Promotion Pro-motion: A primer for selling yourself up the ladder

Imagine creating a fabulous product, one that is unique in the marketplace, valuable to the consumer and has rave reviews from the focus group. Now picture putting it on shelf, next to other best sellers, secure in the knowledge that a big sale is sure to come along. You didn’t invest money in great packaging, or spend time on a marketing campaign. You’ve been too busy to tell your network about it and aren’t sure how to go about some kind of alliance with a big vendor. But that shouldn’t matter, should it? It’s a great product. Surely people will see that. Or will they?

Even though the most useless gadget can fly off the shelf given great advertising (remember Pet Rocks anyone?). Even the best product won’t move without it. But professionals often forget that the “build it and they will come” strategy doesn’t work so well with promotions either. Welcome to the world of stalled careers.

It is easy to think that doing a great job comes with its own rewards, and it often does. But doing a great job and executing a marketing strategy for the next great job makes those rewards come along with greater frequency and takes you in the desired direction. Just to be clear, we are not talking about brown-nosing, political spin, or false advertising. This is about making sure the right people have the right information about you, your intentions and your capabilities. If you are the fabulous product no one knows about, read on…

Let’s look at the pro-motion steps: