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Sell Yourself or Sell Yourself Short

Sell Yourself or Sell Yourself Short : Unlock your true potential by mastering the art of self-promotion. Learn why marketing yourself is crucial for career growth, especially in tech. Discover how proactive communication and trust-building can lead to better recognition and opportunities
Sell Yourself or Sell Yourself Short
Photo by Jon Tyson / Unsplash

If you feel undervalued or underpaid, it's likely because you don't sell yourself enough. Demand generation comes first for any business to survive. If you're not investing time, money, or effort in marketing and selling yourself, you won't increase your value or market rate.

Marketing yourself or any product is a force multiplier. If you or your product aren't good enough, no amount of marketing will take you far. However, if you or your product are good but you don't market, you're not realizing your full potential. Therefore, marketing in any form and through any means will scale your services or product if it’s decent.

This is especially true for technical or product-focused individuals who enjoy building things, like myself. In fact, being a builder and craftsman helps you create things people love. However, the right messaging and business strategy can work wonders. Even Steve Jobs, who was very product-focused, understood the power of communicating trust. Marketing and selling are more about trust and reaching the right people than most realize.

People want products and services, but they often don't know who can deliver them with the right value and quality without hassle. Similarly, for a technical employee, it's their credibility that helps attract new opportunities within or outside their organization. So, go out and build trust by showcasing your work, demonstrating your process, delivering results, and generating enthusiasm among people.

I often felt I wasn't getting what I deserved—that I was better than my compensation suggested. I also felt I wasn't reaching my full potential. So I kept working hard to learn more, improve, and find ways to boost my productivity. But still, things didn't change much. Despite putting lots of effort into my job, I didn't get the recognition I felt I deserved. The feedback from my manager was that I was an "undercommunicator." I quietly did things without garnering visibility for my work or ensuring everyone was aligned with what I was doing.

I changed jobs thinking it was more of the company itself which does not recognise my work (which was partially true). I took this advice about proactively communicating my work seriously, alongside working hard. In the new company, I was able to deliver good results and receive due recognition. This success stemmed from keeping people in the loop—they saw my updates, understood the challenges, and appreciated the effort involved in the process.

This proactive communication is especially important for technical people. Non-technical managers often don't fully grasp the complexity of building something from scratch. Keeping them informed, educating them, and providing frequent updates about challenges helps them appreciate your work. It also allows them to offer their perspective and stay aligned with your efforts.

So, do good work, but don't stop there. Go and write a good concise update, memo, or readme to proactively communicate and demonstrate your worth.

Kashish