Introduction
You are working for your favorite company, are enjoying your work, and do very well. Only one thing is missing, you do not get the appreciation for your accomplishments. What can you do about it? How do you highlight your qualities and achievements? The short answer is: You brag about your results without appearing boastful, that’s how you do it.
Read on and find 11 awesome tips to become more visible at your workplace.
In case this is not you, bragging about yourself a bit, then you can try to find another company, sometimes with the same results. Better then, to start your own internet business. Check out the end of this article for your perfect way out!
Doing a good job, but no recognition
For some it might be a painful conclusion: delivering quality work does not guarantee recognition and success in your career. It’s just a condition. In school, all you have to do is try your best to get high grades. At work, the visibility factor is equally important in the final result.
This is because bosses (and colleagues too) are simply not clairvoyant. Therefore, it is important to highlight your qualities and achievements yourself. Women, in particular, are often too modest for that: afraid to brag.
Avoid a grey mice outfit
Here are the words of a lady who works as a trainer/coach in the field of diversity management. ‘Research shows that many women leave the business world; not because they find the combination of work and care too heavy, but because of the lack of recognition. I also notice that women run into this in my practice.’
After years in practice and of experience with all kinds of people in the business environment, she concludes the following. The solution starts with determining your goal: ‘If you know what you want, you can let others know.’
Like the well-known British clothing experts Trinny & Susannah, who pay a lot of attention to the effect of their outward appearance, which should not be underestimated, especially in the workplace. They make short shrift of the widespread notion that ‘it’s all about the content’. Whoever chooses a grey mouse outfit really misses out on certain big points.
Celebrate your successes
Finally, they show you how to make your professional qualities known to the world. For example, don’t let a successfully completed project pass unnoticed: send an e-mail or make sure that it is written about in the company magazine (see below for more advice).
According to the lady, it is good to realize that modesty and profiling yourself do not have to be mutually exclusive. ‘For example, there’s nothing immodest about introducing yourself when you come to a meeting where you don’t know half of the participants. Shaking everyone’s hand warmly is quite normal, and then at least they know who you are.’
You will automatically sense when you go too far: ‘What you find annoyingly boastful behavior, others probably find annoying too. You don’t always have to elaborate on how good you are. Choose the moments and the ways that suit you.’
This is all the more important because women closely monitor each other’s status in the workplace. Just like men, by the way, but women have a bad reputation in this area. They bring each other down at imminent success and do not tolerate competition at the top.
Different evolution
In a certain book, an expert gives the evolutionary-psychological explanation that competition between men (for access to the best partner) is evolutionarily much older than competition between women. As a result, men are simply more interested in status, power, and resources than women.
This often becomes apparent in kindergarten: ‘You could say that boys develop a kind of young boys network early on and divide power among themselves. This experience is of course very useful in later working life. Men are not surprised when they are overtaken by another man; they’ve been through that before. Fun is different, but they stay in the game and don’t drop out.
Women compete on appearance
In their battle for the best partner, women compete not on status but on appearance, as mentioned above, and avoid physical aggression, because that can endanger their (chance of) offspring. They chose, and still choose indirect warfare, such as gossip and ignoring and isolating rivals.
In the open-plan office, that is not the most convenient response. Spend your energy on profiling yourself rather than fighting your rivals, even if they take the blood from under your fingernails. Take the case that someone runs off with your idea in a meeting.
What many women then do is gossip afterward: did you see how she stole my idea? But then it’s too late to change it. You’re better off responding right away so you can bring the point back to you. For example, “That’s exactly what I just meant, I’m glad you agree with me”.
Here are the 11 tips as mentioned earlier.
11 Tips to be more visible
- On a first acquaintance (such as a job interview): don’t bring up weaknesses and doubts. Even later, only sluggishly give in.
- Prepare your performance interview well; Have examples of successes ready. Don’t apologize extensively for less successful projects.
- Make sure you know what the department goals are – these are also the goals of your supervisor. Think about how you contribute to this with your work and regularly tell us about your results. Visit weekly or email an update.
- Give lectures, presentations, or guest lectures. Prepare them well and introduce yourself well.
- Become president of a conference.
- Write an article in the staff magazine.
- Tweet about your expertise.
- Become a peer mentor.
- Enjoy compliments for your work: don’t weaken them, for example by saying that you were lucky.
- Participate in steering/working groups chaired by a senior manager.
- Name a number of areas in which you want to profile yourself, in which you have points of view that you want to make known. Mark certain meetings where you at least want to be on the agenda and send input to the participants.
Starting your own internet business
More and more people have become entrepreneurs and still, more would like to become their own boss. There is an easy way to start your own business with the help of the internet and become your own boss. Anyone of us can do it, you just need to be told how.
The internet contains a ton of possibilities, yet you need to find the best, honest and scam-free options. I can help you in the right direction and point you to the best internet business support program right now. One of the most popular business models is affiliate marketing. I will explain to you in short how this works.
Affiliate Marketing
You will need to create a website and the program I will be proposing will take care of that. Then you will choose your website niche (a topic you are going to write about). There are millions of niches, but you should pick your topic from one of your hobbies, passions, or interests.
As soon as you have that, you can start building out your website with articles relevant to your niche and with the aim to help people. Subsequently, people will begin visiting your website and as you build further, you can start promoting products relevant to your niche.
You will find these products on the net with various merchants and you will look for the ones with affiliate programs. You apply for their program and as soon as accepted, they will give a link to their products for you to be promoted. Your audience will then be directed to the merchant’s website through the link on your site and when sold, you will receive the commission. No need to buy, store or deliver anything! The investment for this program will be minimal.
Here is the program I recommend as number 1.
Wealthy Affiliate (WA)
Established in 2005 by two Canadian entrepreneurs this unique program has been growing ever since to become the most popular of its kind. Low investment, the best training, and an enormously strong and helpful community have attracted many newbies as well as professionals. But there are so many features that make them great.
Being a member myself since 2014, I have prepared a full review of the ins and outs of this world-class program. You can access this review by clicking here. The review also contains a link with which you can become a member for one week for Free, without any commitments whatsoever. In this way, you can experience the system firsthand.
Interesting article and some good tips on how to be more visible at work. I think a lot of people simply work hard and go at it with the goal to just let their work speak for itself. It sounds good in theory, however, generally speaking, the one who is more visible is the one that promotes themselves better, not necessarily the one who does the best work.
Good point. Unfortunately, not always the right people get the praise they deserve, simply because they are not prolific enough. This is why I hope a lot of people will read this article and learn how better visibility can be achieved.