Career Development Archives - CoachOiseau Career Coaching

Five ways to successfully market yourself.

How to Successfully Market Yourself

It’s all about offering value and creating change

Since I started building CoachOiseau Life & Leadership Coaching back in January, 2018, I’ve become a passionate student of the field of marketing. I’m convinced that great marketing is what allows individuals to create change in the world.

Marketing, like sales, tends to get a bad rap. But at its core, marketing is simply a way of communicating ideas of value to the people they benefit.

One of the best books I’ve read on the subject to date is Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid, which delivers a great blend of strategic and tactical advice for people marketing their services. But it can also teach you how to market yourself whether it’s for a job you want, a relationship you’d love to have, or any other interpersonal endeavour.

We’re going to dive into five of Book Yourself Solid’s strategies – Direct Outreach, Networking, Referral Marketing, Speaking and Writing – and how you can apply them to your own life in order to get what you want or create the change you’d like to see.

Emotions are what really drive us toward our goals.

The Real Motivation Behind Your Goals

There’s always more than what meets the eye

“I want to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year,” you tell yourself.

“In three years from now, I’d like to be on a 3-month backpacking trip around Europe,” comes another objective from your mouth.

“When my Corolla’s lease ends in two years, I’d like to upgrade to a BMW sedan!”

These all seem like fairly simple outcome goals on the surface, but are they really?

Process and outcome goals work together to help drive overall results.

Goals: Process Versus Outcome

A well-constructed goal can change your life

Goal setting is a topic that gets a lot of attention in the personal and professional development space. It was one of many areas of focus when I was becoming a certified coach, and goals themselves often become key points of importance for leaders of teams and organizations.

It makes sense, right? Goals can help to move people in a certain direction that aligns with the interests of the greater good.

But goals often end up being better in theory than in practice. And part of that often comes from not understanding the difference between outcome and process goals.

Does your set of professional skills resemble a general store?

Is Your Career Like a General Store?

Depth over breadth?

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking through the general store of a small, rural Ontario town. It was amazing to see the variety of products in this one-person shop.

Non-perishable groceries, household hardware, beer…even a 16-flavour ice cream stand!

I stopped for a moment to pay particular attention to what the store was offering in terms of plumbing parts. The selection sat on a stack of three shelves, about one metre wide.

“Interesting,” I said to myself, “I could maybe fix a few basic plumbing issues with this gear, but would struggle to tackle the bigger, more expensive issues.”

More advanced parts would have to be bought elsewhere. And with my (very) limited plumbing skills, the more complex, valuable and expensive work would have to be done through someone else. I’d need the help of a true hardware store and a real plumber in a lot of cases.

Here’s the $64 000 question: does your career resemble the general store, or is it a specialty store?