3 Steps to Easier Self-Promotion & Lessons from a Lustrous Pearl

TLDR: All your life you’ve been adding skills (like layers of a pearl) around the central heart of who you are. Add a layer of self-promotion skills by using your Business Savvy to inform others about your contributions to the business. Don‘t reject the idea of self-promotion because you’re afraid this new skill will make you seem "like a man." As I‘ve said before, speaking Italian won't make you an Italian.

Have you ever felt invisible?

Here's an important lesson brought to you by pearls!

It used to frustrate me when my “touchy feely” colleagues would liken the personal growth journey to peeling an onion.

“That makes no sense,” I’d say. "When you’re done peeling the onion, there is nothing left! Growth and learning is about adding layers. It's more like how a pearl grows."

This memory came flooding back when Tara (name changed) wrote to me and asked:

Tara: Your post around ‘bragging’ resonated with me very much. To be frank, that’s my main problem…

I am invisible because I can’t self promote. I get great pay but there are limited career paths for me unless I get more visibility. 

I would love my work to speak for itself, I did close $XX billion of business in the past 2.5yrs…more than any regional collagues. I am not naive enough to think it speaks for itself though. There is a bunch of old white men pushing each other at the door to grab that attention.”

Susan: Your question beautifully illustrates the point that there's a difference between developing business savvy and demonstrating it.

You have the business savvy. You wrote, "I did close 4.2B$ of business in the past 2.5yrs… more than any regional collagues."  

As I write in the "The Secret that Turns 7 Common Career Tips from Flawed to Fabulous," if you want to self-promote with ease (grace and authenticity, too) it's all about giving voice to your contributions to the business. As you did in your message. BRAVA!!

But you might not think that's self-promotion and so you say you don’t self-promote and that you choose to not self-promote on the assumption that you would have to change your personality.

I'd like to offer a different viewpoint. I call it

Learn and Grow with a Pearl in Mind

Just as at the center of the pearl lies a speck of sand - its heart, at the heart of who we are rest our race (if you consider that a real concept), native nation and language, life experiences up to that moment, the conscious and unconscious lessons we’ve learned from them, our innate talents and genetically programmed capacities.  

These are unchangeable.

Pretty much everything else can change - our values can change over time, our gender identities can change and even the manifestations of what we think of as our "personality" can change with skill development.

For example, by nature I have a strong preference for introversion. But people who've been in my classes often think my personality is extraverted because I've taken my innate warmth and passion for helping and turned them into ways of being engaging. That's one example of how I have added leaves to the heart of my artichoke.

Over our lifetimes, we're always adding layers to the heart of our pearl. We learn to ride a bike, we learn algebra (me, not so much), we learn Spanish or to write code, make a sales call or give performance feedback.

Our heart hasn't changed but we become bigger and more lustrous versions of ourselves as we add each layer.

If you add the practice of letting others know about your contributions to the business, your heart hasn't changed, you've expanded your range of skills. The important thing is to find a way of doing it that works for you, and doesn't exactly mimic the braggadocio that you see around you.

You don't have to start big. You can take baby steps, e.g. an informal pop in to your boss's office or a quick DM, "Hey I want you to know that I closed the XYZ company deal yesterday. It's a a boost of $xxx to our top line revenue this quarter."

Go forth and herald your contributions to the business. You will be glad you did.

So, that’s my guidance about thinking of growth and learning as being like a pearl.

I hope it helps you continue to grow into the highly flexible, super skilled, WOW woman you are meant to be.

The secret to Self-Promotion with ease, grace and authenticity lies in your Business Savvy.

If one of your challenges is to get better at self-promotion, remember that It’s always graceful when you are explaining your contributions to the business, it’s authentic when you own your contributions and it’s easy when you understand your Positional Purpose.

What's a Woman to Do?

Here are 3 steps you can take to add that layer:

1. Begin to develop or enhance your business savvy (business, financial and strategic acumen)
2. Use your business savvy to track your contributions to the business based on your Positional Purpose
3. Add another layer. Begin to share you contributions to the business using The Language of Power
   

Repeat 2 - 3 until you can say, “I’m good enough at self-promotion.” Remember, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress!”

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Coming to you from a wonderful tapas bar in Amsterdam.

Be Business Savvy!

Susan

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#SelfPromotion #Artichoke #Braggadocio

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