raw information to write bios that are engaging, interesting, and not full of the “Bio-Speak.”
But before you get started, please read these instructions
A. Set a timer for 26 minutes.
This is very important. Do not skip this step! If you’re a Level-9 Procrastinator like me, you’ll never start this exercise if you don’t give yourself permission to do it quickly. This doesn’t have to become a 3-hour, story-of-your-life writing intervention. (Unless you want it to.)
B. Answer the questions in a rambling, conversational style.
You might even write them in the body of an email you pretend to send to a friend. Don’t worry about perfect sentences. This exercise is not designed to help you craft your bio. It’s simply to help you dig up all the good, fresh stuff buried in your brain, which you can then use to craft your bio. If you hate writing and are better at thinking on your feet, then speak your answers into a recorder or iPhone and transcribe them.
C. Let your answers sit for a while.
Then bold the answers that seem interesting, unexpected, insightful, profound, or just plain feel like you.
Now you’re ready to go. Here are 12 questions to get you started and to keep you from writing a bio-speak bio.
1. How did you arrive at running this business? What path brought you here?
2. What are you known for professionally? What do you have a knack for?
3. What’s the one problem you are best at solving for your clients? What do your ideal clients say about you?
4. Who have you worked with in the past? And what have you done for them?
5. What are you most passionate about professionally? What most excites you about your work & the contribution you can make?
6. What are you passionate about personally? What do you really enjoy? What can’t you stop talking about?
7. Where can we find you when you’re not working? What’s your favorite way to spend a weekend or a Sunday afternoon?
8. How long have you been doing what you do?
9. Where did you grow up and why aren’t you there now?
10. Any volunteer activities you’re crazy about?
11. Any awards or medals, or even medallions? Personal okay, too.
12. Anything else you’d like to tell people about yourself?
You can use this bio for your LinkedIn profile, for your website’s About page, or for a speaker bio. If you’re designing a website ‘About Us’ page, here’s an article with tips on writing your company About Page.
Topics: Social Media Marketing