You, Inc. How to develop personal and professional skills, sell them and stand out from the crowd

There are a lot of talented people around us, but not every one of them is successful. I am sure that you have met graduate students whose erudition is amazing. They are young and intelligent, but they don’t know about them except for their home university.

From this example, it is clear that knowledge is not a major success factor. It is not enough just to study any topic. It is important to tell others about it correctly.
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A year ago, I became interested in this issue and found out that building and promoting a personal brand is not as difficult as it may seem at first. It is based on simple rules, which I will discuss in this article.

Everyone should not be able to sell, but behind every success is a successful sale.

The technical mind of Steve Wozniak would not have spread throughout the world without proper promotion and positioning. We do not need to look for a “personal Jobs”, because most of us (today) are not going to build a corporation. Basic skills we can master independently.

Two directions of development

We have approved that knowledge is not the only success factor, but you cannot lose sight of them, because without them you will have nothing to tell about. Igor Mann in his excellent book " Number 1 " divided the development into professional and personal.

How to develop professionally

There are many development channels: books, articles, videos, conferences, master classes and much more. Cover all fail, and not necessary. Each industry has its main sources of knowledge. For example, in IT, books are quickly becoming obsolete and it is preferable to use blogs and forums.

Identify for yourself 1-3 main channels of knowledge acquisition and spend several hours a week on them.

How to develop personal skills

The ability to speak, write, create and defend ideas is very important. Sometimes more important than bringing results (unfortunately). It is on your personal skills that your promotion is built. I will explain why.

How do professionals promote themselves? They write articles, books, speak at conferences. All this activity is based on personal skills, and therefore it is important to pay attention to them.

A month ago, I set a big goal, one of the criteria for achieving it was public speaking. I know that this skill I have developed is worse than writing, so I gave him more attention and set the priority in my personal development plan.

How to make a personal skills development plan

Personal development plan brings together sources of knowledge and methods of their assimilation. The main channel for obtaining knowledge, I highlighted the book. The method of assimilation chose note-taking and application of basic thoughts. Below I have listed the books that will help me develop the chosen skills.

Talk / Negotiation
Key negotiations. What and how to say when the stakes are high
Communication skills
I hear you right through

Public performance
Presentation skills
Kamasutra for the speaker

Writing skills
Minto Pyramid Principle

Creation
Coup
Pumpkin method

Hold meetings
Again meeting?

How to sell an idea
Sell ​​your idea!

Promotion
Platform: how to become visible on the Internet

Other
Talent to do with it!
Turn yourself into a brand!
Whole life

In subject: 30 sensible books on business, self-development and creativity, which changed my life

How to sell yourself online and offline

Sell ​​yourself is not so difficult. Harder to be worthy of selling. Having mastered the basic personal and professional skills, it is the turn of promotion. To find out about you, you need three things:

- portfolio,
- summary,
- publications, speeches.

These things are pretty simple, but extremely important.

Portfolio tells about you as an individual. Here you will need a writing skill. Tell us why you should be interested in the employer or client.

The resume talks about you as a professional. Show the three best works and briefly describe them. Resume is built on professional skills. You can read about my career development experience in the article “ From zero to one. How I went from freelancer to chief designer in a year ”.

Publications and speeches show your erudition and experience. Therefore, companies invest hundreds of thousands in events, and professionals strive to perform as much as possible. Recognizability is a guarantee of quality.

How to start promotion right now

1. Promotion begins with goal setting .
2. Define your professional aspirations and make a development plan based on them. I brought mine above.
3. Select the main development channels and allocate them a specific time. For me, these are articles and books. I give it an hour a day.
4. Collect accumulated information and analyze . I maintain a knowledge base in Evernote.
5. Start promoting yourself . Create a good portfolio, write a resume. Try writing articles and look for opportunities to speak in public.
6. Do not stop and remember that discipline is more important than motivation.

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