Learn To Market Yourself

Everyone knows that one of the best ways to promote goods and services is to develop an innovative marketing campaign. A good campaign will be informative, persuasive, provide exposure, and ultimately increase revenue. Companies invest significant time and money in campaigns because they help achieve desired results. Promoting yourself is no different. Doing a good job – or even an amazing job – may minimally elevate your position if peers and supervisors do not understand or appreciate your accomplishments. To be successful in your professional business career, you have to learn to market yourself.

1. Tell your story by developing and memorizing an elevator speech. This will most likely be the most challenging, yet rewarding part of your campaign. A memorable elevator speech will clearly communicate your strengths, prove your value and identify significant results in the amount of time it takes to ride an average elevator from the bottom floor to the top floor (under one minute). It is normally difficult to create, but definitely worth the effort. To help ensure your speech is meaningful and impressive, test it out on your friends, family and peers. If they have questions at the end of your speech, start over. An elevator speech should not require clarification.

2. Now that you are able to tell your story, show your story. Create visual representations that will support your short narrative. This will reinforce what you communicate in your elevator speech. I believe one of the most effective ways to do this is by creating a one-page dashboard. By using a variety of charts, graphs, and short bullet points, an effective dashboard provides meaningful visuals of your responsibilities and accomplishments. Examples include: the number of employees/projects/square feet/customers you manage compared to your peers, savings compared to budget, improving trends as a result of your management, market comparisons, and the status of your initiatives. Some of the best things about a dashboard is that it may be updated regularly, shared easily, provide continuous visibility to your achievements and – based on personal experience – executives love it.

3. Make the ordinary extraordinary. Use creative language that speaks to your target market. For example, are you a parking attendant or a parking ambassador? Do you run a car wash or an auto spa? Do you work at a help desk or a customer service center? Making these simple changes will not only reflect your true intentions and change perception, it will help motivate team members to raise standards and achieve desired results.

4. Strategically conduct your activities. Use a planned approach when conducting routine tasks and special projects. Manage assignments to provide more visibility to yourself and your team. For example, if you are responsible for managing commercial office buildings, part of your responsibility is walking the project to make sure the grounds look spotless. If you know when your customers typically enter/exit the building, deliberately conduct your walks during these times to gain visibility. Although you are not doing anything different than you would normally do, you become more noticeable, accessible and you help create the perception that you are always inspecting your properties; therefore, your properties must always be immaculate.

5. Work for cheerleaders: supervisors who enjoy and look for opportunities to acknowledge employees for their accomplishments. They will motivate you to perform at your highest level and they will frequently promote your achievements to others. They will make you feel like you are adding value by listening to your ideas and suggestions. They will not take credit for your work. They will provide coaching moments behind doors and only portray a positive image in front of others. A cheerleader will also validate the importance of your achievements and help ensure promotions and pay increases come your way.

6. Be a cheerleader. Perception is reality and a good cheerleader makes everything on the team appear to be running smoothly and in the right direction. Cheerleaders outwardly highlight the positives and discuss opportunities for improvement in a private setting.

7. Understand your audience and support their needs. Use their language to market your results. For example, if the goal of your company is to retain the majority of its customers over the next year, you must explain how your activities will help achieve this goal. Let's assume you work in the engineering department and you find a way to save money by operating more efficiently; how will you tie this achievement into the goal of the company? In this situation you might state your result as follows, “I help retain customers by implementing cost-saving initiatives that result in customer satisfaction.” If, however, the goal of your company is to decrease its carbon footprint, you might change your statement as follows, “I help the company decrease its carbon footprint by implementing strategies that allow our facility to operate more efficiently.”

8. Measurable results are desirable results. Find ways to measure your success, so that others can better comprehend and relate to the value you add. For example, in the statement written above, “I help the company decrease its carbon footprint by implementing strategies that allow our facility to operate more efficiently;” you can improve it by saying, “I decreased our annual carbon footprint in 2009 by twenty tons and saved $100,000 in utility costs by running our equipment more efficiently.” You are now speaking the language of executives. You not only enable them to understand your value and relate your contributions to the overall goal, but you also make them look good. This is a story worth sharing.

The items listed above are not gimmicks; they are thoughtful marketing strategies that require planning, development and implementation. When done well, they may provide significant ROI (return on investment). Promoting your strengths and abilities without appearing arrogant requires a thoughtful approach and, of course, substance. If you are unable to sell yourself, it will be nearly impossible for others to do it for you. Applied properly, these tactics can also contribute to the success of team initiatives, the procurement of funds for investments or capital items and the increased sale of goods and services.

Tracy M Perrelle is a Vice President of Operations for a large real estate company in Orange County, CA. She has worked more than 20 years as a business professional in prestigious companies such as: Barnes, Morris, Pardoe & Foster in Washington DC; Ingersol Rand in Colorado Springs, CO; Insignia/ESG in Irvine, CA; and The Irvine Company in Newport Beach, CA.