Blaze Your Own Trail - Crafting Attention-Grabbing LinkedIn About Summaries with Jordan Mendoza

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

In this episode, Jordan Mendoza discusses the importance of the 'About Summary' section on LinkedIn profiles. He emphasizes the need to share personal stories, experiences, and pivotal moments in this section, rather than simply duplicating information from the experience section. Jordan provides a structured framework for creating a compelling 'About Summary' and encourages authenticity and vulnerability in sharing one's story. There will be one more episode in this LinkedIn series, we hope it's added value to you so far! Takeaways The 'About Summary' section on LinkedIn is a crucial part of profile optimization, allowing individuals to share their personal stories and experiences. Authenticity and vulnerability in the 'About Summary' can help individuals connect with their audience on a deeper level. A structured framework for creating the 'About Summary' can lead to a compelling and impactful profile. Sharing personal stories and pivotal moments in the 'About Summary' is more effective than duplicating information from the experience section. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Recap of Previous Episodes 01:56 The Importance of the 'About Summary' Section on LinkedIn Profiles 05:48 Crafting a Compelling 'About Summary' with Personal Storytelling Looking for more tips centered around social media and entrepreneurship? Connect with Jordan below: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠⁠ Join 18K plus other readers: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/so-you-want-start-podcast-actionable-tips-inside-jordan-mendoza-7dtpe/⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠⁠ Clapper: ⁠⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back, everybody, to the next episode in the LinkedIn series. I hope you guys have gotten value so far. Just to give a quick recap on where we've been, we have talked about the banner image. We have talked about your profile picture. We have jumped into headline text, how to structure it, why to structure it that way, what call to action to use. We have uncovered a couple different features and tools that you need to have turned on, including Creator Mode because that gives you the ability to go live, do audio events,

newsletters, and a follow button. We also talked about the fact that Creator Mode is about to go away in the next month or so, and you'll still have access to those same features. Then we jumped into why you need to turn on the featured section, how to turn it on, and then what you can actually leverage it for. So that's a recap. If you haven't actually listened to each of those episodes, I highly recommend going back. There's some really great stuff. And everything we're doing through this series is sequential. Okay. So if you start here, my advice is go all the way back to the first episode in the series and start there because we're going top to bottom down your LinkedIn profile and we're helping you optimize it for success.

okay and what success looks like to you is probably going to be different than somebody else again this could be through the lens of you're a student this could be you're a business owner you're an author you're a speaker you're a podcast host so there's a lot of different lenses we can look through it doesn't matter which vertical you're in this information is going to be helpful for all of you guys okay and today and i ended the last episode kind of on a little cliffhanger there i said that this will arguably be the most important content that we cover and it's arguably the most important section on LinkedIn and this is your about summary and just to give you a little context on why I'm so bullish or why I think this is the most important part of your profile is LinkedIn gives us the ability in 2,600 characters which is a lot of characters most people are using about a quarter or a third of that and they give us the ability to share who we are, to share our story, to share what we've been through. And most people, and when I say most, I mean in the upper 90%, are basically taking their resume, okay, which is over in their experience section, they're copying it, and they're

pasting it into their about summary. Okay. And there's a few things that I feel, okay, this is my personal opinion, and this is why I coach all my students on how to structure their about summary. is the way that I do. If you copy and paste your resume, what that means is you've basically just duplicated information. And there's no point in that. Okay, that's the first thing that I think is wrong about it. The second thing is, it says about, okay? And if you've ever read a book, right, if you go to the about the author, what is that about? It's about them. It's about their story,

what they've done, their journey, their experiences. Okay, if I wanted to know what's on your resume, that's what the actual experience section is for on the profile. If you have an experience section and there's not a lot of data in there, take your about summary that you copied from your resume, paste that over to your experience section because you also need SEO there, which we're going to go into in a future episode as well and get you guys super dialed in there, but you're about summary, guys, okay, everyone watching or listening, it is about you, okay? This is your chance to share who you are with LinkedIn, okay?

