Why you’re resisting self-marketing and how to make it a priority.
If you've ever attended one of my #IamRemarkable workshops, you'll likely recognize this question:
What might happen if you dedicated ONE hour a week to your self-marketing?
60 minutes. That's it.
Self-marketing (or self-promotion) is one of those things that ends up in the “Important but not Urgent" box in the Eisenhower Matrix for many reasons.
8 reasons why people don’t prioritize self-marketing:
After coaching people around their career and businesses for nearly a decade, I’ve identified 8 reasons why people don’t prioritize self-marketing.
1) You don’t like talking about yourself. Getting attention makes you deeply uncomfortable, so you avoid drawing attention to yourself.
2) Even if you don’t mind visibility, you don’t know how to frame your experience and expertise in a succinct, memorable way.
3) You don’t feel “expert enough” to talk about your skills and experience. I call this “Hiding Until Expert.” It’s where you wait around for someone to call you [the title] or “expert” before claiming it for yourself. Only - no one ever does.
4) You’re scared you’ll look stupid, get called out on something you said/posted, get cancelled, and/or seem full of yourself. You care about what other people think.
5) Similarly, you want people to like you and don’t want to risk the possibility of having them think poorly of you by taking up space and giving yourself credit (even if you’ve earned it).
7) You’ve never needed to market yourself before. You’ve always managed to get a job and other opportunities through your network and word-of-mouth.
8) You like your work and you’re satisfied with your job. You aren’t planning to make any career changes anytime soon.
Do any of those reasons sound familiar? Does one stick out to you as to why you’re not making self-marketing a priority?
No judgment! I resist self-marketing because of one or two of these reasons every single day. That said, I have developed tools to work through it and I’m advocating for you to work through this resistance, too. And here’s why.
Why I want you to prioritize self-marketing:
1) No job is ever guaranteed. Employees and entrepreneurs alike face great uncertainty when it comes to earning an income. Contracts fall through. Lay offs happen. Toxic work situations happen. So rather than wait until self-marketing goes from “important” to “URGENT!,” my recommendation is to do a little bit of self-marketing every week. That way, when the time comes that you need support, your network and community already knows about what your skills and background are.
2) It will make you a more confident person. Truly. When you start putting yourself out there, you give people an opportunity to share what they think about you. This feedback is often kinder than the harsh words you likely say to yourself. You are your own worst critic. (We all are.) It’s what leads you to use self-deprecating humor when you get a compliment. It leads you to not correct people when they mispronounce your name. And not apply to that job you think is awesome.
As you start to put yourself out there, you give others an opportunity to cheer you on. Knowing people have your back gives you confidence. It will also encourage you to own your achievements (and keep track of them).
That said - I’m not here to gaslight you. There can be negative consequences to self-marketing. You may have personally experienced these consequences. And there’s a term for them. They’re called Backlash Effects. Coined by two social psychologists, Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan, “Backlash Effects are defined as social and economic reprisals for behaving counterstereotypically.” This includes self-promotion for women and people in the Global Majority.
“In India, it’s crabs in a bucket — the one who tries to escape is pulled down by his compatriots. In Australia, it’s tall poppies — and the tallest one gets its head whacked off. In Japan, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Almost every culture has its own metaphor about what happens to people who are judged by their peers to be overreaching.”
- Dorie Clark & Andy Molinsky
Here’s what I believe: you can maintain your integrity and promote yourself at the same time. Every single one of us will have a unique style because we come from different cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences.
If you’d like to dive further into this, I encourage you to come to one of my #IamRemarkable workshops. They’re free and happen every month.
So hopefully I’ve convinced you that less resisting and more prioritizing self-marketing time is a positive thing - for your self-confidence, your career (and life) opportunities, and your overall well-being. To help nudge you to schedule (and stick to) that 60 minutes a week, here are 10 ideas of what you can get done during that self-marketing time.
10 Ideas for Your 60-Minutes of Self-Marketing Time:
1. Update your LinkedIn profile with a friend.
Chances are you have a friend who also needs to update their LinkedIn profile. Schedule a time with them to meet virtually. Spend the first 30 minutes on individual work time and the last 30 minutes on editing/giving feedback to each other.
Once your LinkedIn profile is updated, sign up for LinkedIn Bingo and start engaging more on LinkedIn.
2. Set up a meeting with your manager to talk about your professional development.
Use the first few minutes to find a time with your manager, then spend the rest of the 60 minutes to reflect on this question:
What are my hopes for my career in the next 1-2 years? What specific impact do I want to make and what skill(s) will I need to have to make it happen?
Here are more questions to get you to be more specific and clear about your career growth.
3. Research upcoming events (in-person and virtual) that support one of your learning goals.
This could be advancing a particular skill, meeting new people, showing support to a colleague or someone you admire and want to strengthen a connection with. Sign-up for a next event before the hour is up.
4. Find someone on LinkedIn that you’d like to amplify by reposting their content with your thoughts.
Share what it is that stuck out to you in their content. Tag people you think would find the content interesting. If appropriate, you might tag the person’s supervisor or someone they're trying to influence. You could always ask them!
Read: What’s an Amplification Buddy and How to Find One
5. Research awards that happen in your industry and nominate yourself.
Did you know that people nominate themselves for awards? It’s pretty common! It’s also common to ask someone to nominate you (if self-nomination isn’t possible).
During your 60-minute self-marketing session, research 1-2 awards that you can nominate yourself for. If you don't get to the self-nomination part, schedule it during your next work session.
6. Ask a colleague/supervisor to write you a recommendation on LinkedIn.
7. Find a couple podcasts to pitch yourself for.
Being interviewed on a podcast is a great way to build credibility in your area. If you’re interested in getting interviewed on a podcast about a specific topic, set up a profile on Matchmaker.fm.
Then, find a couple podcasts to pitch yourself to. Tip: it’s good to set up a time to listen to the podcasts before you pitch yourself to make sure you’re a good match.
8. Pitch yourself to publications.
Sign-up for sourcebottle.com and/or helpareporter.com to find journalists/reporters looking for experts around topics that you know a lot about. If you find a match, pitch yourself for an article. Tip: Write your pitch as if you’ve already been chosen. You don’t have to give all your good stuff away, but sometimes they will use exactly what it is that you’ve submitted.
9. Make a list of your recent wins and achievements.
Think about all the steps and milestones you've had. The compliments you've received. This is YOUR list. No one else will see it. Keep the list somewhere convenient (like a bookmarked Google doc) so it's easily accessible and you can add to it.
10. Sign-up for a future LunchClub connection call.
These calls can help you practice talking about yourself and meeting new people. And then when the call comes up, the call is your self-marketing for the week.
How to put this self-marketing list into action.
Hopefully there’s an idea or two on this self-marketing list that you’d like to try. I have three recommendations for you to actually make it happen.
Print this list and keep it handy. (Click here to make a copy of the list.)
Set up a recurring block of time each week and copy/paste this list into the calendar event so you can pick one to work on.
Create a WHY goal for self-marketing. What are you hoping will happen as a result of your self-marketing efforts? If you don’t know, then spend 60 minutes reflecting on that question. Who knows where it will take you!
Get a marketing accountability buddy. You’re not the only person who struggles with self-marketing, believe me. Find someone to partner with to create accountability.
