Try this tip today
Spend more time responding to people and commenting on their social media posts vs. posting your own content. Pay attention to how this affects your engagement metrics (e.g., on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
Do you wish that more people would follow you, enjoy your social media posts, and send you interesting professional opportunities?
Well, last Friday, I hosted a live event with my Invincible Career community, and we discussed that desire. It’s one of many topics we’ve been brainstorming and voting on recently.
For example, here are some of the upcoming ones:
Marketing yourself and showcasing your work.
Strategies for getting promoted.
Handling conflict at work.
Building and maintaining a powerful network.
How to boost or rebuild your confidence.
Dealing with impostor syndrome.
How to avoid or recover from burnout.
How to manage a challenging boss.
Maintaining physical, mental, and emotional health.
Setting and achieving professional goals.
What it takes to succeed at work.
How to deal with challenging coworkers.
Getting better at saying No.
Best ways to find a great new job.
Remote work strategies, tips, and tricks.
Becoming better at public speaking.
Job interview strategies, tips, and tricks.
By the way, if you’re a premium subscriber to this newsletter, you can access my private community and my live events. You can also participate in our Monday office hours every week.
Notice the topic that bubbled to the top: Marketing yourself and showcasing your work.
Obviously, today’s newsletter can’t cover all the details we discussed for over an hour in that Zoom session. But, I want to share a few key points and highlights from the section about marketing yourself so that you can become a magnet for opportunities.
It’s a rich topic that I’ll be offering in a longer 2-hour workshop on “Building the Business of Your Invincible Career” to help you:
Achieve greater success, get ahead, and make more money.
Experience less frustration at work and in future job searches.
Be happier and more fulfilled in your long-term career and life.
If you said, “Yes,” sign up to be notified when I schedule the workshop. Thanks!
Overview
I won’t be able to cover everything that will be part of the 2-hour workshop, but here is a rough outline of what we discussed last week.
Goals
Audience
Brand
Value prop
Pitch
Bio
Your intro
Online presence
Channels
Your message
Schedule
Tools
Success
Let me touch on these and some questions you should ask yourself as you prepare your strategy to get noticed by the right people.
What are your goals?
What do you most want to achieve right now? The whole point of a marketing plan is to capture the attention of the right people who can help you reach your goals (whatever they are).
Now, you may have dozens of goals in mind (e.g., learning how to play guitar, perfecting your soufflé, moving to Portugal). But let’s focus on your professional goals.
You may want to market yourself because you are:
Seeking new job opportunities (i.e., you’re ready to move on from your current employer).
Desiring internal recognition that could lead to a raise or promotion (e.g., from your manager and leadership team).
Looking for industry respect and recognition (e.g., more attention could lead to conference talks and keynotes).
Building an audience on social media and LinkedIn (e.g., Hello serendipity!).
Planning your independence when you launch your new business (e.g., building an audience of potential customers).
What is your most important long-term goal?
How does that translate to your near-term goals?
Who is your audience?
Who do you most want to reach with the content you post on social media, LinkedIn, etc.? Think about the person you wish would read your words and reach out to you.
This could include:
Potential clients or customers.
Industry influencers.
Potential partners.
Hiring managers.
Recruiters.
Publisher.
Media.
Peers.
When you picture the “perfect person” reading your posts, do you have someone in mind? Create a persona that describes this person in substantial detail.
What do you know about this person? Where do they spend their time? What are their biggest issues, problems, and needs?
Now, map your expertise and experience to topics that would interest this ideal audience member.
What is your professional brand?
Just like a business, a professional has a brand. I’m not really talking about “personal branding,” but it is related.
You may not have actively created your professional brand or cultivated one, but you do have a brand.
It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
It’s how past employers talk about you.
It’s how your colleagues describe you.
It’s what sets you apart from your competitors.
Competitors? What competitors?
Well, just like a business, you have competitors, too. You are never the only one who is being considered for a promotion. You are never the only candidate for a job.
Someone is comparing you to others, and your professional brand reflects the attributes that spring to mind. If you take control of your branding, it’s how you can actively differentiate yourself from other people.
What are your strengths?
What are you good at doing?
What are you known for doing well?
What do people say about you?
More importantly, how do you want to be described? What do you want people to remember about you?
You can shape that brand image in others’ minds.
What is your value proposition?
What do you think is your biggest value prop? Why should your desired audience (i.e., that persona) care about what you have to say?
Focus on:
Who you are.
What you do.
Your knowledge, skills, and experience.
That which makes you unique (and more valuable).
The problems you solve.
