Self-Marketing

Are you looking for ways to get that next promotion or make yourself more marketable within your profession? If so, a great way to have a more successful career is to wisely promote your accomplishments and use effective self-marketing techniques to make yourself more visible and let your accomplishments be known.

In order to understand how important self- marketing is, think beyond your current position. Think about what your next career step will be and how you can start positioning yourself for it now.

Do you think you would have a difficult time providing evidence that supports your qualifications for your next job or assignment? If so, then you need to start promoting your accomplishments and begin your self-marketing efforts immediately.

Self-marketing is a learned skill. It is never too late in your career to teach yourself effective self-marketing techniques. One of the keys to successful self-marketing is clearly identifying your goals and knowing what direction you are taking your career. Firmly understanding your career direction will dictate the most important accomplishments to promote and also dictate *how* you should go about promoting them.

As leading management consultant Tom Peters states, "you must advertise". You must create a "brand". That brand is you. Become known as the guru in your specialty then advertise and sell your brand. The more well-known you become, the easier it gets.

Here are few self-marketing and promotional tactics you can employ to promote your accomplishments and improve your career:

1. Let people in your organization know when you meet with success. Send out an email, memo, or project report outlining the process you used and report the measurable results you obtained. One bit of warning if you choose to use email: Assume your e-mail can and will be forwarded outside your department and organization. You should never disseminate proprietary information or divulged any company secrets.

2. Convert your accomplishments into tip sheets by documenting the process so others can repeat for themselves what you did. Can you convert your success stories into one-page "case studies" that would have an appeal to a broader audience?. This type of document can go a long way in enhancing your credibility, creating awareness, and highlighting your professional standing.

To create your case studies, a) Outline the process giving an overview or scope of the project. Then b) List the major steps you executed and describe the rationale behind those steps. Most importantly, c) Quantify the results and the positive impact they had on your organization.

Tip sheets and case studies are great to circulate at association meetings or when meeting new prospects or existing customers. They might even come in handy during your next job interview. You should not overlook the possibility of submitting these case studies to trade journals, professional magazines, or newsletters. If you can help others by reporting your results, they will be grateful and remember where they got the information.

3. Conduct an ongoing campaign to make others aware of your successes. Avoid being overtly boastful, but assertively tell others about your accomplishments in terms of the actions taken to support organizational goals and objectives. Winners can always tell you about a very recent success so be ready with your own stories of a recent "win" you were responsible for in your organization.

4. Look for opportunities to get published. You can do this by writing articles or contributing to company or industry newsletters, submitting tips to trade publications, journals, magazines, or local newspapers and business journals. Getting published will increase your visible and provide you professional credibility.

5. Look for opportunities to speak to groups. Public speaking is one of the best ways to let other people know what you do and how you do it so they may benefit. Presenting to groups establishes you as an expert and gives you an avenue to network and increase your visibility.

6. Always put your team's accomplishments ahead of your own. Try to get as much done through others as possible and share the credit. Your name will soon be associated with winning teams and people within and outside your organization will notice.

7. Network with others in your profession and industry. Keep track of who's doing what and who's going where and make sure others know exactly what you are doing. Cultivate a strong, effective network and share war stories.

8. Keep score of your accomplishments using a written list or by updating your résumé frequently. Your accomplishments will soon be forgotten if you don't write them down and keep track of them.

One of the best ways to know you are executing your promotional and self-marketing tactics properly is when you can create a powerful 10- second introduction. Your succinct introduction lets others know who you are and what you do. You should be able to state your introduction within the first 10 seconds of meeting a person and word it in such a way that it "hooks" them so they want to ask questions in order to learn more about you.

If you promote yourself properly and use effective self-marketing techniques, you will make yourself stand out above the pack and get noticed. Diligently practice these techniques and you will put yourself on the career fast track.

Stay tuned, that 10-second self-introduction will be my next post.

(Originally published in 1999 by Dave Dolak)

How to communicate your brand

Do not underestimate the importance of strong copy and do not overestimate the importance of graphic design when creating marketing communications materials for your brand. Focus on the message, not the image. People choose substance over style -- regardless of what your ad agency might be telling you.

An effective headline is critical.

The headline:

- Attracts attention
- Communicates a strong benefit or your most compelling one
- Appeals to the self-interest of the reader. It answers the question, "What's in it for me?"
- Sets the tone for the offer
- A headline acts like a marquee does for a movie theatre and selects the right audience

In short, to effectively convey your brand,

Say the right things
to the right people
in the right way
at the right time, and
do it consistently over time and
across many different communication channels.

Then you are on your way to to effectively telling the right audience about why they should prefer you brand over every other brand in the category.

Blog Marketing

As a follow-up to my previous post, Jeremy Wright has a blog in support of his book, "Blog Marketing" where he posts large portions of the chapters from the book in his blog for all to read. There is some great information in there on the basics of using a blog for marketing and promotional purposes.

If you are reading this you are ahead of the curve

Thanks to Douglas Karr, we are able to put this blogging thing into perspective. Outside the blogosphere, most corporations are still struggling to understand blogging. Please click on the link above to read Douglas's great responses to these questions.

Top Ten Questions on Blogging from Companies:

1. What’s blogging?
2. Why should we blog?
3. What’s the difference between blogging and a website?
4. What’s the difference between blogging and a web forum?
5. How much does it cost?
6. How often should we do it?
7. Should we host our blog on our website or use a hosted solution?
8. What about negative comments?
9. Can more than one person blog?
10. How do we control our brand?

Riblet pancakes?

So IHOP is buying Applebees, eh? It will be interesting to see what they do with this suffering brand.

When Applebees started out, it was positioned as a neighborhood, casual restaurant but recently has tried to go slightly upscale with a newer menu.

In my opinion, Applebees could use a bit of an update. With lots of casual dining options out there, Applebees has not made its case to me recently as to why I should eat there. They ought to focus on the one or two superior experiences or features they can offer and then tell everyone what those are and why they are important. Sure, they have a diverse menu, but it is not clear to me what they offer that I can't also find somewhere else.

What do you think IHOP could do with Applebees to strengthen the brand?