Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

This post’s title is not a play on words. It refers to the need for more business owners to use Self Promotion to boost their marketing efforts.

Henry J. Kaiser reportedly once said:

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interupt.”

I agree. And I also believe one should explore ways to make it speak as loudly as possible, for the target audience to “hear” it.

Every serious minded person in business should practise self promotion without inhibition. I offer insights you can use, by drawing from my personal experiences.

How To Make Your Work Speak For Itself

The products or services you deliver to buyers constitute your “work”. Everytime you do “it” the value it is perceived by others to provide determines whether or not your work speaks for itself.

To put it another way, when your work makes others give you good reviews, referrals, or endorsements, then it means it speaks for itself.

Note that this would happen spontaneously most times. People will typically offer such positive feedback without being asked, and could even go out of their way to endorse you and/or your products and services.

Getting people to respond as described above requires diligent investment of quality time and effort in creating a uniquely positive and satisfying experience for anyone you relate with.

Never take anything for granted. Strive everyday to make your “work” better than yesterday’s. Put all your heart and soul into delivering something that will blow your recipient’s mind away anytime she comes into contact with it. Burt Dubin calls it creating a “Wow!” experience.

I would say you should aim to get everyone who comes in contact with your “work” to say “Wow!”. That amounts to making your work speak for itself. And if you can make that happen often, your success would be inevitable..

That’s what people who achieve and maintain long term success do.

How To Turn Up The Volume, When Your Work Speaks

Once you’ve mastered the art of making your work speak for itself, you need to make sure everyone can hear it whenever it does.

I say this because depending on the kind of work you do, and how/where you do it, your work may speak but it could be inaudible because it’s whispering!

One example: As a writer you can be exceptionally gifted in producing top class write-ups to meet agreed deadlines. Those you work for are likely to appreciate this and give you rave reviews and even repeat business.

But if you do not own a website from which to showcase your amazing written works and testimonials, you effectively reduce the “voice” of your “speaking work” to a whisper.

As you know, people’s attention gets drawn where the loudest “noise” is coming from. In the 21st century, that place happens to be the Internet. This means you can cheaply, quickly and easily create your own place on it, where your work can be better “heard” as it “speaks”.

Doing so will make it easy to turn up the volume as the need arises. For instance each time you write a new book you could put up a free preview on your website so more people get to hear it loud and clear.

When you add testimonials and positive reviews given by others to the book and on the website, you’d be turning up the volume even more.

And you could also send out free samples or complimentary copies of your book to thought leaders in your niche.

If your work so impresses them that they say “Wow!” and go on to talk about you to their network of fans admirers, you would have further boosted the “speaking volume” – and more people would “hear”!

Over time, as you repeat this process, you’ll win greater recognition for your efforts, as well as the accompanying rewards.

Final Words: Use A Website(With a Blog) To Turn Up The Volume

Self Promotion involves telling others the good things you can do for them, to help them get what they want.

It’s a form of marketing. And every business needs that.

As long as it is done with enthusiasm and in a manner that does not offend fair and mature minded others, there’s nothing wrong with doing self promotion.

Some people try to be too modest or humble with respect to what they do. So they shy away from using this strategy. But that’s rarely a wise thing to do.

Burt Dubin, on a live radio program shared a quote attributed to the great Napoleon that reads as follows:

“Modesty is for people who have something to be modest about.” – Napoleon

You need to acknowledge your true capabilities so that you can be a blessing to others. Playing small will not help you do that. And your creator would not want you to diminish yourself out of fear or exaggerated humility.

If you want people to choose you over others who do what you do, you can either talk a lot or let your work do more of the talking for you.

The latter option is often a smarter and more effective strategy because it saves you a lot of time and effort, and stress!

Instead you are able to pour useful energy into your work so that it makes the best possible impact on all who come into contact with it.

And ultimately, their positive responses will become the material you use to further promote your work or to “turn up the volume” for more people to discover you

So go get your website, start writing articles on your subject using a blogging tool like WordPress on it. Aim for quality pieces that qualify to be called “epic” or “pillar” content, to turn up your work’s speaking volume.

NB: This applies to virtually any business type. There is hardly any product or service that will not benefit from having a website – that has a blog.

Write guest posts to make your “work” talk even louder from other people’s websites.

Keep doing the above diligently, no matter how slowly you may seem to be progressing.

Over time, you’ll be rewarded with attention from your target audience and the search engines.

And your work will not only be talking louder, but it will also make others start talking – excitedly – about you.

The above process was what led Patrick Meninga to become a famous blogger “overnight” (actually over a 5 year period) by earning $2,000 a month in adsense income from Spiritualriver.com, and then selling it for $200,000.

Read this post for 10 lessons you can learn about how to do what he did. (You’ll also get a Free PDF that contains a verbatim transcript I created of a podcast interview of Patrick journey to success that was done by Yaro Starak in 2012.)