Your About Page Isn't About You

I don't know about you, but I sometimes have trouble talking about myself. And if that is you, then you're going to want to pay close attention to this conversation as it pertains to the About page of your website. We want to talk about ourselves, but what is the right balance so that we don't come off too braggy? And we want to know from Erin Pennings today how to do this because she is a B2B copywriter and a marketing strategist who specializes in this. Talks deeply about this in her course. But Erin, I'm so happy to have you on Cashing on Camera today to discuss, you know, the about page really is not really supposed to be about you. Then what is it really about?

Right. That's one of the biggest myths because it's about you. It's where people go to find out more about you. But they don't care that you have, you know, unless you have this master's degree from Harvard or, you know, this big thing. They don't care about 99% of your experience. They don't care about a lot of it. They care what you can give them. They want to know what you can do.

That brings a tear to my eye because, and maybe a lot of people who go, oh gee, I just spent however many years in that industry, or I'm an expert at what I do. And it's like, really? People don't care about me? I know what you're saying.

They do. They don't need to word it instead of being like me, me, me, which is so hard to do. Because we're inclined, when you're talking about you, you say, I do this, I do this, I do this. But the written word, people tend to check out when they see the word I leading a sentence. And so it's this art of flipping it to be about you, the word you, not the word I, the word you. So if you can, you know, redo your entire bio, your entire website, your entire about page, which is like counterintuitive. It's like, if you could just— my least two favorite words in the English language are just and only, because it is never just or only that simple. But if you can flip it on its head to be about you, the proverbial you, people start to picture themselves in your shoes, which is like, it's so much fun to see the shifts that it makes. But, um, yeah, it's definitely an art, especially when it's already so hard to write about yourself and to talk about yourself.

It is. I want to ask you whether or not— again, we're trying to find the balance, right? Because you have to let people know who you are and what you do and how you can serve them and help them, because that's kind of the purpose of having the About page. But yet we're losing— you're using language that isn't so overtly about you. Is that what I'm hearing?

That's really what it is. And part of that lies in understanding your ideal audience and knowing what it is that they want. Where in their journey are they? What is keeping them up at night? What problem are they coming to you to solve? And once you know that, you can start to solve for that solution or solve for that problem with your solution. It's like nuances of solve and solution.

But yes. Okay, so should we be writing the about page in the first person or in the third person?

That is a totally personal choice, and it depends entirely on your business, your model, whether you are primarily a personality-driven business, whether you want to market yourself as a team. But it should always sort of be— and this is where my, my high school English teacher is going to come after me because I'm like, it should always be active voice and you-focused as opposed to me-focused, if that makes sense. Whether you're writing first or third, it's like the subject of the sentence is you, the person who is reading it, is your reader. So if you can flip that around, then it doesn't matter if it's, um, a 'we've done this' or, um, 'that's where, you know, ACME Packing comes in,' right? It's more about talking to an actual human as opposed to answering as a third person or first, right?

So is it more about the context and the content of what you're writing as opposed to the grammar, the grammatical kind of layout of it?

You know, that's a really interesting question, and I haven't considered it from a grammatical standpoint before. I think of it as an ongoing conversation, and if it's more conversational, then I mean, grammar sort of falls out the window anyway in a lot of the time whatever you're writing online, whether it's your website, social, and it can still be grammatically correct but still be totally grammatically wrong, if that makes any sense.

I, I think more often than not, the copy that resonates with me is not grammatically correct, right? You know, it's like if I read something and it's like the way that it's written— in fact, it's funny, you know, like, um, you, you have some copy on your website, I think, that's kind of like that. I see other copywriters who I follow who they really throw grammar out the window and it has more to do with the emotion that they're trying to evoke through the words that they're using. So, is that a good practice for us to use on the About page?

Yeah, it's still emotion-driven. And there are things, just to go back to your statement, like, 'Man, I've spent all this time building this expertise in this industry.' You can still show that but do it from an emotional perspective where people are going to see themselves as the benefit, the beneficiary of that expertise, as opposed to the, well, I've done this, so clearly I'm the expert. So it's a way to position yourself as an expert without coming out and saying, well, look at me, look at me, which, which is a hard thing to do, especially as marketers where we're used to getting out there, right? Your clients to say, look at me, look at me.

