There are several jobs or business opportunities in the market but, how do employers or people who deal with you get to know what is special about you which is compelling enough to make them work with you. What kind of efforts are you putting in to make yourself important in this competitive world? Most of us are reluctant to promote ourselves. Many of us seldom update our superiors with our accomplishments or take credit for a good idea that has worked for the team. It is a general tendency among many that we should remain humble and not brag. It’s true that we should not brag, but it is necessary that we do promote ourselves in order to make our work visible to others and they understand our significance. We should promote ourselves without annoying and isolating others. This is the concept of self-marketing.
Self-marketing and its importance:
Self-marketing is the process of promoting yourself (a person). In this process a person markets himself/herself rather than a product. It is crucial for managing your professional reputation and building your personal brand that augment your career. Self-marketing helps us to gain more opportunities to express ourselves better by communicating our qualifications, values, skills, vision, and experience. By self-marketing, we can successfully distinguish ourselves from hundreds or thousands of others who are competitive players in the market.
How to do self-marketing:
In the process of self-marketing, it is vital to not go overboard and brag. We ought to take care that we promote ourselves without hurting others and annoying our superiors. Let’s see how we can promote ourselves.
- Mindset: One of the foremost elements of effective self-marketing is having a clear mindset that encourages us to get noticed for our accomplishments. We must accept the fact that there is nothing disgraceful in seeking credit and recognition for our efforts that result in accomplishments.
- Proactive: We should not assume that people will automatically notice our work and reward us. We should be proactive enough and take advantage of situations and opportunities to communicate the value we provide to the organization.
- Attributes: We should focus on the attributes that will create and enhance our brand value as a person and promote those brand attributes.
Effective ways of self-marketing:
We have seen that self-marketing is crucial to stand out among the competitors, but it is also critical that our self-promotion does not turn-off people. Let’s see some effective ways of self-marketing.
Discuss accomplishments: An important aspect of self-marketing is discussing accomplishments. This should be done by promoting the steps we have taken and our role in accomplishing the task. Facts and figures should substantiate our story.
Focus on other parties: We should ensure that while promoting ourselves we should give an impression that we are much concerned about the organization or the other party to whom we are talking. We should be cautious enough not to give an idea that we are more concerned about our self-promotion rather than the organization’s success.
Recognize others: In the process of self-marketing, we ought not to forget the role and contribution of others involved. We should whole-heartedly give credit to others when they deserve it.
Take notice: We should not self-promote without noticing the audience emotions. We should be aware of our audience emotions and notice their annoyance or boredom while talking about our accomplishments and other thoughts.
To become successful in our career, we should focus on our brand attributes and do some excellent self-marketing. With so much of competition everywhere, it’s inevitable for all to indulge in self-promotion to improve their image to advance in career.