If you hate talking about yourself, you're screwed. Here's why:
Last Updated May 8th, 2014

Self-promotion SUCKS. It never feels right, and it makes people – AND ME – feel uncomfortable, naive, and worse intolerable.

How can I truly say, “I’m going to empower 1,000,000 entrepreneurs to get ahead in business and life” with a straight face to someone I just met?

I can’t.

That’s why I’ve always liked Dale Carnegie’s sage advice: “Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.”

And when I meet new people, that’s my GO-TO strategy. But here’s the BIG problem with that:

How to Be Self-Promotional (without making people hate you)

You’ll make people like you, but they won’t necessarily respect your work. They’ll like you, but they won’t refer clients to you. They’ll like you, but they won’t work with you.

And that’s the problem.

How can you eliminate this nasty problem?

By becoming self-promotional. Not the obnoxious kind of self-promotional – you’ll trigger people’s “full of crap” radar – but the RIGHT kind of self-promotional.

I cover this in my new video:

What To Do If You Hate Talking About Yourself

I’m concerned.

I’ve met a surprising number of people who HATE talking about themselves and what they do.

And I understand.

Being self promotional has a bad rap these days.

Especially when you’re dealing with some people who shove business cards in your face every chance they get.

You NEVER want to be THAT guy.

But here’s the truth:

I’m Derek Halpern, the founder of Social Triggers. And if you want to get ahead in life and business, you better start getting comfortable being self promotional

And in this video, I’ll show you how to do it the right way.

First, let me set the record straight:

If you want to start (or grow) your business, land your dream job or get a promotion at your current job, or make some extra money on the side…

You MUST get comfortable with self promotion.

How else do you expect to get noticed for your talents, get more customers, and build the career and life that you want?

The question is: how can you do it without being “that guy?”

Let me tell you a story.

Back when I worked in Corporate America, I knew I had to differentiate or die in the sea of other people who wanted to get a raise or get promoted.

That’s when I noticed an unusual opportunity to brand myself in a way that would make me stand out instantly.

Here’s what happened:

I was an analyst. And a lot of the reports, powerpoints, and numbers I dealt with required a lot of manual work on my part.

I thought, “there must be a way to automate this.”

So, I started to teach myself advanced Excel and Powerpoint skills to make what I did easier.

That’s when I realized… If I was told to do this manually, I bet other departments were told to do it manually, too.

So, I decided I wanted to be known as the guy who automates excel reports.

How did I become that guy?

I’ll tell you what I didn’t do:

• I didn’t create a business card with Automation Guy below my name.
• I didn’t send out mass emails telling people, “hey guys, I’m the automation guy.”
• I didn’t become one of those obnoxious self promoters that everyone hates.

So, what did I do?

I developed a marketable skill that was in demand in my workplace. This meant I needed to read books and LEARN that skill.

And after I learned that skill, I did something very simple:

I reached out to people who I knew could benefit it and offered to help them.

I’d get straight to the point, too. I’d say something like:

“Hey, I know you run this report. I recently found a way to automate reports like this, and it saved me almost 5 days of work each month. I’ll gladly show you it if you’re interested.”

Everyone was interested, naturally. Who doesn’t want to save time?

And I showed them what to do.

In some cases, I even did it for them.

If this meant I’d fall behind on my work, and would have to stay late to complete my work, I’d stay late.

Eventually, after doing this a few times, word got around: “Derek is the automation guy.”

Now, take a second and think about what I did.

I was emailing people and telling them I know something they didn’t, and I could help them.

Does that seem like slimy self promotional tactics that you’re so accustomed to hearing about?

Absolutely not.

Did it work?

YES!

Because when you do self promotion the right way, no one ever feels like you’re being self promotional. They feel like you’re helping them and they’re HAPPY that you’re doing it.

And guess what?

I benefited from it greatly. Shortly after getting hired, I got promoted in like 6 months. Most people wait about 2 years for their first promotion.

Now want to know what’s funny?

I DID THE SAME THING TO START SOCIAL TRIGGERS.

If you’re one of the long time Social Triggers readers, you’ll know that I got started by doing conversion site review videos with other big name bloggers.

That means, I randomly reached out to people I didn’t know, promised them I could increase their conversions, and offered to show them how to do it.

And what happened?

I immediately got positioned as the conversion guy.

I didn’t go around telling people, “I’m Derek Halpern, the conversion guy.”

I simply found a few people, helped them with conversions, and they wrote about it. And within 30 days, I became the conversion guy.

And that’s because, when you want to do self promotion the RIGHT way, you can NEVER talk about what you do in an obnoxious way.

Instead, just go do it for other people for free. And eventually, you’ll become that person.

It’s that easy.

Now you’re probably wondering, how can I start doing this for myself?

You need three things:

1. You need to find a marketable skill that other people who have the audience you want to reach can benefit from.

2. You need to go learn that skill.

3. You need to go USE that skill and help the right people.

Let me share another example:

Back when I ran a celebrity gossip blog, networking with other large celebrity gossip blogs was one of the KEYS to my success.

How did I get my foot in the door?

I actively learned the ins and outs of search engine optimization, something completely unrelated to celebrity gossip

And then I offered to help some of the largest gossip bloggers with their SEO for free.

That got my name on their radar, and before you know it, they were linking me and sending me a TON of traffic.

They were also recommending that people check me out.

It was THAT easy.

Now the question is:

How can you do this without coming off like that slimy, self promotional guy?

Here are a few things to consider:

Don’t just randomly email people who don’t know you and offer your services to them. Their “full of crap” radar will go wild.

As an example:

This guy I met at a conference emailed me about his new book. He attached a digital version of it for me.

He said, “you’ve helped me a lot, and I thought of a way to repay you. You can email my book to your entire Social Triggers readership. Just my way of saying thanks.”

Well, first of all, this book had NOTHING to do with what I talk about on Social Triggers.

And, second of all, SERIOUSLY?! Your way of saying thanks to me is by asking me to email more than 140,000 people your book?

FACE PALM.

That’s how you DON’T do it.

On the flip side:

Recently, I noticed someone was testing out payment plans for their business. I know a little something about payment plans. Like the one payment plan you should NEVER offer because it’s horrible.

And I noticed this guy I wanted to meet was offering this HORRIBLE payment plan.

What did I do?

Well, RELEVANCE IS KEY.

Meaning, what I’m sharing needs to be relevant to the person I’m sharing it with. It needs to benefit THEM. Not their readers. It needs to BENEFIT THEM.

I sent an email:

“Hey, I’m Derek. Congrats on your new launch. I noticed you were using that payment plan. I know you don’t know me, but I ran some tests on payment plans and I discovered that payment plan is horrible. Here’s my data.

I’m hoping you see different results, but I just thought I’d share this with you so you can keep an eye out.

Good luck on your launch.”

Guess what happened?

They thanked me, and they’re now keeping an eye out for a potential disaster.

The best part?

Now, I’m building up the brand that I know a little something about payment plan optimization AND I’m meeting people who I want to meet because of that skill.

Basically, I keep doing the same thing in different ways to continue to build my brand.

And I’m revealing it to you today because you should start doing the same thing.

So, to recap:

1. Find a marketable skill.

2. Develop that skill

3. Strategically offer it to people who can benefit from it at the right time.

NOW, GET TO WORK!

If you dug these insights on being self promotional, leave a comment and let me know. I’ll read every one. And if you know someone else who could benefit from these insights, PLEASE pass this video along to them. You’ll be helping them out, me out, and even yourself out.

And if you’re new to Social Triggers and want more videos just like this on how to get ahead in business and life, be sure to hop on my newsletter and subscribe to my channel.

Until next time!