Most coaches who start a Repstra profile write something in the bio box and stop there. It makes sense — a bio feels like the soft, optional part of the job, the bit you'd do properly “later”. It isn't. On a directory, the bio is the sales conversation.
Someone browsing find-a-coachcan't watch you coach. They can't see how you write a program, how you handle a client who's gone quiet, or what you do when the weight stops moving. They are choosing an approach, and your bio is the only place on the page where your approach is visible at all. Everything else — the photo, the price, the years of experience — tells them who you are. The bio tells them what happens if they hire you.
That's also why a bio that says “passionate trainer helping people reach their goals” does nothing. It's true of every card in the directory. The coach who writes “I work with people in their 40s who've been lifting badly for a decade — first month is movement screen and rebuilding the basics before we add load” has already won the client who reads it, and politely lost the ones who'd have wasted both your time. Both outcomes are good.
- 1
Say it out loud and let SOVARA draft it
The blank box is the whole problem, so don't start there. On your profile, click Draft it with SOVARAand answer questions you could answer out loud to a mate: who do you coach and who aren't you right for, what have your clients already tried and failed at, what does a first month with you actually look like, what do you do differently from the coach down the road, what qualifications do you hold, do you coach online or in person.
SOVARA drafts your headline, bio and positioning from those answers and from any methodology documents in your Coaching Brain. A sentence each is plenty, and you can skip anything you'd rather not answer — SOVARA writes from what you give it and won't invent numbers, qualifications or results to fill the gaps.
- 2
Edit it until it sounds like you
The draft lands in the form as editable text, not as a published page. Read it properly and make it sound like you — SOVARA gives you a first version to react to, which is a far easier job than writing from nothing. Nothing is public until you switch on List on marketplace.
The gate is a bio of 100+ characters, and the character counter is right there in the checklist. Treat 100 as the floor, not the target: it exists because a two-word bio makes a listing worthless to the person reading it, not because 100 is a magic number.
- 3
Set your profile URL — this is the one people skip
In Identity, the first field is Handle (URL slug). It becomes repstra.com.au/find-a-coach/your-handle — the actual address of your page.
Skip it and your profile has nowhere to live. There's no link to put in your Instagram bio, nothing to text a prospect, and no URL for the directory to point at — so a listing can be switched on and still be unreachable by everyone, including you. It's the quietest way to do all the work and get none of the benefit, which is exactly why it's a required gate. Pick something short and human: your name, or your business name.
- 4
Add the headline, one specialty and a photo of you
Three small fields, each doing a specific job:
- Headline— the one line on your card in the directory. It's what decides whether anyone opens the bio you just wrote.
- At least one specialty— how clients filter. A coach with no specialties can't be narrowed down to, so they're only ever found by accident.
- A profile photo of you — not a stock shot, not a magazine physique. The client is deciding whether to talk to you every week for the next six months.
The Listing quality checklistat the bottom of the editor ticks each item green as you go and tells you exactly what's still outstanding — including the items that live outside this page, like a methodology document in your Coaching Brain, a package clients can buy, and Stripe connected so they can pay you. The full run-through is in how to list yourself on the marketplace.
One honest note on timing: the marketplace is new, and there are no public listings on it yet. That is the argument for finishing your profile this week rather than an argument against it — the directory is being actively marketed, and the coaches who are complete when the traffic arrives are the ones it lands on. Being early is a position you can only take once.