Writing Your Summary
WRITING EXERCISE
Writing Your Profile Summary
Think of this as your digital elevator pitch to quickly help you establish your background, build credibility, and inform prospects. You’ll want to frame it around the how and why of serving your clients. Be personal and enthusiastic to show your unique passion for what you do. Your summary should offer an easy overview of who you are and how you can add value to the clients you serve—keep in mind, this summary is reflective of your brand.
Writing about yourself takes some reflection, but it’s easier with some guidance and inspiration; there’s no need to overthink it!
To get yourself primed for branding yourself, reflect on your business persona by asking yourself:
- If you run into someone at a coffee shop and try to initiate a conversation, what do I say about myself and my work?
- Why should someone do business with you?
- What is my mission?
- What makes me different from other Agents/Financial Planners?
- What’s personal that I should know about you?
PERSONAL INTRO
Throughout this section, draw inspiration from the questions you asked yourself and include some of those reflections.
Value Statement
Your first 1-2 sentences will be the first that anyone sees–it’s the elevator pitch of your role.
Summarize your core objective while detailing your passion and reasons to believe in you.
EXAMPLE: I take pride in helping my clients prepare for the next step in their financial future. I believe that my combined experience, professionalism and knowledge of financial products and services will help you as you work to reach your financial goals.
Personal Summary
This can be 3-4 sentences on the why and how behind your work. Make it personal, informative, and enthusiastic, tying back to the brand when possible.
Be sure to shed light on some personal strengths. Feel free to include a personal conversation-starter such as a relatable hobby, volunteer cause, or show you’re a fan of something others may connect with.
EXAMPLE: Serving my clients and helping them navigate their financial futures is rewarding for me–I truly enjoy helping families and business owners navigate the road towards financial freedom. It’s my goal to establish lasting relationships with my clients and become a lifelong resource for each one of them. I have a tenacity for being a helping hand. If we work together, I’ll take care to consider every piece of your financial puzzle, starting with a careful review of your needs and level of knowledge, and putting them all together for a life-long plan. When I’m not serving my clients, you can find me working on my photography. Anyone up for joining me?
Key Solutions/Services Your Offer
Listing these keywords not only helps your profile be discovered but can help potential clients learn more about what you do. Write once sentence leading into the solutions summary that gives detail as to how you can help.
EXAMPLE: Below are some of financial goals I help my clients to navigate, including but not limited to:
- Overall Financial Strategies
- Estate Planning Strategies
- Retirement Planning and Strategies – 401(k)s, IRAs, Pension Plans, Indexed or Fixed Annuities
- Business Needs Analysis
EXPERIENCE/VOLUNTEERING DESCRIPTIONS
Experience Best Practices
Showcasing your professional journey is essential on LinkedIn. Your most relevant and accomplished roles are what matters. According to LinkedIn, profiles with more than one position listed are viewed up to 29 times more than those with only one position listed.
Filling Out an Experience
Title – List the title for your position.
Company – Tag your agency. We have seen representatives in the past accidentally tag other companies─with over 30 million companies on LinkedIn, it’s an easy mistake. If your agency does not have a LinkedIn Company page, please make sure to talk with your office manager about creating one. Without a LinkedIn Business Page, you and your agency peers will be unable to tag your agency as your employer and accordingly your profile will not display a brand logo or allow visitors to click through to learn more about your agency. Think about it─how much would you trust someone at a company that appears to have no logo or that doesn’t have a LinkedIn presence when it’s so commonplace for businesses?
Location – It’s important to keep this current so that you can be discovered in your area.
Start Date – For old positions, please ensure dates are correct.
“Update my headline” – Do not check this box as this will delete the customized headline you’ve already established.
Writing Experience Descriptions
While this section is important to inform connections on your current and past roles, you can keep it short and sweet─ focus on high-impact information and on ensuring that you provide background on both the company and job functions of the position being described. Focus on how you provide results for your clients. Note: in this section, there’s a 200 to 2000-character requirement. You’ll want to make sure that the first 1-2 sentences are impactful as they may be the only thing to display on your profile unless a visitor expands the text.
