It’s that time in the calendar where we reflect on what worked well over the past 12 months and set goals for the coming year. You’ll probably include sales goals, maybe a strategy plan, team objectives, all the usual things. I’m going to throw another goal into the mix – raising your profile.
You can’t have failed to spot references to profile raising or personal branding all over social media. You might find the term a bit cringey, maybe it’s not ‘you’, you just don’t know where to start, or you can’t find the time to get going.
But I want to tell you that it is worth it. As someone who has seen the benefits of this as a strategy in my first business, I’m a big fan. When I focused on activities that raised my profile, I found that it was easier to get meetings with people, close sales and attract fun opportunities. You might find the idea of ‘self promotion’ uncomfortable but get past that and the returns will be worth it.
The starting point with raising your profile is being honest about where it is now. We have a free assessment quiz on our website that will give you a score for each element of your profile.
This checklist is also useful for you to use as an audit and will give you some goals to add to that 2023 plan:
- What does google say about you? Ideally you want to come up on page one and for the search results to be positive across a variety of platforms. If your name is a common one, this can be more of a challenge, and you might want to think about adding your middle name or initial in future to stand out.
- Are you active on the right social media platforms? There is usually one platform that is better for your industry than the others. Are you on there as a contributor or a lurker? No prizes for guessing you need to post and engage with others consistently to get results.
- When were you last featured in the press? The media love to hear about big wins – stories about impressive new clients, significant business growth, or an innovative product launch are things that you should be pitching to journalists.
- Are you speaking at the right events? The power of being heard is massive. You can enjoy the promotional opportunities in the run up to speaking plus the connections you make via networking with attendees can pay dividends.
- Have you entered any awards this year? Awards are great for showcasing your team, your clients and yourself. Some awards are better than others so think about which ones are worth applying for. The newly launched EB100 is a great one to look at for 2023!
I hope you’ve found a few ideas here that resonate and are ready to turn them into objectives. Speaking from experience, committing to raising your profile will lead to new business enquiries, fun experiences, and meeting interesting people. Who doesn’t want more of that in 2023?
