How To Use Your Bio To Bring
In Buyers
RainToday.com, April 2010
By Vickie K. Sullivan
With the economy in recovery mode, now is the time to ramp
up your marketing. One of the best ways to grow is to expand
your appeal past your current base of clients and prospects.
Your secret weapon: springboard your past success to brand-new
applications for your solutions.
Why Buyers Care About Your Bio
Why is your experience important to a new buyer? After all,
they aren't buying you; they're purchasing your company's
services, right? Partially. Yes, your prospects want to know
what they will get. But when services look the same, your
bio answers a bigger question: whether to believe your company's
credibility. Prospects don't believe everything you say; they
believe their own opinions when they read about your experience.
That's the power of your bio. It's proof that you can deliver.
Another reason why buyers look into your track record? To
justify their decision. They are looking for proof that you've
done what you say you can do. No one wants to be a guinea
pig or a lab rat. If you are charging a premium, buyers look
for justification of your fee. They are looking for a plausible
answer to the "why did you pay so much money to this
firm when we could get someone cheaper?" question. Again,
if the services are similar, the bio can be the tipping point
in your favor. And finally, it's just good due diligence.
People want to know who they are dealing with.
What Buyers Look For In Your Bio
Before considering a new resource, buyers want to know these
things in a bio:
- Competence that Captivates -- Prospects
are fascinated by two things: folks who are "just like
me" or those with "cool" backgrounds that
create unique (but not crazy) solutions they need.
Nice-to-have experts describe their competence in the
same way every successful person does: a non-descript
track record of success, a hodge-podge of media mentions,
and articles written.
Gotta-have experts have competence that conjures up the
imagination. They brand their experience toward the idea
that they have something other folks don't. And because
that secret "something" is rare, it is worth
charging a premium to get.
There are several ways to make your competence intriguing.
Start off strong with a vivid word picture on who you
are. Identify yourself either by what you represent or
by who you are. Use no more than three words. My favorite:
best-selling author Steven Levitt calls himself a "rogue
economist." Doesn't that make you wonder what he's
going to do next?
The biggest mistake experts make is to identify themselves
by their roles such as speaker, consultant, and coach.
This mistake usually happens when we are proud of something
such as writing a book. The problem is everyone and their
brother has written a book. Unless your tome is on The
New York Times best-seller list, your author title
doesn't mean a thing in this noisy marketplace. The second
most common -- and least-effective -- label is professional
speaker. Conference planners invite cool people to speak,
not people who simply put "professional speaker and
author" on their home page. Instead, create a label
based on what you do, not how you distribute your expertise.
- Your Approach -- Based on your experience,
what is the underlying premise of your work? New buyers
want to know where you are coming from. They want assurances
that you share the same philosophy, that you are on the
same page as them. Prospects also want to know what you
are like to work with. No one wants to work with Attila
the Hun. No one wants to be responsible for hiring the consultant
who wreaked havoc and then left.
Nice-to-have experts usually use a cute metaphor or analogy
to describe their approach. That captures the attention
but can come off as "flavor of the month," especially
in business-to-business markets. And taken too far, it
can backfire. Example: I had a client who carried the
"it's a jungle out there" theme a little too
far by showing up at executive retreats dressed in safari
gear. Those executives looked at him like he was an idiot.
Your best next step: build a bridge between your experience
and your approach. This strategy works great if you are
already prominent and want to expand into a new market
or if you are reinventing your brand. Fast Company
did a great job with this technique in its recent article
on Phoenix Sun's Steve Nash. They positioned his approach
on the basketball court -- rapid change -- and compared
that environment with the "out of nowhere" changes
we all face.
- What You Provide -- Buyers need a clear
sense of what to do with you. If your bio were a joke, this
would be the punch line. And the best punch lines are descriptive
enough to be compelling yet broad enough to encompass a
variety of messages and revenue streams.
Nice-to-have experts tell their story -- usually in full
detail, starting with their childhood. Or they list the
standard collection of facts and tired adjectives. (What's
passe now: thought provoking. If I hear that one more
time... .) The problem with that approach is that it's
too much information and not enough clarity. Buyers are
not going to take time to figure out how to apply your
inspirational journey or stellar track record. You have
to spell out your benefit for them.
Gotta-have experts describe their role in vivid detail
with a minimum of words. They use vivid yet brief phrases
to describe what they do. They use details very strategically,
only to build the context for the point.
My favorite tactic: use the power of opposites. There's
something intriguing about combining extremes. Let's go
back to the Steve Nash example. How did Fast Company
describe what he does? Two ways: "how to navigate
uncertainty" and "finding order in chaos."
Navigate uncertainty -- uncertainty doesn't lend itself
to navigation. Order and chaos -- those are opposite ends
of the spectrum. Both sound elusive, don't they? And yet
we feel clear about what this basketball star does. Is
it applicable in the business environment? Of course.
A Vivid, Visceral Connection
All of these tactics point to one thing: prominence is not
enough. Many experts have great backgrounds, case studies,
and media mentions. To expand in today's recovery, you have
to use what you are and your contributions to create a vivid,
visceral connection to what you can do better than anyone
else. Do that, and new prospects will give you the inside
edge.
Since 1987, Vickie K. Sullivan, President of Sullivan Speaker
Services, has generated millions of dollars in speaking fees,
book advances and ancillary income for her clients. Sign up
for her free market intelligence at http://www.SullivanSpeaker.com
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"Since I began working with
Vickie 20 months ago, my fees have tripled. Product sales
from July '97 to July '98 were up over 500% from techniques
she suggested. Vickie is an expert in lazering what you do
and the benefits of your program and presenting them in a
manner that meeting professionals see the potential. I thought
I was allergic to marketing until Vickie showed me how to
do it "my way" and succeed"
Perry A
Perry Productions
Too many executives are wasting too much time speaking
for too little reward. To go beyond "branding" and
get more strategic about your speaking, contact
us to brainstorm ideas.
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