How To Promote Yourself

Understanding Your Professional Reputation

As a salesperson, do you know specifically how you are perceived by your management and your peers? Forget about your quota attainment, what do the people within your company think about you? If your management or peers were at a bar and someone said, “What do you think about Michael? or “What is Michael like to work with?” would you know what they would say? If you do, is it WHAT you would want them to say?

The First Step to Self-Assessment

If you aren’t 100% positive about what the answer would be, then the first step is to assess what kind of rep you are, or what kind of sales manager for that matter, because this applies to you as well. There are five kinds of salespeople and you can quickly figure out which one you are by how you react whenever you have a challenge or a problem.

The Five Types of Salespeople

The first type is the one whose first reaction is to run to their boss and say, “We’ve got a problem!” I call this type of salesperson “The sky is falling” because that is the way everything is with them – problems that aren’t really problems – they are just THINGS and they haven’t done the first thing to address them.

The second group is a little better than the first. They are the salespeople who have identified the problem is really a problem, not just an issue, but they aren’t sure what to do.

The salesperson in the third group is the one who says, “I have this problem, I think I know what I have to do, but I need some direction.” Now we are getting somewhere because at least they are THINKING!

People in group four are those who go to their management and say, “Hey, I have this problem (notice that they didn’t say ‘we have this problem’) “I have this problem, and here is what I’m doing.”

And the fifth group is very similar, except they tell their management after the fact. “Hey, I had this problem, and this is what I did”. They are usually asking for forgiveness instead of permission.

Self-Improvement Through Self-Reflection

So ask yourself - which group do you fall into? If you aren’t where you should be or want to be, then here are three simple questions you should ask yourself every single time before you go to your management for assistance:

1. Is this really a problem? Is it really worth going to my management with this?
2. What outcome am I looking for? What is the ideal answer or solution I’m hoping to achieve?
3. “Have I done everything possible to resolve this? If I think this is a problem worth pursuing, and I know my ideal outcome, what have I done to address it?”

You MUST start consciously looking at things this way if you want to improve at all levels of your selling and be viewed by others as someone who is really valuable to the organization.

Elevating Your Professional Status

Here’s something you can do to REALLY make sure how you are perceived by management and instantly increase your status. Schedule a 10-minute meeting with your manager, or better yet - your manager’s manager, and tell them you went through this exercise, and ask for their assessment of you. Tell them how you rated yourself and now you want to see if they perceive you the same way.

If the thought of doing that scares the crap out of you, then you really need to do it because the outcome of doing it will be extremely valuable to you – I promise. There will be no downside, I promise, and you will INSTANTLY elevate and promote yourself.