Watch training videos on this topic here.

Think of your profile as your customer “storefront."

Clients browsing on Leland are asking themselves questions like these:

1) What results can this expert drive?
2) Do they work with people like me?
3) Can I trust them?

Every section of your profile should help a client find these answers on their own and feel confident reaching out to book time with you.

Profile Picture

Pick a strong headshot. This is one of the first touch points a client has with you, and a lot gets communicated by the style of your photo before they ever read a word of your bio.

A few tips:

Clean, simple background. A plain wall or blurred office works. Busy or cluttered backgrounds pull focus.
Centered and shoulders-up. Eye level with the camera, not shot from above or below.
Good lighting and high resolution. Natural or soft, even lighting. No harsh shadows, or blurry or pixelated shots.
Recent and solo. Within the last 2-3 years, and not cropped out of a group photo.
No pets, sunglasses, or hats. Keep the focus on you.
Warm, approachable expression. A genuine smile outperforms a stiff, overly serious look.

Your Headline

Your headline is arguably the most important line on your profile. It is what clients see in search results before they ever click. Every headline should lead with your strongest credential plus a specific outcome, in 75 characters or less.

Quick Formula: [Insider credential] | [Quantified results] | [Specialty/Niche]

Examples:

Former HBS AdCom and Kellogg MBA | 150+ M7 Admits
Former Bain Interviewer | Helped 30+ Land MBB Offers | Case Prep Expert
Ex-JPMC Recruiter | Resume Coaching That Gets Callbacks | 100+ Roles Landed
Wharton MBA | 20+ Years Teaching the GMAT | Clients Average 730+
Head of Product @ TikTok, ex-Amazon | Helped 50+ PMs Grow Their Careers

Two rules of thumb:

Write a different headline for every category. A PhD applicant can tell when your headline was copy-pasted from your Masters listing. Each category should tell its own story with language specific to that audience.
Skip the most common openers. "Break into..." and "Empower your..." are everywhere on the platform. You have a more specific story to tell!

Personal Bio

Your bio shows up on every one of your category listings, and it is one of the highest-leverage pieces of copy on your profile. Its job is to convert interest into a booked intro call. That means it needs to be outcome oriented first, and personal second.

Your bio should clearly answer three questions:

Who do you work with? Name your clients specifically. "I work with career switchers targeting MBB consulting" beats "I help people reach their goals" every time.
Who are you best for? Get specific. "I'm the right coach for re-applicants and non-traditional med school candidates" tells the right client they've found their person.
What results have you gotten? Numbers, schools, companies, score increases, offers. Outcomes sell.

A structure that works:

Lead with your specialty and outcomes. Example: "I specialize in coaching STEM students through PhD and grad school admissions, with clients accepted at Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Vanderbilt."
Stack your proof. Client counts, years coaching, placements, scholarships won, score jumps. Fill-in-the-blank starters: "I've helped clients get into companies like [X]" or "I work with clients on [X] to achieve [Y]."
Describe your approach. One or two sentences on what working with you actually looks like, and who you work best with.
Then get human. Your story matters, and clients often pick a coach for shared life experience. It just lands better after they already know what you deliver. Put your origin story last, not first.

A few things we see work again and again:

Aim for 1,200+ characters. Top-earning coaches average around 1,220. Thin bios read as thin experience.
If a number lives anywhere else on your profile (like "100+ clients coached" in Why I Coach), mirror it in your bio. Most visitors never scroll that far.
Cut generic openers like "Unlock your potential" or "I'm passionate about helping others."

Profile Video

Creating a compelling introduction video is an important part of setting up your profile and generating interest in your coaching services.

The Setup

There are a few important factors to consider before beginning to record your video.

Good lighting — If possible, use natural light. Face a window so that the light is on you, not behind you. If natural light is not available, make the space around you as bright as possible. You want your face to be clearly discernible.
Distance from the camera — Though it depends on the camera, you typically want to be about 2-3 ft. away from it. Your face and upper body should be visible, but nothing below it.
Stable wifi — Test your connection so that the video doesn’t lag.
Background — The less distraction in your environment, the more clients will be able to pay attention to what you’re saying. If filming at home, find a location that feels a little more formal. With this video, you’re saying and showing what kind of expert you’ll be to work with.

What to Say

Your video should be between 30 seconds and two minutes long. Here are a few things we recommend you include.

1. Introduce Yourself: Tell the client about you. Focus primarily on your professional and educational background, but you can also include hobbies, fun facts, etc. With this, your goal is to make it easier for clients to feel like you “fit” their background. Were you a first-generation college student? Did your work focus on a niche industry? Let them know!

2. Highlight Your Coaching Style: Provide a brief glimpse into what it would be like to work with you. For example, do you prefer highly structured sessions or more go-with-the-flow? Do you tailor packages toward a specific outcome or personalize them to the client’s background? If you have specific strengths as a expert, you can talk about those here as well.

Here are a few examples of what “coaching style” could look like in written form:

3. Share Client Success Stories: Providing some kind of “social proof” increases the client’s trust in your services and thus, makes it easier for them to purchase coaching. This can be either a specific story or broader statistics. For example, “I’ve worked with over 50 students and on average, I increased their ACT scores by five points after two sessions” or, “This year, I worked with a client who had a 3.2 GPA and fairly average GMAT score but with a lot of work on their essays, letters of recommendation, and resume, we were able to get them admitted into HBS, GSB, and Wharton.”

4. Include a Call to Action: What do you want them to do after watching your video? Is it to message you? Book an intro call? Whatever it is, include it along with some kind of encouragement—”If you’re just starting on your applications, I’d love to help you figure out your narrative. Message me and we’ll talk through your background and how to best turn it into a compelling theme for your applications.”

Recording and Uploading to YouTube

You can record your video on whatever software you’d like, but make sure it’s in a landscape orientation (the example below was recorded in Photobooth). Then, head to YouTube where you’ll upload it.

In the top right corner, you’ll see a camera with a plus sign on it. Click that and then “Upload video.”

You’ll then see the following screen. Fill out the title and description as you see below.

Title: Name — Leland Expert Introduction
Description: Hi, I’m “[Name],” an MBA and Consulting expert on Leland. Looking forward to working with you!
Under audience, mark “Not for kids.” Under the “Age restriction (advanced)” section, you can specify that the video does not need to be restricted.

Then, you’ll need to make sure the video is marked as unlisted. This will be under the “Visibility” step in the video upload.

Once you’ve completed this last step, the video is good to go! You’ll copy and paste the video link (that you can see in the thumbnail on the right side of the above image) into the designated spot on your Leland expert profile.

Nail Your Profile Branding