Peggy Klaus (8 page)

DON’T LET YOUR NUMBERS DO ALL THE TALKING

“All I need is to deliver the numbers. They speak for themselves!”

How many times have you sat in a weekly status meeting and heard people moan and groan about the issues they are facing in trying to achieve their goals and objectives? In your next meeting, try something completely different. Share your successes and the tough spots you’ve turned golden. Do it once, and I can guarantee that your bragging campaign will hit high gear and immediately begin to earn dividends that will pay out over time.

“What’s the point, Peggy?” asks Gwen, a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry. “My bosses see my numbers, and that’s all they want to hear about—that I’ve met the goals.” I respond, “People like to learn from others how they have overcome obstacles. It’s one of the best bragging tools in your arsenal.” At my urging, Gwen kept a running log every day for the next week. She looked beyond the numbers, and started to write down in detail how she managed to win accounts. At her next meeting, recalling one of her recent victories, she explained to the group how she had worked on one big client for nearly two years:

He had been on the fence for so long. Many times I was ready to give up, but every month I got in a call, just to banter and check on what he was up to and how business was going. When I saw news clip or a research report that I thought would be of interest, I sent it his way. Suddenly last week, out of the blue, I got a call from him. He had just received the funding he needed, and bingo, I was the first person he contacted. To everyone here, who feels frustrated, remember to keep plugging away. Persistence pays off.

For the next six months, Gwen kept to this positive tone in her weekly status meetings. Before she knew it, her bosses were thinking of her as a “beyond the numbers” kind of gal. In fact, the way she inspired the group had the markings of a good manager and leader. And when one of her bosses was promoted, he recommended that she fill his shoes.

BREAK THE ICE

“Put me in front of five thousand people, but please don’t make me go to one of those corporate cocktail events!”

Ask ten people what they dread most in business, even more than public speaking, and high on their list will be attending office social affairs or networking events where they know few of the other guests. One of my clients, an Alec Baldwin look-alike, works for a major oil and gas company and has just returned from a two-year assignment in Russia overseeing a new operation. He’s funny and charming—a man of many words—until he walks into a crowded room, and then suddenly all the life is sucked out of him. He becomes, in a word, speechless. The feelings he describes are similar to what I’ve heard from many other clients: “Dread. I feel like a lone animal in the wilderness. I can’t think of anything to say. It’s hard enough for me to even talk to people I know, and now you’re telling me I have to brag to perfect strangers?”

But social phobia can be overcome. As I told Mr. Oil and Gas, set an objective that’s not too daunting. Make a promise with yourself that you will make contact with three people. There are all sorts of easy tricks you can use to break the ice. One is to acknowledge the elephant in the room—that is, to announce to the person next to you in the buffet line that you know absolutely no one and that it’s at these times you think to yourself “Why did I ever decide to leave home?” By being candid and upfront, you are taking the charge out of the uncomfortable situation, creating a very real and honest ground on which to extend the conversation. Another way is to go over and say to someone, “You look about as unfamiliar with this as I am.” On an elevator filled with other people attending the same event, try striking up a conversation with one of them, so when you enter the event you don’t feel so alone. Besides, by the time you get into the room you will probably still be talking and will likely end up sitting with the person and being introduced to his contacts.

After you get beyond breaking the ice, the opportunities for promoting yourself will flow if you’re prepared. For Mr. Oil and Gas, we worked on several brag bites, his favorite being “I would gladly take the tundra any day over wearing a black tie.” It all comes back to a simple premise: The more people who know who you are and what you do the better, because you never know where opportunity is going to come from. To be a successful self-promoter you need to adopt schmoozing and cruising as a way of business, a way of surviving, and a way of getting ahead. Think of it as a career maker or breaker.

“But … do I really need to brag 24/7?”

Like the Scouts, be prepared … to toot at any time. That doesn’t mean, however, that you do it
all
the time or that you do it at inappropriate times or places. You do it when it feels comfortable. And learning how to make it feel more comfortable is what this book is all about.

MAKE IT MEANINGFUL

“I’ve sat in on way too many business pitches where the presenters are focused entirely on themselves and their accomplishments.”

Bryan, a fifty-something financial consultant based in New York City, is working on a new business pitch for the director of a family foundation in the Boston community. I asked Bryan to let me hear how he was going to introduce himself and his team members. After he finished, I wished I hadn’t asked. What I got was a three-minute, nonstop chronological recap of where and with whom on Wall Street he had worked since college. After Bryan brought me up to his present job, he then tortured me with another two minutes devoted to the other members of his pitch team. It had to rank as one of the top-ten most boring introductions I had ever heard.

I asked Bryan how what he just said related to the potential client. In other words, why should this person care? “Well, obviously it shows that I’ve been in the business a long time and worked with a lot of good firms and people, and that I have the experience,” he replied.

While all that was true, I gently broke the news that the excellent recall of his career didn’t speak to who he was, how he collaborated with clients, and how his past successes directly related to the prospect’s situation. And worse than all of that, he left out the most important fact. The prospect wanted a financial adviser with strong ties to the Boston community, but Bryan forgot to mention that he was a native of the area, that he had attended both graduate and undergraduate school in Boston, and that his ninety-three-year-old mother, as well as all his relatives, lived within a fifteen-mile radius of the foundation’s office!

