Selling Yourself and Why Is It Effective
What does it mean to sell yourself?
Why do you even want to sell yourself in the first place?
And lastly why is it effective?
All of these similarly structured questions about selling yourself might have popped up after you click on this article. You might also wonder what does selling yourself mean in this context.
Well consider yourself lucky or unlucky depends on what you get after reading this article.
“The average person gets 561% more engagement sharing a brand message than when that same brand message is shared by a company on social media. The average employee has ten times the amount of followers as their company on social media.”
“The future of branding is personal” -Talaya Waller on TEDxPSU
Now what does that mean exactly?
Its pretty simple really, people trust people more than they trust brand. We interact a lot more frequently on people than we do with brands.
Selling yourself is the key if you wanted to be known. Personal branding matters more now than ever.
Again we trust people more than we trust brands.
Well you might ask “What are the benefits?”
“There are three important benefits of having a strong personal brand. You lead more, you win more, and you earn more.”
-Ann Bastianelli on TEDxWabashCollege
The following section will be quoted directly from Ann Bastianelli talk on Powerful Personal Branding which you can find here:
You Lead More
Because people think they know who you are authentically, so they follow you more enthusiastically and they get more people to follow you.
There’s a saying that goes “Whom you don’t know, you do not love”
Where in this case makes perfect sense. People can only love you or admire you once they know who you are. They are more willing to trust you and let you lead them, once they know who you are.
Powerful and good personal branding will help people to get to know you.
You Win More
Because life is really just a lot of negotiation one right after another. Whether you are trying to get into grad school, or you are trying to negotiate a new starting salary, or even an argument with your significant other.
It’s important to know what the other person truly values in you. Then you can negotiate from a position of confidence and not fear.
You Earn More
When you have a strong personal brand you earn 10–25% more earnings every year.
For perspective a business school graduate earn $52,000 a year on average. 25% more than that is $65,000 a year.
Especially when you know the 2/3 of lifetime wage growth occurs in the first ten years of a career.
What if a 40 year business career that initial difference blows up to something like $500,000.
How do we start?
What can we do to strengthen our personal brand?
Get to Know About Yourself
If you wanted to build a strong personal brand, firstly you need to know about yourself.
What can you do?
What are your advantages?
You might think that “I can do this and that, but I’m not certain on having advantages than other people”
If that’s your case then I suggest you talk or chat your colleagues, friends, or even acquaintances and ask them “What is it like to be friends or work with me?” “What do you think are my advantages?”
Self awareness of your capabilities are important, but receiving inputs by other people might give you a different perspective that you really need.
Let People Know What You Can Do
This doesn’t mean screaming or telling people in the face that you can do this and do that.
There are a lot more subtle ways to tell people what you can do.
Example.
Share that recent project that you’ve done with your friend on LinkedIn. Tell your stories on how you decided to work on this project and how it ended.
Your projects don’t have to be perfect or innovative enough it might change the world. The fact that you made it is good enough for you to publicize it in your social media.
Progress over perfection.
Don’t wait until you created possibly a million dollar start-up. Share now, let your timeline becomes your progress tracker.
Deepen Your Relationship with People
How?
Ask that senior student on how to prepare for next semester (What kinds of things you need to learn ahead). Ask your friend if they need help with their projects. Or even have a casual chat about Elon Musk and his tactics on Bitcoin.
These simple steps are one of those things where you might not realize the impact in the first place, but it exist.
Getting to know new people is also a way to deepen your relationship. From non-existent to perhaps an acquaintances.
They might not need you in the first five years of you knowing them. But in the future? who knows.
Knowing the right people will help in parts of your life. But deepening your relationship with them might get you further in life.
In Conclusion
Selling yourself works and it works pretty effective considering all the benefits that it gives. And to do it is not that hard either considering you putting in the time to do it. All the steps that lead you on building your strong personal branding will only benefit you one way or the other.
“You are always being evaluated, you are always being interviewed for things that may not even exist today.” -Ann Bastianelli
So in conclusion get to know yourself, share that project you’ve been working on, ask that senior programmer how did he land that job.
And maybe the next time you open your medium history, after your LinkedIn have been swarming with private messages asking you to be their speaker in the upcoming seminar. You’ll look on this article and say “I’m glad I decided to sell myself that day”
