Your mother was wrong when she told you never to talk about yourself or put yourself in the limelight. She probably thought that way because she wasn’t looking for a job or a promotion in a very tough market.
In today’s world it’s not only appropriate but necessary to promote yourself to everyone in your company and all those you contact in the business world so you may enjoy a long, successful career.
You can become your own best Public Relations professional if you learn how to do it—and God knows you need one.
The most important trick is to develop self promotion skills without being a jerk. That means informing others about your positive virtues without bragging. It’s essential to career survival.
Rick Gillis, motivational speaker whose latest book is “Promote! It’s Who Knows What You Know That Makes a Career” offers the following successful self promotion tips.
- Don’t assume that your boss knows exactly what you do.You’re at the mercy of your manager. Yet it’s unlikely he has more than a general idea about what you do beyond the minimum he expects.2. Embrace the difference between articulating your value and bragging.When done properly, self-promotion is not bragging. It is informing.
3. Adopt an accomplishment mindset and narrative.
To prove your indispensability to an employer, you need an inventory of your on-the-job accomplishments — the things that express your commercial value to the business.
4. Quantify your worth.
You were hired because someone trusted that you’d either make or save the company money. You needn’t be a bona fide revenue generator or accomplish earth-shattering feats like inventing the iPhone to quantify your worth.
5. Source and shape your success stories.
To begin, look at old resumes, business planners, and performance reviews. Then reach out to personal and professional contacts. No emailing. To bypass generic responses, you must do this by phone. Period.
6. Master the three-part accomplishment statement.
Every one of your accomplishments must be crafted into a single three-part statement. You’ll convey what you did, what that resulted in, and the value or net result. For example: “Created a digital filing system that resulted in 300 man hours saved per week, enabling the company to save $6 million annually.”
###