Yeah, I think— sorry about that, I put the wrong one. I think one of the things that I see sometimes is, well, first of all, I would say that if I go on a website and I'm looking up somebody and I go to the About page and the first words are I, I, I, me, me, me, it's a total turn-off because I am not connecting with that from the get-go.

Right. So, if you can So, you know, on the homepage, it's all about the big promise that we can make. And if you can do a subset of that promise as the headline on your about page, and it's what I teach, is it's like, what is a subset of that promise? What is something that is a problem that you may not be addressing in its entirety on your homepage, but that you can say, hey, this is something else that you're facing, whether it's truly a subset, whether it's related, or, you know, just something else. And it's like, Oh yeah, you can still have this and here's your current situation, right? This is the current situation. And I think by acknowledging that you understand their situation and turning your about page into the sales page almost, because the sales page can be short form, it can be long form, but by showing you understand where they currently are, then it automatically allows you to set yourself up as the expert and be like, not only do I understand where you're coming from, maybe I've been there, maybe I haven't, maybe I've seen like hundreds of people in the same situation, and now I can show you what I've learned. I've condensed all of this, whether it's my 20 years of experience, whether it's my master's degree from Harvard, whether it's, you know, just a lifetime of analyzing hundreds of different people in your situation to see what's going well, what's not going well, and what do the good ones have in common. Yeah.

I think, Erin, one of the things that's fundamental to getting to that point that you just described, which is to write it in such a way that you understand the problems and things that they're facing, is that you have had to have done the work as an entrepreneur to understand that before you write the About page. And I think that that process of understanding your ideal client is something that's ongoing. So, is there a right and wrong approach? Let's say you are early in the stages of developing your business, you're starting to understand your client, but you don't know them 100%. You're kind of like you're 60% there, but you don't know them. You haven't done enough work to really understand them fully and wholeheartedly. Should you just not have an About page at that point, or is it better to have something on your website and then work on it and not say perfect it, but improve it over time?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think, um, ultimately you want to have an About page because if someone is taking the time to come to your site, they're already interested in working with you, whether you've been recommended, whatever that is. So you've got to have something. So maybe it's a simple— and again, simple, just and only, the words I don't like— maybe it's a simple matter of just reformulating the bio that you've already gotten, right? Maybe it's a simple matter of that to make it more what's-in-it-for-me focus, so people can say, oh, okay, this is who this person is. Even if you don't have your ideal customer dialed in like 100% to what this is going to look like, it's something that you can refine. And that's the beauty of websites. Yes, everything tends to live forever on the internet, but you can also control the narrative. You can control what you want to be known for, who you want to be known for helping. You can refine that or you can pivot completely. And I think, you know, I've developed lots of trainings over you know, the course of building my course that help people narrow into this customer research. It helps you do a lot of different things. Yes, you can see on the website, Womp Womp to Wow is the course name. It's designed to help entrepreneurs specifically, but help write your own website copy from— we cover 3 main pages, and one of them of course is the About page. And so it allows you to, as someone popped into comments, Show some credentials, show your background, show that you actually do have the chops to back up what you're promising. But also, um, you know, it doesn't have to be a 6-paragraph CV of all the things, you know, 6 kids, I like my cats, I like long walks on the beach. Some of that is really fun to pop in there to bring you alive, to turn you into an actual human, but it's not all necessary.

Yeah, I think that's an important distinction, is that the About page of your website is not the time to post— that's not the place to put your whole entire resume and everything that you've ever done. But you could use some personal aspects of yourself. And if you're creative, if you're a creative writer like you are, and you're able to turn that around— like, you have something on your website, um, I think you said something about, we have some small sticky humans who, who you might see in the background when we're, you know, consulting or whatever. And I just love that line. I'm like, small sticky humans. Yeah, that's pretty much it. You know, fun ways and creative ways to turn your personal life and experience into some really interesting copy that could play into it. So I just love how you, you go about doing that. Erin, is there such a thing as being too braggy on your About page?