“Geez, how could I have overlooked something so simple?” Bryan asked with his head hung low. He took a deep breath, straightened up, smiled, and started again:

Hello, everyone. I want to thank you for having us up here today. My ninety-three-year-old mother, who still lives in my childhood home in Waltham, says thank you. My coming here on business means that she now gets to have her son take her to her favorite restaurant. Actually, many of us are natives of the area. I went to Brandeis and got an MBA from Tufts. Henry grew up in Wooster, crossed the state line to go to Brown for a few years, and he heads up our office here. Both of us have had a lot of experience working with private family foundations of varying sizes. We have helped families who are in the beginning stages—as yours is—in determining the focus, setting up the organization, hiring the personnel and acting as consultant once the foundation is up and running. This is all in addition to our financial responsibilities of…

It’s amazing to me how often people dash off to new-business presentations without spending the time to really think through how what they are going to say is of benefit to the prospective clients and customers. ‘Your bragging campaign will completely flop if you don’t serve up yourself and your credentials in ways that have specific value and meaning for your audience. If something in your history has no benefit, then drop it and rework your bragologue to focus on the most compelling points of your background and successes.

THROW KISSES

“I thought that my co-workers would think I was kissing up! So I never approached the director at the dinner.”

I always thought peer pressure went out the window once adulthood set in, but amazingly it is alive and thriving on the playgrounds of corporate America. A client named Denzell, a twenty-six-year-old insurance executive in the initial stages of his bragging campaign, had been angling for months to meet up with someone powerful at his firm whom he had targeted as absolutely imperative to get to know. Mr. Higher-Up was on the road nearly nonstop, and it had been difficult for Denzell to connect with him.

A perfect opportunity, however, presented itself at the company’s Christmas party. Mr. Higher-Up was not only there, but was seated alone at his table for a large part of the evening. You would think that Denzell would have jumped all over this chance, but his mission got scuttled for the silliest of reasons: He didn’t want to appear to his co-workers like he was kissing up. It was better not to run the risk of potentially exposing himself to their jealousy and judgments, and quite possibly ridicule and back-stabbing. He might blow his image as a team player. It was much safer to be discreet, stay with his pack, and roam the room in obscurity. There would always be other less public opportunities.

If you want to get ahead, I have one response to the kissing-up dilemma that Denzell and so many of my other clients grapple with:
Get over it
. The game of getting ahead is the game of being secure and confident in blazing your own trail, and getting in front of the people you need to impress. It’s fine to have co-workers whom you enjoy and respect and to behave as a team player, but what isn’t so fine is succumbing to a herd mentality—to your own detriment, no less. People would rather be approached at a time that they have committed for open-ended mingling and conversing than when they are busy and involved in other things. The very fact they are at a public event is an invitation for you to engage them. And here is another secret: A lot of very senior executives whom I’ve coached have remarked that they often find themselves seated alone at corporate functions because so many people are afraid to approach them. The CEO lonely for some companionship? You bet.

CHAPTER 4

Techno-Brag: Tooting in the 21st Century

•  “I never see my boss anymore.”

•  “I don’t see how bragging will warm up my cold calls.”

•  “His bragging was a complete turnoff over the phone, but in person it worked.”

•  “I’m nervous about my virtual presentation to a customer whom I’ve never met.”

•  “The only time I hear from him is when he wants to toot his own horn.”

•  “His e-mail has come back to haunt him.”

When I talk to my clients about bragging over the wires, they complain, “It’s too impersonal.” But when I talk to my clients about bragging in person, it elicits the opposite response: “It’s too personal.”

So there you are: You can’t win for losing! But let’s face it, more and more workplace communication today is faceless, and if you ignore this critical detail in your bragging campaign, you’re most likely to come up short. Learning how to take advantage of technology—to cast yourself in the best light and deliver your message with impact—is an essential skill when you’re promoting yourself in an e-mail, selling yourself on a voice mail, or tooting your own horn into the telephone receiver.

Techno-bragging can be used to keep people you want to impress up to speed on your progress and successes in an instant, whether you’re traveling, based thousands of miles from headquarters, have customers and co-workers scattered around the globe, or even when you’re in the office and can’t catch your boss or the person in the cubicle next to you!

It can be used to open doors that were once closed, letting you make personal contact with professionals whose opinions count. A rather timid junior client of mine was so excited about a speech given by the CEO of his corporation, one of the largest packaged-goods companies in the world, that he boldly sent off an e-mail telling her how her words of advice helped him land a new client. A few days later he got a call and was invited up to the CEO’s office to meet her.

Effective techno-bragging can keep you in the front of every key person’s mind for all sorts of career opportunities. One client of mine targeted the company human resources director, whom he first met while interviewing for his job, as someone whose radar screen he wanted to stay on. Even though three thousand miles separated them, he communicated with her casually every few months by dropping her an e-mail and occasionally calling to discuss how things were going for her, asking what she was working on. Eighteen months later, and before it was posted on the company’s intranet, he got a call from her about a great opportunity within the organization that was right up his alley. He was able to get a jump on angling for the position, calling the team manager and introducing himself. Two months later, he landed the job.

Who can ignore the power of today’s technology? The Internet, World Wide Web, and intranets all place insightful information at our fingertips that can help us look smarter in our bragging campaigns. There’s nothing more impressive or noteworthy than someone who has taken the time to find out everything about your background, your company, or your business. Armed with up-to-date information, effective self-promoters position themselves more strategically while at job interviews, pitching new business, working with clients and customers, and even maneuvering within their own companies.

Techno-bragging, however, is significantly different from face-to-face self-promotion, where facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language all help to persuasively sell ourselves. In the absence of visual cues, what we say and how we say it—whether written in e-mail, stated on a voice mail, or expressed over a telephone—becomes critically important. To stay visible and make a good impression, become a master of technology so that your unique personality still comes across in your bragging.