Self promotion comes easily for some, but difficult for most. Many professionals who are top performers are often terrible at “tooting their own horn.” The biggest worry people have is coming off boasting too much. However, by not doing enough self-promotion, you would be do yourselves a disservice to your own skills and accomplishments.
There are actually many ways to self promote without boasting. Here are 3 self promotion ideas I wrote about before. Today I will tell you one more that anyone can follow and literally you don’t even have to say anything about yourself directly :-). Here is how.
One Simple Self-Promotion Idea
I got an unexpected email this week from a direct report. All she wrote was “For your files” on the subject line and nothing in the content. I was at first confused, but then I saw a cropped copy of a text a colleague wrote her on Microsoft Teams basically thanking her for her leadership on a recent launch we had. It went into some more detail about how it couldn’t have happened without her.
This was a perfect example of smart self-promotion.
- She did great work and was appreciated by her tech partners.
- Her partners then wrote her an informal thank you via Teams
- She then forwarded it to me, her manager, so I can see it first hand and also saved it as a reference.
I have a folder in outlook for each of my directs where I gather any and all feedback sent to me related to their performance. It just makes it easier when I need to complete year-end evaluations.
How to Apply This for Yourself
This is something you can do as well. As long as you have received a praise or appreciation in a written form, even if it’s an informal text, you can screen print it, crop it and forward it on to your manager. A good manager is always looking for direct evidence of your high performance. This can only help.
If you haven’t done this before but want to try it, you can still forward something that was sent to you say 3 to 6 months ago, especially if your performance is evaluated at an annual cycle. Anything sent to you in that time frame is fair game. If the comments were not recent, you can aggregate a few of them and then just sent an intro to your manager. Something like “since it’s near year end evaluations, I wanted to forward some appreciations I have received from partners for your files. Hope they help.” Make sure what you forward is a screen capture or email forward. It’s less powerful and can raise questions if you typed up the comments yourself.
An Advanced Self Promotion Tip
If you want to take a step further, also consider opportunities to recognize others if they have been a great partner to you. The best way to do that is to email their manager and copy the partner. That will win you points with your partner and build your reputation with their manager as it’s a indirect opportunity to introduce yourself and be known to that manager. Sometimes, that action for a colleague can also be received in kind. He or she may just choose to do the same for you and also write to your manager. Of course, you shouldn’t do it expecting that in return. Your praise need to be authentic and without any expectations. Sending it in itself also help you promote your reputation.
Self promotion is always part of your job, even if it’s never written in any job description. It’s perhaps easier than you think to practice self promotion. Hope this simple idea can add to your self promotion activities or get you started. Best wishes!
Your comments: Will you try it out? I hope so. I look forward to your questions and comments.
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I am always in your corner.
Lei