Why is it easier to sell someone else's work than your own?

You can explain exactly why someone should hire a person you respect, then spend an afternoon trying to write the equivalent sentence about yourself. When the work is yours, a simple description can start to feel like a claim about your entire worth. Suddenly every word needs a lawyer.

A client told me it had taken her two years to write her LinkedIn profile. She had stopped, started, tried to put herself into it, then refined it again. In the same conversation, she said she would much rather sell somebody else's services than her own.

She could recognize value and explain it on someone else's behalf. Self-description can put a different kind of pressure on that ability: a person is also considering how it will feel to make the claim publicly.

Your own description carries extra responsibility

When you recommend a colleague, you usually describe something useful. You know the kind of situation they handle, what makes them good at it, and why you would trust them with this particular person. You leave plenty out because the introduction has a clear purpose.

Your own biography can become responsible for far more. It needs to reflect your experience, accommodate the work you might want later, sound confident, remain modest, and avoid annoying someone you worked with eight years ago. The person reading it only wanted to know whether you could help.

That is a difficult brief to give a paragraph. The more of yourself it has to represent, the harder it becomes to finish. A sentence can be accurate about your work while leaving large parts of your life and ability unmentioned.

Describing the work gives you something solid to say

The useful detail is often available before the flattering adjective. There is a situation you understand, a complication you notice, or a decision you can help someone make. Those are things another person can recognize and discuss with you.

Imagine a consultant who helps business partners agree on responsibilities after a period of growth. Calling herself an exceptional communicator would require the reader to accept her assessment. Describing how she helps partners work through overlapping roles gives the reader a clearer basis for deciding whether a conversation would be useful.

She can explain what tends to get confused, which decisions need the partners in the same conversation, and what a workable agreement has to cover. Her judgment becomes visible through the detail. She can also be clear about where her role ends, which makes the description more credible.

This is part of the positioning work I do through Brand Therapy. The explanation has to be specific enough for someone to choose the work and accurate enough for the person doing it to use comfortably. A flattering description that they quietly avoid using has left an important part of the job unfinished.

Your point of view can carry your personality

There is room between a service description and an autobiography. The subjects you care about, the details you notice, and the questions you think deserve more attention all give people a sense of you. You can make your judgment visible by talking about the work itself.

A designer discussing why a beautiful sign is difficult to read is showing taste and priorities. An adviser explaining a tradeoff is revealing how they think. Neither needs to begin by announcing an interesting personality.

The same approach helps with a profile. A clear observation about a client's situation can reveal more of your character than another carefully selected adjective. It also gives you something to stand behind because you know what you mean by it.

A profile can be finished without describing all of you

There will always be more to your work than a short introduction can hold. Some of it belongs in a conversation, some in an example, and some will only become relevant once someone works with you. Leaving that room is part of giving the introduction a manageable job.

You already make those choices when you recommend someone else. You choose the relevant part, explain why it matters, and trust that a conversation can carry the rest. Your own work is allowed the same kind of introduction.

Frequently asked questions

Why can experts find it difficult to write about themselves?

A professional description can become entangled with questions about identity, modesty and how others will judge the claim. Giving the description a specific reader and purpose reduces the amount it has to represent.

Can someone build a recognizable brand without sharing personal stories?

Yes. Their choices, observations, examples and point of view can make their approach recognizable. Personal disclosure is one option, and the appropriate level depends on the work and the person's boundaries.

What should a professional profile help a reader understand?

It should explain the situations the professional helps with, the contribution they make and the evidence that supports it. A useful profile gives the reader enough context to decide whether to start a conversation.