Why CV language kills your positioning

LinkedIn has trained most professionals to describe themselves in passive, institutional language. "Led cross-functional teams." "Delivered transformational outcomes." "Drove strategic alignment across stakeholders." This language made sense inside a corporate context where the audience already had context for your role and your organisation. On a personal website, it lands differently. It sounds like a job application. It positions you as someone looking for approval rather than someone offering expertise. That is not the signal you want to send to a potential client.

The shift from activity to outcome

The single most effective change you can make to how you write about yourself is to stop describing what you did and start describing what changed because of it. "Managed a finance function" is activity. "Helped a $40M business get acquisition-ready in nine months" is outcome. The second version creates a picture in the reader's mind. It makes them ask whether that is relevant to their situation. That question is the beginning of a sales conversation.

Write the way you actually speak

The best about pages read like a smart, confident person wrote them in the first person. Not formal. Not corporate. Not self-conscious. Read it aloud. If it sounds like something you would never actually say to a prospective client across a table, rewrite it until it does. The goal is not to sound polished. The goal is to sound like someone worth spending time with on a serious problem.

The one sentence that matters most

Every about page needs one sentence that makes the right reader think: that is exactly what I need. It is usually the second or third sentence, after you have named who you are for. It describes the specific kind of problem you are best at. Not your entire career. Not your philosophy. Just the thing that makes your ideal client lean forward. Find that sentence and build the rest of the page around it.