Member Secrets to Success: Promote Yourself with Soundbites
In this blog series FWE&E members share the secrets to their success: incorporate these practical and dynamic strategies to improve your own performance your team’s. Denise Brouillette is a leadership strategist who coaches and consults to leaders in the Fortune 500. To visit Denise’s blog, click here.
I often hear men and women at work talk about how they hate the idea of having to promote their accomplishments just to get their work noticed, and instead wish that the results they deliver could just speak for themselves.
If you’re one of those people, and you’d like to get some attention on your work without having to wait until someone notices you, or without having your update sound like pure self promotion, you can begin using the soundbite strategy for getting your work noticed.
Within the last couple of weeks, how many times have you run into leaders at work who’ve asked, “Hey, how are things going?” or “What’s happening?” and all you were prepared to say was, “great, “fine,” or “not too much” and then hurriedly move on? These chance encounters are your soundbite opportunities – those 15-second responses that give leaders the inside information on what might be of interest to them in your world relative to their world.
Here’s how you can put your soundbite strategy in motion.
1. List the 3 most important people who should know about you/your work/your team’s work and who you’re likely to run into in the hallways, elevator, cafeteria, in a meeting, or elsewhere on your work campus.
2. Next, list the 2-3 high-profile projects you’re working on right now. Catalogue the top 2 recent accomplishments as well as the key 1 or 2 milestones you’re expecting to accomplish and when. These are highlights only – soundbites – not a long list of what’s going on.
3. Then, jot down the professional events you’ll be attending or where you’ve been invited to present or speak, whether inside the company or outside at a professional event, and any important meetings or events you’ve got planned or are facilitating.
4. Finally, get your one or two 15-second soundbites ready for each of the 3 people on your list.
Here’s an example of how well this worked for someone I know. In her words, she wrote: “I was riding in the elevator just this morning and saw a senior leader. He asked, ”What’s up?’ and I said, ‘I’m very excited to be holding our first ever xyz meeting today that covers abc.’ And his response was, ‘Where and when; I’ll be there!’ He showed up and supported me all the way. Amazing! If I hadn’t had my soundbite ready, I would have missed a golden opportunity.”
Not being ready with information that the leaders in your organization would find interesting or useful for their own work is one of the biggest professional mistakes you can make. Because while you’re hurrying on by, many of your co-workers likely are stopping, if only for the moment, to let those leaders in on what’s happening with their projects, with their teams, or what’s new on the horizon. And that’s how they get known and how you might not. When you get your soundbite strategy in place, you can be sure that the next time you run into one of these important leaders and they ask, “Hey, how are things going?” you’ll have a ready response.