The employers (or customers) who have those problems.
How would you capture your value proposition in a single sentence?
How do you pitch yourself?
So many things in your professional career will rely on your sales skills. Ewww, sales? I remember not being excited about that word when I was a young designer.
However, you will pitch proposals, recommendations, and even yourself hundreds or thousands of times during the lifetime of your working career. For example:
Selling a recommendation to your team.
Selling a proposal to your boss.
Selling yourself for a promotion.
Selling yourself to land a new job.
This is where the classic “elevator pitch” comes into play. It leverages your single sentence value proposition and expands upon it to create a 30-60 second pitch.
Introduction with your name.
What you do.
Who you help.
How you help them, and the key problems solved.
Your unique value proposition, why they should care, and what makes you special.
A call to action.
What are you trying to achieve (go back to your goals)? How would you pitch yourself to someone who can help you get closer to your goals?
What is your online bio, email intro, etc.?
When it’s written well, your online bios can “sell you” 24x7. People around the world will read the bios on your profiles while you’re sleeping. They are one of the best selling tools that most people underutilize.
The one-sentence value prop and your elevator pitch are great resources for crafting a powerful bio statement and profile summary. This is what people will see when they find you on LinkedIn, Twitter, Discord, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, etc.
Are your bios synchronized, or are many of them out of date? Do your bios represent you how you want to be viewed as a professional?
Of course, some of your online profiles are completely personal and have nothing to do with your working life. Do what you want with those. But your professional bios should help you, not hurt you.
What is your preferred one-sentence bio?
What is your preferred short bio?
What do you want your longer bio to say about you (e.g., for your website About page or LinkedIn’s About section)?
Also, craft a draft email or message you would like people to use when they introduce you to someone (e.g., a friend makes a warm intro to a hiring manager). It should use elements of your bio and elevator pitch.
See? They’re already coming in handy!
Finally, keep track of all of your visual assets (e.g., profile photo, header image, logos) and preferred bio and profile information so you can keep everything up to date across the services you use.
I find it also helps to keep a long list of all the services, accounts, and sites I use for my business (and used to use for my old corporate career). Having that list makes it easier to update everything when you want to change your profile photo, for example. When is the last time you updated your MySpace page? 🤣
What are your primary marketing channels?
Unlike an established business with deep pockets, you must focus your time and energy. You don’t have a dedicated marketing team, IT staff, and PR consultants who can help you publish content in hundreds of online channels.
Where do you want to focus on reaching your primary audience? For many corporate professionals, you’ll probably get the best results if you focus on LinkedIn, Twitter, and a publishing platform or two (e.g., Medium, Substack, your blog, a podcast).
Create a list of your preferred “marketing channels” and track how well they perform for you. This can change over time, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on your analytics (just like a business does).
For example, I recently found that Instagram wasn’t delivering the ROI I want. Sure, it can be fun, but it’s also a time sink. TikTok isn’t much better. The hours I was spending creating and posting content weren’t converting into the attention I need for my business, so I cut my time back considerably.
Wrapping up this sneak peek
I have more content about crafting your messaging, building your “content factory,” how to get the most engagement online, creating your marketing schedule, tools I use, and tracking your personal success metrics.
But I’ll leave those additional lessons for the live workshop. I’ve dumped enough information on you already in this newsletter and podcast episode. I know it’s a lot to absorb and act on!
That’s why the workshop will be helpful. You can ask specific questions during the event and afterward in my Slack community. You’ll also have a workbook you can complete and use as the “operating manual” for the business of your career.
Sign up to be notified when I schedule the workshop for “Building the Business of Your Invincible Career.” Hope to see you there!
By the way, there is a great way you can support my work without spending any money on a premium subscription:
📣 Recommending my newsletter on social media!
It only takes a few seconds, and it helps grow my business so I can continue making time to write it.
I’ll even provide some copy and paste text to make it easy to share on Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Thanks in advance!
I've been enjoying the Invincible Career newsletter by Larry Cornett (@cornett). If you want to get ahead at work and be happier in your job, but you aren’t subscribed yet, you’re missing out.
https://newsletter.invinciblecareer.com
Larry Cornett is a Personal Coach who can help you optimize your career, life, and business. If you’re interested in starting a business or side hustle someday (or accelerating an existing one), check out his “Employee to Solopreneur” course (launching later this year).
Larry lives in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with his wife and children, and a gigantic Great Dane. He does his best to share advice to help others take complete control of their work and life. He’s also on Twitter @cornett.
How to Market Yourself to Get the Attention You Want and Deserve (Issue #400)