It’s one of the privileges of being a relationship marketing provider, we get to write a lot of Professional Profiles. We’ve written hundreds of professional profiles and regardless of all that experience, when each of us tried to write my own, we just couldn’t. In fact, what we did manage to get down was rubbish. There’s possibly nothing more difficult than writing about yourself.
It turns out, most of us struggle to see ourselves as the rest of the world does. We either undersell our attributes or we overdo them in the hope that our prospective clients will see us as we want them to rather than in a manner that’s valuable for them.
We’ve found that the key to making something as emotive as a Professional Profile palatable to you, the subject of the profile, is to apply logic. It’s also helpful for it to be written in the third person as this implies that the writer is someone of authority and not just you talking-up your own achievements.
Our formula for creating an effective Professional Profile includes establishing three key elements. We refer to them as the 3Cs – Credibility, Clients and Character.
Then, we wrap around an additional C – Conversation starters.
While your prospective clients will have expectations of you as a professional service provider that includes appropriate credentials, qualifications and experience, they will actually do business with you as an individual. One in whom they must develop a level of trust that empowers you to do your job, and allows them, to sleep at night.
Both business and personal relationships form when common ground is found. Trust begins through conversation, particularly about shared interests, And therein lies the value of including Conversation starters in your Professional Profile.
Whether it’s a shared love of the footy, Italian food, wine, beer, travel or collectibles, the Conversation starter is what sets you apart (professionally speaking), and will bring you and your prospective client together.
By way of example: My team was recently engaged to write a Professional Profile for a financial adviser. We asked her to complete our questionnaire.
(We know what you’re thinking – not a questionnaire! Yes, but rest assured our questionnaire is well worth the investment of time. It channels quality responses so that they deliver relevant information and insights that allow us to accurately produce a genuine Professional Profile that addresses Credibility, Clients, Character and Conversation starters).
As expected, the financial adviser was everything we would expect of an appropriately qualified and experienced planner with all the usual qualities of being clever and delightfully personable.
What set her apart was her sporting prowess. In her youth, she had been a State netball representative. When we eventually met her, we immediately knew by her tall stature that she must have been a defender or a shooter. It turned out she was a defender, and there began an easy discussion about her representative days, how netball had grown in popularity, and hey, how about those Firebirds!
This natural and unforced, non-business small-talk set the tone for the rest of the meeting. The conversation flowed freely between a group of strangers who had found a common interest. And we were able to avoid the usual getting-to-know-you awkwardness, and instead pave the way for a productive and enjoyable business meeting.
Our clients often report how deliberately placed conversations starters are linked with new business enquiries.
Among them, an accountant who took a call from the owner of a substantial business. While the business owner was seeking high-level business advisory services, he was equally interested in one particular senior accountant. He and his wife had not long returned from a trip to Machu Picchu and he knew from the senior accountant’s Professional Profile that she had visited Peru too. Naturally, the senior accountant attended the introductory meeting with the partner and after spending time discussing the wonders of such an exotic and interesting culture, moved effortlessly onto the topic of doing business together.
While this prospective client found the Professional Profile on the accountant’s website when following up a referral to the firm, you can imagine how sending your Professional Profile in advance of introductory meetings will create an ice-breaker for you. Add a good quality head shot (one that actually looks like you) and you’ll shorten the ‘know’ stage and move more quickly into the ‘like and trust’ levels of the know, like and trust process.
There are other logical techniques we apply to our Professional Profile writing formula, which we might share another day. In the meantime, if we can help you to ‘connect’ with new clients, weI invite you to give us a call. It will be our privilege to help.
Please accept our invitation to contact us on 07 5477 0197 or email marketing@boldcorp.com.au if you would like to learn more.
At Bold! we specialise in helping professionals and business owners to use marketing to grow their businesses. Over the past 20 years we have fine-tuned what we call our ‘Do-able Marketing’ model. It is underpinned by a 7-Step Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) Marketing framework that overcomes the THREE key issues that professionals and business owners have told us commonly prevent them from marketing their businesses: Time, Affordability and Accountability.
