Professional Visibility To Advance Throughout Your Career

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're delighted to be speaking with Dan Schawbel, who's the managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He is The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Promote Yourself and the number one international best selling Me 2.0, which combined have been translated into 15 languages.

Dan is a columnist at both time and Forbes and has been featured in over a thousand. Wow. Dan, that's amazing. Media outlets such as The Today Show, The Economist, and Wired magazine. He's spoken at Google, NBC universal, McGraw-Hill, Oracle, Harvard Business School, MIT, Time Warner, IBM, Citigroup, and I'm sure many, many more. Dan, I know you're a super busy guy. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Dan Schawbel: Thanks for having me. And I'm happy to be.

Anita Brick: Here at a very basic level. How would you define a solid and effective visibility strategy?

Dan Schawbel: You want to become known within a corporate setting for something that really caters to your strengths. You know, a lot of people are like, oh, I just want people to know about me. What's more important is to ask the question, you know, what do I want to be known for? Because if you really start to think about that, it's all about zoning in on the skills that you're most effective with and then showing those skills consistently again and again every single day, and then people start to pick up on that. And then when certain projects surface, they think of you first. You want to become known as the top of mind source within your company for specific skills and abilities.

Anita Brick: Let's just say you are known for one thing now, and you actually want to be known for something else.

Dan Schawbel: I think that's a great question, is I believe that once you choose something, you become really well known at it. Then you have people's attention so you can show them other aspects of who you are and what your interests are, you know, and I see this happening a lot, especially online, as people want to become known for everything.

It's great that you have those skills, but it's very hard to become known for all those skills. It's much easier to focus on something and make sure you highlight that so that you start to get that visibility and people talking about you, and get those projects that will increase your credibility in the organization. And then you can start to show other aspects from an executive level. It's like, I want to be the best at one thing, and then once I get that visibility, then I'll start to showcase these other elements because people will already trust my personal brand.

Anita Brick: A lot of it is trust, one of the weekend students said, in what I've read about you, visibility is about finding your differentiation. I'm in tech and there are a slew of us in tech. How do I create a compelling presence that differentiates me?

Dan Schawbel: It's about focusing on a niche aspect of what you're doing. So if you think about, you know, a programmer, for instance, you know, you can just say you're a programmer, but think about this new programming language that's coming out. Let's just say Ruby on Rails is very popular. Now, let's say you are early into that. And that's why I always believe that you have to think about the skills that are important today and the skills that are important in the future, because if you can start to position yourself for the skills that are starting to trend up and become an expert in that, then you're seen as this expert and you have a high growth in your career. As that programming language becomes more important, you are the person who's best positioned to fulfill that need in corporate America.

Anita Brick: Let's just say for an example, one thing that immediately comes to mind, especially since our audience is MBA students and alumni. Let's just say someone is in and I see a lot of people who are project managers in a tech company. They want to differentiate themselves, but project management has a lot of universal things. It's kind of like a USB port. You plug and play in a lot of different areas. How do you then differentiate yourself when it seems fairly general?

Dan Schawbel: I think that's a great question. I mean, first off, what that does for you being a good product manager gives you the foundation of skills that you need. Plus it links you up with the right people that you can network with. So that actually gives you some level of visibility. But then what I would do to take it to the next level is really hone in on leveraging those skills, in those specialty skills, in order to solve a new problem that other people aren't thinking about.

And this is the other way to stand out. So we just talked about figuring out a niche, a topic that you can master, a skill that you can be known for. The other aspect is using your skills to focus on a new problem that your organization's having, or an opportunity that your company could take advantage of. I call this being an entrepreneur.

That's how you get a high level of visibility very quickly. So using your project management skills, forming a team and finding this problem that your company has that needs fixing. So being an entrepreneur is the other way to really, really stand out at work because you get noticed very quickly. If you're somebody who can jump into a situation and solve a problem using your skills, you'll get recognized, because that's a problem that's going to make your organization better, and it impacts more people than just you and the team around you.