Past Roles Ensure that previous roles or employers are not written in present tense or actively promoting competitor products or services. If a past role contains a description of a competitor’s performance, ratings, or a competitor disclosure, we ask that you remove this information. While descriptions for all past roles aren’t necessary, you can use the guidelines below to craft a recap of your most relevant past experiences.
Current Roles
- Start with 1-2 sentences about your agency to give a brief intro.
- Following the agency intro, you can write 3-4 sentences on your role—how you serve your clients, who you serve primarily if you have a focus, and any other relevant job functions.
- After this, you may want to reiterate specific service or product focuses that you listed in your summary. You can do so with bullets after an intro, i.e., “I provide a broad range of solutions for my clients, including:” followed by a list of a few of your most important solutions.
Writing Volunteer Experience Descriptions
Like the job experience section, you can showcase your volunteering experience here. Just like a job, be sure to properly tag each organization you’re associated with, including your title, if applicable, and the dates of your involvement. For the description, feel free to write about the work the organization does, why you’re passionate about it, and list any core responsibilities of your volunteer role.
EDUCATION
Add any undergraduate or graduate experience as applicable, and be sure to properly tag your university or college if possible and list your degree, field of study, start dates, etc. If you were involved in societies or activities which you’d like to list, bullet them in this section.
Please note that our policy does not allow college courses to be listed on your profile, either in this section or as coursework under the accomplishments section.
LINCENSES & CERTIFICATIONS
Here, you can further establish trust by listing relevant industry licenses and certifications.
Do you hold LOMA certifications? Any Securities Licenses?
Be sure to include relevant details such as an expiration date if applicable and a link to the credential if possible. It’s important to only list valid and current credentials.
AWARDS
Awards
Have you been recognized by National Life? Former employers? Your community? Be sure to showcase accomplishments that you’re proud of. Like certifications and licenses, these can help you establish trust and credibility. Prioritize anything that is relevant to our shared business.
SKILLS & ENDORSEMENTS
Depending on which skills are most important to you, you can feature up to three skills. Pick those most relevant to your role and client focus─what skills are your target markets most likely to be wanting to see? From the edit view, you can drag skills around.
While you may list approved skills, depending on your licensing level compliance may require you to turn off endorsements for those skills. Don’t worry, as opting out and hiding endorsements can be reversed should the need ever arise. See LinkedIn for more information.
What to Avoid
- Empty summaries or summaries with disclosures only– The worst thing you can do is say nothing at all. Be sure to take the time to leverage this valuable real estate.
- Disclosures before your summary -While you can place your disclosure at the end of your summary, we recommend you place it at the end of your experience section for your role.
- Outdated job information or irrelevant info – Are you still telling visitors to reach out to an old email? Still passionately promoting your college rec association? Make sure things are current.
- Being too focused on selling – Your immediate goal is not making a sale; you’re trying to share your expertise and build trust which builds connections and ultimately can lead to sales or new clients. Focus on making an impression!
- The “big block” – Don’t just write one massive block of text. It’s hard to read and identify the things you do. Remember to break up text with spaces, indentation, or bullet points to emphasize things.
Techniques/Best Practices
- The first sentence or two should really hit home. On mobile screens, only the first 170 characters (with spaces) will show up without expanding your summary. On desktops, only the first 2-3 lines will show. Enthusiasm and key context should hook your visitors here.
- Writing in first person is advised, but third person is also acceptable. Just be consistent.
- Speak the language of your clients and prospects – if your primary purpose is networking with potential clients, don’t lean too heavy on industry lingo.
- Remember to use indentation and spacing to break up text and use bullet points when emphasizing a list.
- Always ensure proper spelling and grammar. Read your summary out loud to ensure it has no mistakes and sounds true to you.
National Life Group® is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company (NLIC), Montpelier, VT, Life Insurance Company of the Southwest (LSW), Addison, TX, and affiliates. Each company of National Life Group® is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. LSW is not an authorized insurer in NY and does not conduct insurance business in NY. Equity Services, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC, is a Broker/Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser affiliate of NLIC.
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