A Tale of Two Bio's

Last week we gave you 5 Tips for a Perfect Professional Bio. As a follow-up we thought we’d give you a concrete example of the difference between a well-written Maven Knowledge Summary that follows the guidelines we provided and one that does not. Consider the following Maven:

This Maven is a Senior Vice-President in the cardiac rhythm management department at a leading hospital. He has over 20 years of experience in the cardiovascular device industry. His knowledge spans research and development, sales, marketing, operations, and business development. Prior to his current role, he was the National Sales Director at Guidant for 12 years. While at Guidant, he managed the national sales force and distribution of cardiac medical devices such as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and heart valves. During his career, he has built and implemented sales forces that have repeatedly produced sales records in the industry and on average increased market share by 20%.

Pretty good, huh? Notice all the rich keywords (highlighted in blue). This Maven followed all five of our tips. His bio is/has:

• Third Person
• Complete Sentences
• Correct Spelling/Grammar
• Keyword-Rich
• No MBA-Speak



Now let’s look at another Maven:

I am a results-oriented and career-minded professional. Always deliver value to my emplyer. Mange sales teams effectively. Strive for total customer satisfction. Have been in mgmt for over 15 yrs. I facilitate best practices and constantly strive for operational excellence. Strong general management qualifications in business analysis, operations, strategic planning, budget management, marketing, merchandising, quality process and improvement. When working with doctors, I know how to speak their langage and provide total solutions for all of their needs.

Pretty bad, eh? It is tough to read, laden with grammatical and spelling errors, contains no keywords (unless you think “doctor” is a good descriptive keyword; it’s not, especially since this person isn’t actually a doctor!), and is chock full of MBA-speak (“results-oriented and career-minded”; ick.). Most importantly, it doesn’t actually say anything; this Maven has succeeded in writing an entire paragraph about themselves without ever bothering to tell us what they do and what they know. Can you tell from this bio what this person does for a living, much less what industry they work in and on which topics they are knowledgeable?

Here’s the kicker- both bio’s are actually the SAME PERSON! Which one would you want to consult with?

We have some very impressive people in the Maven network who consistently get passed over by our Clients for consulting engagements for which they would be PERFECT simply because the Client was turned off by a poorly-written Professional Bio. Don’t be that person. Follow our guidelines to make your bio as attractive and readable as possible.