Anita Brick: Got it. Sometimes problems that haven't been solved are tricky, and people are afraid because the risk is there. But the reward is there too. If you solve a problem that has been impossible for others, not only do you become known for whatever skill you use, you become known as someone who can be given things that are tricky and you'll rise to the occasion.

Dan Schawbel: It's always believed in. And it is that if you're not taking risks, that's risky in corporations right now, and it seems it is on the surface, it is definitely a risk averse culture that we have in companies, but if years past have taught us anything, it's the companies that are the most innovative that get ahead. So I think there's going to be just more and more opportunities in the future where companies look inward instead of outward in terms of innovation, getting ideas from current employees.

And so you can be that employee, the employee who can see these these issues or see these opportunities and then start to build a business case around them, you know, so what I tell people in the book, outside of your current job description, what you were hired to do, take on this additional work, find this opportunity, start to build the presentation, do research on that topic.

For instance, if there's a new opportunity, what's the market size right? Is this going to translate into $2 million of revenue potentially for a company? How much is it going to cost? How much time is it going to take in order to solve the problem or jump on the opportunity? What resources do you need in terms of people you know, what are the benefits to the company?

What are the rest? This is just such a big deal because you become more than what you were hired to do. You become that leader, the person who's going to get that visibility. You know, you have someone who's like that and jumps on this opportunity, and then it becomes a whole new offering by the company, or maybe a new division. And then who's going to lead that division?

Anita Brick: If you're absolutely right, that strategy, that approach works whether you're early in your career or if you've been working for decades. One of the questions in a lot actually said, I've been looking for my core message. I want it to be the foundation, and I'm a little bit stuck. First of all, if I know what my skills are and I know what my experience is, how do I create a compelling core message? And then the second part of the question is, and then how do I find the people who are interested in what I have to say?

Dan Schawbel: So the first part, we're missing one branch. So we have passion and strength. Then the market is the one thing that's missing. And so how do you know what the market's willing to pay for support? Support as in there's opportunities there. There's money. There's you know expansion of your role to know that I mean you just have to kind of research your industry.

You have to research your profession. You have to get feedback from your manager and the people around you. To really walk in this is worthwhile is going to really pay dividends for me later. This is something that the company is supporting. This is something that I really align with who I am and what I do and what I'm great at.

That's definitely the first thing that you need to do. It's really three things that you need to think about in order to have a meaningful career. And it goes back to strengths, passion, and market. All three of them have to be there. You can't not have one. Otherwise you're going to feel like something's lacking inside.

Anita Brick: Sure. How do you attract that audience?

Dan Schawbel: Message is very important. You know, when you think about the message, the message is going to take the audience base to the message. You know, the instinctive way. The message that I'm going to tell is going to be geared to someone who might be at the executive level of a technology company. If you want to be the CMO or you want to be the head of HR or the CFO, that is going to be your audience.

And then you think about, okay, how do I fit in this puzzle? Everyone, not just executives, need to think like this. This is a puzzle. You can fit in this puzzle. How would you best fit in this puzzle? Okay, well, it's almost like, you know, Swot strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, threat for an individual. So when you think about messaging and you think about your value proposition, you want to make sure that the value proposition commands everything that you need in order to get the position that you want.

So if you need to take some of your weaknesses and really, really work on them in order to have a stronger value proposition, see the better chance of getting your goal, then yes, you should maybe take classes, get feedback for your manager. You need to do everything you can in order to improve that. So you're in the best possible position to accomplish that goal.

Anita Brick: So do you think that people need to find you, or is there a way for you to find them and nudge stuff along.

Dan Schawbel: One's organic and one that's a little bit more forced? I think of the online world anytime I would answer a question like this years ago, it was always like, you know, if you would blog about it, people would find you because there's less competition now we have hundreds of millions of blogs. Oh that's strategy. Yeah. Not work.

