The “Strategic Approach” to career management that I promote stresses the importance of being able to “sell yourself” as the best solution to an organisation’s needs.
In today’s economy, it helps if you think of yourself as being just like a small business. And the success of your business in the market depends on two things:
- What you have to offer, and
- How well you market and sell it to the right people.
Nowadays, you are selling to a very sophisticated market. As you may have noticed, employers tend to be focused on getting a good return on their investment – and they’re generally good at doing so.
Your career, not your house or your share portfolio, is your biggest investment. It’s the one that makes all the others possible. As with all investments, your return will be commensurate with your level of skill in managing it.
The value you offer to the market is intangible, and selling a complex, intangible product to a sophisticated buyer is at the pinnacle of sales difficulty.
To get the best “Return On Effort” that your investment in your career deserves, you need to become the best salesperson possible for the value you offer.
The need for this mindset and skillset may not always be obvious. But the reality is, if you don’t market and sell yourself well at every stage of the process, you will probably never know how much more you could have gained by doing so.
In my next post, I’ll share with you the 7 steps to selling yourself effectively as the best solution to an organisation’s needs.