And if everything else is done, okay? If you followed my advice and you went back to episode one and now we're at this juncture, okay, and if we get this piece right, this is going to change everything, okay? this is going to give people context into you. This is going to be able to have somebody actually relate to you in some way because all of us have a story and a journey and we've been through stuff. And this is your opportunity to be authentic. This is your opportunity to tell stories.

This is your opportunity to be maybe a little vulnerable more than you would think on a business platform. And then you have the opportunity to talk about what you do. okay, and what you're looking for and have a good call to action. Okay. So let's talk structure, guys. So if any of you that listening to this, I highly recommend going check out my profile because, you know, I want to make sure I'm a practitioner of all the stuff I'm telling you guys.

If you go to my profile, you better see all the things that I'm telling you are exactly the way that I'm saying it on my profile. So that's one thing I highly recommend. go read my from top to bottom and make sure that everything I'm telling you I'm doing as well because it's so important, especially in 2024 as people are coming out of the woodworks with all different types of information. It's important that you work with people that are practitioners, okay, that are actually doing the things that they're telling you to do. Okay. We've got to model that stuff and I don't think it's being modeled enough in business. All right.

So definitely go look at my profile and you will see I have model. everything that I'm telling you how to structure and how to change and shift. Okay. So you're about summary. It should start with a hook, just like any great story, just like any great piece of content. You want to start with a hook.

So if you were to go and read mine, my hook, which is my first line, it says, growing up with a mom that had one lung, taught me a lot about what real adversity was. Okay? And so most people that read that, I have a lot of people reach out and they're like, wow, I read your profile.

I've never seen anything like that on LinkedIn, right? And so now once I started getting that, I knew I was on to something because, you know, we all want to be different. We want to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. And just imagine if that first line, that hook was something that you've been through or something that you've learned from or through. Does that make sense? It's part of your story. And I can't tell you how many of my clients and students that I've worked with and coach that have changed their summary to start with a hook and then the rest of the framework you guys are going to learn and how many people have actually said I wanted to reach out because I read about you. I learned about you as a human, your story.

Thank you for sharing. Must have took a lot to share that. Okay. And now, you know, if there are things in your story, guys, if there are things that are still really hard to talk about, my goal is not to pressure you to talk about them. I want you to talk about something that you are comfortable talking about. I want you to talk about something that, you know, you see the value in talking about because you've lived it, you've experienced it, you've pushed through it, okay? And so that's what I want you to do. And so for me, my, that was my hook.

Now you've got to give people some deeper context. So I shared some pivotal moments that have happened in my life. Okay. And these were, you know, some of these were very tough things. Some of these were hard things to deal with. Okay. And then you go into a pivot part of your story. Okay.

And then you go into a closing. And then you go into, you know, what you do, who you serve, what you're looking for. Okay. And that really is the structure. But the reason why I said go view mine is go view it, go look at it and use that as the model. And you can essentially start, if you put that side by side on a word document to what you want to build and you follow the framework and the structure, insert your story, you're going to have a great finished product. And you're going to have an about summary that when people actually read this, they're going to say, wow, I really want to connect with that person. I really think this person is someone that I want to associate myself with.

Okay. So this process, I'll just tell you, it's not easy. Okay, it's not easy jumping into the past, okay, because there's some things that hurt. There's some things that are painful. But I can tell you what you're going to get on the other side of doing that is you're going to realize that there, you know, the pain that you have can actually be your platform. And you can start sharing it with people. and you can start impacting people in a positive way. And so if you kind of look at it and you go into it from that mindset,

I think that will really encourage you, and you will take the time to make sure that you're structuring your about summary in a way that helps you connect with your audience. Okay. So in the next episode, we are going to jump into some more tactical things you can do in your experience section, some of the features that you may not know existed there. We are going to also dive into, you know, skills and awards and certifications and really trying to round out the rest of your profile to help set you up for success.

Until next time, I'll talk to them.