But the one thing that still does work is once you have a certain amount of people who are in your network, people will start to talk about you. As long as you're adding value, you're putting out your best work. And I think the magic number, at least online, is a thousand. So I think my LinkedIn group and some of the things I've created, and once I hit a thousand, I can take a step back and it will grow on its own.

And that's happened every single time it's happened with my blog from 1000 to 20,000 from Lincoln Group, 1000 or 14,000. Always a thousand marks online. And so you need a certain foundation. You need enough people. Part of it has to be forced in a way. And I hate to say force, but I mean, it's you being aggressive, you establishing yourself through the hard work, through launch meetings and through presentation and every contact point that you have, not just in the office but online.

Once you get to a certain level where enough people know about you and you're still consistently doing high quality work, the word will just get out naturally because they're going to need you. You're going to be the person that they need on their projects, or they're going to have to reach out to you and they've heard about you because other people have successfully worked with you. And that word of mouth is never going to die. I mean, just what we see online is, the word of mouth is, is multiplied because it's so much easier to connect to people.

Anita Brick: Good point. You know, there was a question from an alum and he said, I know hundreds of people, but I don't know how to mobilize them for my professional advancement, he said. It may sound like a naive question, but how do I get them moving? So he has about 20 years, he said of organizational transformational work. But maybe a few hundred is not enough. Maybe that thousand points is, and maybe the other part that he needs to look at is, is the quality of what he is delivering in terms of his messaging and in terms of his work at the level of the competition or better than the competition.

Dan Schawbel: You know, I think it comes down to two things from the leaders perspective, how can they do a better job based on, you know, the people who are under them? But then it's the other way around, right? You need to hold them accountable for their own work. So I really always believe that it's a two way street. And I think that's how companies are really being established now anyways. Leaders, whether they're managers and leaders or executives and leaders, it doesn't really matter. They need to make sure it's a two way street to get everyone wins.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right.

Dan Schawbel: I try to work with fortune 500 companies. I am always prepared. How does this company win? By working with me always. I'm crazy about it because if I know, if I can't prove that type of value, I'll never work with them again. Even if I get that chance, it's just not going to be worth it for anyone.

Anita Brick: Tremendous point, tremendous point then, because if I'm only looking at how to mobilize the people around me, for me it's not a dialog anymore. It's not a two way street. How am I going to create value for you? And if I do, then maybe you'll create value for me. That dialog is so important because I think that's how the world works these days.

Dan Schawbel: I mean, absolutely, and especially because and, you know, a lot of I've done 13 studies on millennials. And what are millennials looking for? If they want the two way, they want constant mentoring and feedback. Real time feedback is what we call it, meaning that after a meeting, having a manager or leader say, this is how you could have improved or done better next time, not, oh, it's your annual performance review.

Here are the top things you should improve on here. Things you're doing right and here's your goals for next year. So it's much different. And we're already noticing major changes. I mean Adobe dropped their brand and performance review. Now it's feedback along the way. The smart leaders right now, the ones you really want to get people on board are going to have that.

The two way communication. It's just how business is being done right now. And obviously a lot of companies and leaders are just holding on to, you know, the old ways, but they're going to just start having more and more problems as millennials claim these leadership positions, because that's how they operate.

Anita Brick: I mean, that could be a differentiator, too, that you do have that bidirectional dialog. There is a question from an MBA student. He said. I've been in marketing for more than 15 years and have a really solid network reputation and presence inside my company. What are a few things that I can do to be seen as an authority in my field, external to my company?

Dan Schawbel: Basically what it comes down to is first talk. You have to get some permission once it's external. Even though you're an executive who, you know, a lot of executives are in press releases. I mean, a lot of them will be media trained to for the most part, you need to get your CEO involved because there's this ego issue.

There's a lot of things that could come about. You're looking for more of an external presence. I would talk with PR because they'll help you construct, you know, a byline, as in, you know how to bring yourself outside the companies to your consistent with a corporate brand, your executive team, as well as your PR department should embrace that because you're you're helping them by becoming a spokesperson.

