The Business Behind the Keynote | featuring Trudi, Messaging Strategist, Pibworth PS
Your speaker about page is the second most-visited page on your site. Too many speakers are wasting it.
Quick Answer: A great speaker About page leads with who you are as an expert, pulls the reader into a story, and makes a buyer feel something before they ever see your credentials. It is not a resume. It is your first real conversation with someone who is deciding whether to trust you with their audience.
Here is a stat that surprises most speakers: your About page is almost always the second most visited page on your website. Buyers land on your homepage, they get curious, and they click About. What they find there either pulls them deeper into your world or sends them somewhere else.
Most speakers are sending them elsewhere, and the culprit is often the same: an About page that reads like a resume.
Not because the information is wrong. Because it reads like a LinkedIn bio that nobody asked for. Credentials listed. Career summarized. Personality nowhere in sight.
Trudi has been inside the speaker world from both sides. Before joining our team at Pibworth PS she co-owned a prominent speaker bureau, which means she has sat across the table from buyers making booking decisions and watched what moved them and what did not. In this conversation she walks through what a great About page actually does, where most speakers go wrong, and a full before-and-after of a real client transformation.
This is one of those sessions where you will watch someone else get the feedback and realize halfway through that you needed it too.
What you will take away from this conversation:
- What the real job of a speaker About page actually is (0:02)
- The Brene Brown About page and why it works so well (0:37)
- Why your About page is about your reader, not you (2:27)
- The most common mistakes that hurt your positioning (7:27)
- A successful speaker with a page working against her (8:16)
- The Jackie Callen story: how to make a buyer care (10:36)
- Full before and after: Jason’s About page transformation (13:22)
- The first thing to fix on your About page this week (18:30)
Your speaker About page is not a resume. (0:02)
This is the thing Trudi says right at the start of the conversation, and it is worth putting somewhere you will see it as you write.
Sidebar – one of the things I live by is the sure knowledge that “it is not about me”. My life itself is not ‘about me,’ it is about how (and who) I serve and the impact we make together.
But I digress…
Buyers are not coming to your About page looking for a timeline of your career. They want to know who you are, whether you are someone they can trust, and whether their audience is going to be glad they brought you in.
The best About pages, Trudi says, have the expert front and centre right away: who you are, what kind of expert you are, and the story that is going to pull the reader in. Everything else follows from that.
Something like: “If you want to go deeper on the messaging framework that sits underneath all of this, start with our [speaker messaging strategy guide].
Watch this part: 0:02 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=2
What Brene Brown gets right. (0:37)
Trudi pulled up Brene Brown’s About page as her first example, and it’s hard to argue with the choice.
Right at the top: researcher, storyteller, Texan. Three words and you already have a picture of a person. Not a job title or a credential list. Just a person.
What follows is biographical, yes, but it reads like a story you want to follow. She blends the official line with her bottom line, shares beliefs, and mentions the ribs. By the time you get to her credentials you already like her, which means you are reading those credentials with a completely different level of trust than you would have had if they came first.
Trudi’s point: even if you did not know who Brene Brown was, you would want to know more about her after reading that page. That is the standard to aim for.
The other thing worth noting is the first person voice. Trudi is a fan of writing About pages in first person where possible because it feels like a real conversation rather than a press release. The official third person bio has its place, she says, but save it for the media page or offer it as a download. The About page itself should feel like you talking to the reader directly.
Watch this part: 0:37 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=37
Your page is a sneak preview of your stage. (4:14)
When a buyer reads your speaker About page, they are not just gathering information. They are getting a feel for what it will be like to have you in the room with their people. If your page is cold, formal, and heavy on credentials with nothing personal in sight, they are going to assume your presentation will feel the same way.
Trudi puts it plainly: your About page gives buyers a chance to feel your humanity, your personality, and your presence. And that does not mean you have to be funny or casual. It means being real. Even speakers who present on the most serious topics in the world find moments of vulnerability and connection on stage. Your About page should signal that.
The one caveat, and Trudi is clear on this: read your room. If your audience is survivors of trauma or people in genuine crisis, a playful tone on your About page is going to feel off. Know who is going to show up on your page and write to them.
Watch this part: 4:14 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=254
Have multiple bio lengths ready to go. (5:38)
Chip Conley is the founder of the Modern Elder Academy and a co-founder of Airbnb. His biographical information lives on his media and press page rather than his About page, which is a legitimate choice for someone at his level. But what stands out is how he has made it easy for whoever is looking: there is a medium bio, a short bio, and a mini bio all in one place.
This is something we build into speaker sites at Pibworth PS as well. Your 100-word bio, your 200-word bio, your speaker introduction written to be read aloud, all available in one easy download. When a buyer can find everything they need without having to chase you for it, you are proving you know how the industry works and that you are easy to work with. That is a credibility signal before you have even had a conversation.
Watch this part: 5:38 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=338
Technically correct, emotionally disconnected. (7:27)
This is the phrase Trudi used and it is the most accurate description I have heard for the most common speaker About page problem.
She pulled up a well-known speaker, the founder of a major girls-in-tech organization, as an example. Massive credentials. Bestselling books. Huge representation. And an About page that is beige. Dense professional bio in small print. There was no story, no warmth and no sense of why this cause matters to this person.
Trudi’s take: she can get away with it because she is already a known entity. Her organization alone is enough to get a buyer’s attention. The rest of us cannot rely on that.
And here is the part that gets me: the cause she champions, which is genuinely compelling and the thing a buyer would most connect with, is buried in fine print. It is barely visible. Trudi said she would love the opportunity to redo that page. Leading with the cause in big type as a headline would change everything.