I'm going to temper that with it depends. Um, it depends on your audience, it depends on what you're promising, it depends on what you're bragging about. If you have, you know, if you're concerned that something is coming across as too braggy, let someone else say it. Pop in a testimonial so that someone can say— so if it's like, don't pay attention to what I'm saying, pay attention to what this other person is saying. And that allows you to like kind of massage it in there gently and almost respectfully, but as a way to say, hey, this is what this person says about me. They think I'm pretty awesome. So it's not just me saying it. And that also brings brings in that, um, uh, FOMO, that social influence, and that social proof to say, you know, I want what that other person has. If I worked with this person, then you can do it. And, you know, just to note, I want to kind of— you said the sticky fingers. There's a reason that I've done that, because, you know, in the new post-pandemic world, everyone has kids that pop in, and it's part of the expectation. But it also sets up the stage to say Oh, she might have kids that interrupt. That's just— it's cool. And if it's a deal breaker, then they're not going to be my ideal client anyway, right? There's a small sticky human alert.

I just love it. I just think it's smart. It's really— it's a great smart way of telling people, you know, I'm, I'm a mom and I have a busy life, and without having to have an entire paragraph, long, long paragraph devoted to that. It's just smart the way you did it. So I think that the About page is, as you said, it's important to have one. And you can borrow from your bio. You can, you can make it short and it can evolve over time. But the important thing is to have that, that context in there so that people understand that yes, it is about you, but that it's always turned back to how you can help them. And it needs to be written in that way. It needs to be written in a really more elegant way, I suppose.

Well, and I think if someone is struggling with a way to add in that elegance and to add in that natural, you could always say, you know, something like, and that's where I come in. I've done these things. I've helped clients achieve these things. If you want it, let's talk. By the way, I also like chocolate. And you can just throw in this sort of unexpected thing that again, it brings that human, but it doesn't require a whole lot of creativity on anyone's part. It's just like, what's something I like that might be unexpected? I do like long walks on the beach, as it turns out.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Listen, we have a question here. Someone is asking about your course. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about your Womp Womp.

Womp Womp. It's so much fun to talk about because I get to say Womp Womp every time. And in short, I do refer to it a lot as Womp Womp. So what Womp Womp to Wow is, is it's designed to be a 21-day course. People could certainly accomplish it in Less time if they want, um, where you get to write your own website copy. And it's really designed for people who are copywriters and consultants. Other businesses could absolutely and have absolutely benefited from it. Um, the big thing is that writing your own stuff is hard. It's like a series of virtual, um, you know, it's a virtual trash bin that's piling up with all these papers around you because it's like, oh, I should write this. Oh, maybe I don't. Should I put this there? What goes where? And so there's a series of worksheets. The trainings are no longer than like 10 minutes each. So the modules are designed to consume in a week. Have people taken more time on it? Absolutely. It just depends on your priorities and how fast you want to get things done.

So the information is at erinpennings.com. Erin is E-R-I-N, as I've been showing on the screen. erinpennings.com/wompwomp.

/wompwomp. Love it. You know, all roads to everything that I do live on my homepage, so you can find social media there, you can find information about my services, but you can also find Womp Womp right there.

Well, let's, uh, I'd love to know what is a, a marketing tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's working for you. Every, uh, Cashing on Camera episode that we do, we like to do a segment called Stop Marketing Like It's 1999. So what is something, Erin, that's working for you to promote yourself in the online space today?

I would say number one, having an automated way to network. So have the phone calls, have the conversations, but have it set up so that people can book right into your calendar and find a time that works for you. Um, the network that I have built and the relationships that I have built have 100% been the best thing I've ever done for my business. But having a way that people can book into my calendar, because I should not be managing anyone's calendar.

Let's just hop in.

Has been the best single-handed thing that has worked for me.

Wonderful. Well, Erin, thank you so much for coming on Cash In On Camera. I think we have discussed the About page is not really about you, although you have to put yourself in there to some degree. But there is an art to doing that in a nice, elegant way so that your ideal audience understands immediately how you can help them. And that's really the purpose of the About page. So Thank you so much, Erin, for coming on the show today. I really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I can talk about this stuff for hours.

Me too.