Janie’s About page included plenty of good information.

It shared her previous career, her decision to become an interior designer, and a charming story about growing up in a creative family home.

Author’s Note: “Janie” is a pseudonym while her new website is under wraps. I look forward to sharing the finished page once her new site launches. 🙌

But the page left one very big, very important question unanswered:

Why did any of that make her the right designer for her clients?

Instead of making decades of work and life experience feel valuable, the page made her sound almost apologetic about being newer to the industry. Janie was relatively new to working professionally as an interior designer. But she was not new to managing complicated projects, solving problems, understanding people, or creating a meaningful home.

Her About page needed to connect those dots.

Your previous career is not a disclaimer

Janie had worked for years in technology, analysis, and project management.

Her original page mentioned that experience, but mostly as something she had done before becoming a designer.

The rewrite needed to show how that experience shapes the work she does now.

Her previous career taught her to:

• See both the big picture and the details
• Bring structure to complicated projects
• Turn ideas into practical plans
• Guide people through unfamiliar decisions
• Follow through from inspiration to implementation

Those are not unrelated facts from a former career. They are literally the reasons a client can trust her with a design project!

Simply listing your previous experience is not enough.

Just listing your previous experience without connecting the dots leaves your reader in charge of figuring out why it matters.

Compare:

Before becoming a designer, I spent 15 years in finance.

With:

Fifteen years in finance taught me how to help clients make emotionally charged decisions without losing sight of the numbers.

The first tells us what happened.

The second tells us why we should care.

A personal story should reveal your point of view

Janie’s original About page included a charming story about her childhood. But a richer story about the home she grew up in did more to explain the designer she became.

Her Dutch parents transformed a 1960s Texas ranch. Her father built furniture and adapted the house, while her mother filled it with meaningful objects. The home was personal, practical, and welcoming. It was where her friends gathered.

That is more than an interesting childhood detail. It explains why Janie believes homes should feel distinctive, deeply personal, and connected to the people who live in them.

That is the work an About-page story should do.

You do not need to share every formative moment or turn your website into a memoir. But the personal details you include should help readers understand:

• What shaped your perspective
• Why you approach design the way you do
• What you notice or value that another designer might not

The goal is not just to appear interesting.

The goal is to make your way of working make sense.

Make the destination feel inevitable

Before the rewrite, Janie’s move into interior design sounded like a sudden reinvention. The stronger story showed that it was the natural culmination of everything she had already learned and loved. Her analytical mind, visual instincts, project experience, family history, and belief in the emotional power of home had finally found a place to work together.

She was not starting over. She was bringing everything forward. That distinction matters, especially for career-changing designers who worry that a shorter design résumé makes them less credible.

Your years of experience still count.

Your job is to explain how.

The About-page test

After reading your About page, a prospective client should understand:

1. What have you learned that will benefit them?
2. What shaped your design perspective?
3. Why are you particularly suited to the projects you want?
4. How does your story influence the way you guide clients today?

Your About page is not simply a timeline of what happened to you.

It is an explanation of why your experience makes you good at the work you do—and why the right client should trust you to do it for them.

Want to level up your About page?

We uncovered the experience, perspective, and personal details that shaped Janie’s new About page inside my course, Nail Your Niche. Inside that course we identify what genuinely distinguishes you, connect it to the clients and projects you want, and turn it into language people can recognize and trust.

Because oftentimes, your value isn’t missing.

It’s simply sitting in your biography, waiting for you to connect the dots.

Not sure what part of your business needs attention first?

Take the What to Fix Next? quiz to find out whether your biggest opportunity is in your marketing, onboarding, or the way you guide clients through decisions.