If a buyer has to hunt for the reason to care, most of them will not bother.
This is exactly what we cover in our post on [speaker copywriting] – why technically correct copy so often fails to move anyone.
Watch this part: 7:27 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=447
Make me care: the Jackie Callen story. (10:36)
When Trudi co-owned her speaker bureau, none of their speakers were household names. Every single one of them had to earn the booking on the strength of their story.
Jackie Callen was the first female boxing manager in history. She wrote a book called Hit Me With Your Best Shot. They started representing her just before a Meg Ryan film based on her life came out. The film came out, had a great cast, and promptly tanked. Gone in and out of theatres before anyone noticed.
Why the story mattered more than the movie
Here is the thing: it did not matter. Because Trudi and her team had spent all that time building Jackie’s story around the universal themes underneath it: resilience, getting knocked down and getting back up, championing people who do not have a seat at the table. Those stories lived on their own. A movie that flopped could not take them down.
That is what a great About page does. It finds the human truth underneath your expertise and leads with that. Not because it is manipulative, but because it is honest. Most speakers have a story worth telling. They just have not found a way to tell it yet.
Watch this part: 10:36 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=636
Before and after: Jason’s About page transformation. (13:22)
This is the section of the video worth watching in full if you want to understand what a transformed speaker About page looks like in practice. Trudi walked through a real client website, the before and the after, and the difference is significant.
Before: Jason’s About page was the history of his company. His name barely appeared. The copy read like a newscaster introducing someone else, listing credentials in sequence: TED speaker, author, counsellor. Accurate. And completely flat. As Trudi said: “I just fell asleep in the first sentence.”
After: The new page opens with Jason introducing himself directly and naming his focus: prosperity. Not because he is a billionaire, but because prosperity is what he teaches. Having a good life. Thriving. The page then moves into a statistic about workplace satisfaction, which pulls the reader in with data that turns out to be about them. Then it gets personal: Jason has been burned out. He has been there. He gets people to a yes on a new way forward.
The details that ended up in the dustbin almost didn’t make it
Further down: he officiates weddings, plays 20 different instruments and practices martial arts. He has scaled mountains and used to own a yoga studio. All delivered in a quick visual hit.
By the end, the reader knows what Jason does, feels like they know who Jason is, and trusts him because real people and real organizations have validated him.
Trudi’s comment on the process: “I asked him to send me pictures of his cool stuff and I got a treasure trove. He just had not thought to include any of it.”
That is almost always where the good material is hiding. It just takes someone like Trudi and the Pibworth Team to help you uncover it,
Watch the full before and after: 13:22 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=802
The first thing to fix this week. (18:30)
If you want to tighten your speaker About page and you are not sure where to start, Trudi has a clear answer: start with your audience.
Not your credentials, not your story. Start with your audience.
Who is going to land on this page? What keeps them up at night? What universal truth in your own experience connects to what they are carrying? That is the thread you write toward.
From there: tap into your compassion. Write from the heart. And toot your own horn, as Trudi says, enthusiastically, but frame everything in terms of how it serves the person reading. Your burnout story is not just yours. It belongs to everyone in that room who has been through the same thing. Framing your resilience that way turns a credential into a connection.
Watch this part: 18:30 https://youtu.be/2I1i17Ic76w?t=1110
Speaker About page checklist
Before you publish or update your About page, work through these:
- Does the page open with who you are as an expert, not a job title or credential list?
- Is there a story on this page or just a summary?
- Would a buyer feel something after reading the first two paragraphs?
- Is the first person voice used at least somewhere on the page?
- Does your page signal your personality without requiring a buyer to scroll to the bottom to find it?
- Is your cause or your core belief visible and prominent, not buried in small print?
- Do you have multiple bio lengths available: 100 words, 200 words, MC introduction?
- Have you included personal details that make you a full human, not just a speaker?
- Is there social proof on this page: testimonials, client logos, trusted organizations?
- Does every section lead the reader somewhere: a next page, a call to action, a reason to stay?
FAQ
Long enough to tell your story and short enough to hold attention. There is no magic number. What matters is that the most important things, who you are, what you believe, why a buyer should trust you, are visible without scrolling. The rest can live below the fold.
First person on your speaker About page where possible. It reads like a conversation rather than a press release. Save third person for your official downloadable bios on your speaker page, where someone else will need to use the copy to introduce you.
Find the through line. What is the one thing that connects all of it? Lead with that. Then let the impressive history serve as evidence for the through line, not the main event. Chip Conley does not open with a list of everything he has done. He makes you want to know more first.
Yes, but read your room. Personality does not mean funny. It means human. Even on the most serious topics, the speakers who connect most deeply are the ones who are willing to be vulnerable and real. Your About page can reflect that without being playful if playful is not who you are.
Most people do. Trudi’s advice: stop thinking of it as writing about yourself and start thinking of it as writing for your reader. Every detail you include is chosen because it helps your reader understand who you are and why you are the right person to trust with their audience. That reframe makes it a lot easier.
Here is the thing I want you to take away from this conversation. Your About page is not a showcase. It is an invitation. The speakers who write it that way, who lead with their reader instead of their resume, are the ones buyers feel like they already know before they ever make a call.
For people to know, like, and trust you, they need the details. Give them the details.
If you want help finding the story underneath your expertise and putting it somewhere a buyer will actually find it, that is exactly the work we do.
You can also connect with Trudi directly through the Pibworth PS team if you want a professional set of eyes on your copy.
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