How To Effectively Market Yourself

In my previous post on performance reviews, I went over in detail on the reality of performance reviews and how to navigate through them. Another key aspect of developing your personal brand and doing well in a performance review is marketing yourself.

You definitely have come across that one individual at work. Yes, the one who shamelessly goes around taking credit for everything that goes right. And worse, he or she seems to get away with it. How come? In this post, I will explain why that happens and I will share some interesting tidbits on how to effectively (but not shamelessly) marketing yourself.

My Own Experience With Marketing

In my own career, I have to admit that I made a significant change in mindset when it comes to marketing. As an engineer who was technically oriented, I viewed marketing and self-promotion as false and dishonest. My view was that a good product sells itself. Users will experience the superiority of the product, tell others about it and then the idea will spread itself. Any effort made to try to sell the product means that it was bad to begin with. I basically extended the same logic to performance at work. I will strive to meet and exceed expectations. In time, the results will speak for themselves and I will be recognised.

However, over time, I discovered that real life is unforgiving. The simplistic description above holds water if your boss has only direct report – which happens to be you. Of course, that is unlikely to happen. As a boss, I delivered a number of annual performance reviews with my direct reports. More often that not, my direct reports complained (especially those who got a lower rating than they had anticipated) that I did not mention their “big hits” during the year in the performance feedback. I would tell them the truth right there and then – I did not know about it.

Why Marketing Is Important

The reality is that in most companies, the boss is juggling with a lot of information. The boss is dealing with each of his or her direct reports, dealing with operational issues of the business and at the same time entertaining requests from his own boss. No human being can synthesise all that information. So naturally the human mind will develop mechanisms to deal with the sensory overload and block out information that is unimportant. The image below shows very clearly on what happens at work.

The middle circle is your accomplishments. The intersection of the middle circle and the circle on the right is the portion of the accomplishments that your boss sees. As you clearly tell, it is not a lot. The intersection of the middle circle and the circle on the left is what others outside your team see. It is even lower!

Once you understand this reality, you will appreciate why marketing is so important and relying upon the weight of your accomplishments to speak for themselves can be a disadvantage.

How To Do Marketing Then?

So hopefully you can understand the importance of marketing yourself. But how do you go about doing it? More so, how to do you go about doing it without coming across as a self-conceited fool? In my experience, marketing effectively comes down to these four steps:

1. Align With Your Boss

There is no doubt that developing a positive, working relationship with your boss is paramount. No amount of slick marketing will work if you and your boss are not on the same page. In fact in the context of careers and personal brand development, getting aligned with your boss is so vitally important that I put forward some extensive content on developing credibility with your boss and how to work with different types of bosses.

So if you hadn’t had a chance to review those posts, then please do so.

2. Keep Your Boss In The Loop

No matter what personality quirks your boss might have or not have, it is no secret that bosses prefer to kept informed. The reason is simple. It helps them avoid surprises, makes them feel in control and makes their jobs easier. May Busch highlights four solid reasons on why keeping your boss in the loop is a career secret weapon.

The easiest way to keep your boss in the loop is to include him or her in the “CC” email list you of every important job or task that you are doing. It is that simple! I can tell as a boss how valuable that tactic is. I can recount several times when upper management asked about updates on key projects during meetings. The ability to scroll the list of emails, gather the required information and provide the information as needed made my job so much easy. It is certainly much better than saying “I will get back to you” or stepping out of the meeting and making frantic phone calls!

There are other ways as well such as giving face-to-face updates. But then you have to find a time to sit down with your boss and then hope that he or she is mentally in the right frame of mind. Personally, my experience is that a constant drip of information is much better than throwing a bucket of water over the head.

3. Learn Power-point

Chances are that if you have done a fairly good job of getting on the same page as your boss and keeping him or her in the loop, sooner or later you will be asked to deliver a presentation on your success stories. When it comes to marketing yourself, this is your opportunity for a home run. You do not want to miss it.

When it comes to presentations, Microsoft Power-point is the most commonly used software. It gives a wide range of options, is universally available and is quite user friendly. If you do not know how to use it, then learn it. If you have already used it before, then a refresher can certainly help especially with finer points such as using the right colour choices or using features such as animations.

Developing visually appealing and engaging presentations is a skill you must definitely have in your tool-bag.

4. Improve Your Public Speaking Ability

Building a solid presentation with all the right effects is a step in the right direction. But when it comes to marketing, it does not help if you keep murmuring all the time when speaking. Fortunately you are not alone when it comes to being terrified of public speaking. Infact an infamous study in 1973 found out that 41% of people feared public speaking over everything else, including death.

So, if you are at a funeral, a person would prefer to be in the coffin than give the eulogy! That’s a Seinfeld joke, by the way. 🙂

The art of speaking well in public is a learned skill that only practice can make perfect. The easiest way is to craft your presentation, write down your speaking points and then practice in front of a mirror, again and again. Another excellent way is to join your local Toastmasters club.

5. Share, Share And Share

Another effective way to market yourself is knowledge sharing. There is an old saying that the more you share the more you wealthy you become. It is very true. Sharing your knowledge inside and outside the team will put you in a very positive light and helps build a perception of trust and authority.

When it comes to knowledge sharing, some people have the unfounded fear that sharing the nuts and bolts of how to get things done is not good for job security. If I tell them how to do it, then they don’t need me. However, that negative mindset only holds weight in a static environment where nothing changes. It is like the famous board game of monopoly. The amount of real estate is fixed, the rules do not change and the aim is to win by grabbing and hoarding as much as possible.

In a dynamic world where technologies and circumstances are constantly evolving, knowledge sharing actually helps you grow because it encourages you to learn and try new ideas.

Yours truly,

Rizwan.