For this post I wanted to analyze all the different tips out there on “selling yourself”. As I was reading through the different blogs, articles, and chapters, I decided that I would share some things that I do to build my confidence before and interview, sale, or big pitch. So here are some of Casey’s rules on selling yourself….enjoy!
- Pitch to yourself in the mirror.
When I’m getting ready for a performance of any kind (sports, music, or professional) I find that I am my biggest critic. To get past this I watch myself give my pitch so then I can fix what I don’t like and change what looks bad from a 3rd part perspective. Also it’s yet another method to help yourself learn your pitch from top to bottom.
- Reassure yourself, not just for the pitch but for the sole purpose of self-love.
One thing that I like to do is write down positive attributes of myself (and my pitch) and then follow that up with facts to back it up. So for example, one of my attributes may be “I’ve grown as a sales person in the last 6 months” and a fact to back it up might be “I know this because my closing numbers have gone up and I use a completely different method of selling”.
- Know your weaknesses just as well as you know your strengths
It’s important to know what you’re good at, but it’s equally as important to know what you aren’t good at. This takes time, energy, and lots of thought sometimes to figure out. When you find out what you’re not so good at (for me it’s follow through) you can then set specific goals to make sure that you stay on task and focus on building up that weakness.
- Pitch to kids
This is one of my favorite things to do. When I’m going for a big interview or pitch I ALWAYS pitch to my nephew first (he’s 8). I do this for a few reasons. One is that he is completely honest in every aspect of the pitch from “that shirt doesn’t look good” to “you keep moving around and I don’t know why”. Granted, sometimes the pitch is over his head but he reminds me to keep it simple, short, and convey all the essentials of the pitch. Not to mention, his attention span is about the time I have to give and elevator pitch so it works out well.
There’s some of my favorite methods to “sell yourself” and prep for a big performance!
BoweryJE22