They need spokespeople in order to get media attention for your company. So that's a good thing. One of the things that I've done and I always recommend to people is look at trade magazines or trade websites, right? Things that are connected to your industry. You're in your profession and write for those and use your PR department to maybe edit your pieces or to just review them so they know that you're just consistent with the brand and it doesn't come off the wrong way for safety precautions.

But that's a great way to build your external presence. Another one is speaking. I think speaking is one of the best things you can do. Again, it's going to be good for your company. It's going to be good for you. Creates that win win scenario. And that's how you have to look at all of this. You know, going to a conference, your PR group might be able to book you in speaking at that as a representative of your company, not just yourself.

And that's going to help maybe get you new customers or just more thought leadership in your industry and just helps everyone. There's so many benefits to it. Don't think of it as a selfish endeavor. Think of it as something that will mutually benefit your company. And that's how you approach, you know, the CEO as well as your PR department. Then they'll want to support you. So it will be so much easier for you. You won't have to fish out opportunities. They'll get the opportunities for you.

Anita Brick: Totally makes sense. And it goes back exactly to what you said before. It's again, it's another place where you can have a two way dialog. So if I go off and I have my core message and I want to get visibility outside of my organization and I do it quietly without engaging my company, now in some places there's only one person who has that kind of external visibility, but assume that there is a little bit openness to that. If I engage with you, my senior team, and or the PR department now, I have people who are part of the process. Like you said, they want to be involved. They may actually accelerate that. There was an alum, a few years ago, who was a CMO of a fairly large company, but he was feeling a little stale. And we talked about different ways of doing this.

And he went to the PR department and they had been looking for someone to coauthor a case with a large consulting firm that they partner with a lot. And since he initiated that, and he clearly from an expertise and accomplishment skill standpoint, he was a perfect person. They helped him build the case. They wrote some of it. They interviewed him.

They made it easy for him to do that. The end result of that, 18 months into that and some other things he was doing with the support of his company, he ended up being identified as a leader in a brand new field by the Wall Street Journal. They dubbed him the guru of whatever that topic was that he was doing. So it's a brilliant strategy, a really good strategy.

Dan Schawbel: A final point on that question is that everything builds on top of everything else. The more you do, the more it accumulates, and especially if it's done online, it's always there and it can always promote you and your company. Articles that I wrote years ago are still giving me traffic, still giving me speaking opportunities, still helping build everything that I've been trying to do.

And that's how I have to look at it. A lot of people look at all I have to write this article. I'm not getting paid. You're actually getting paid more than you think you are because you're getting the visibility, you're getting the credibility. It's supporting your company, and it could perhaps turn into other opportunities later. You can leverage an article that you got published, write other articles because you've done it before. It's a case study. And that's how I always thought about it.

Anita Brick: It's a great strategy. There was an evening student who said, I'm early in my career, and I have about five years of work experience. I'm in consulting and love the field, and I plan to stay there for the next several years. If you were starting your career today, what would you be doing to build visibility for now and for later? You kind of answered a lot of this question, but is there anything that you would add to deepen it a little bit?

Dan Schawbel: Yeah, I mean, I would look at a trajectory. A lot of people are like, oh, I don't know what I'm going to do in ten years or five years or tomorrow. But I think you need to just choose topics, choose skills wisely. Think about where you can invest your time and how you construct your day. I think it's really important to have some insights exactly on what you're going to be doing every single year, but I think people who are very well organized and I'll tell you one thing, part of the study I did with American Express, one of the things he's found out, the number one soft skill that leaders are looking for now, are is the ability to prioritize work. Having goals and things that you need to accomplish is really your first step into. And then talk to them and figure out when to do what based on what's more important, when, that skill, it seems like so small, insignificant, but people don't realize the impact that it actually had.

Anita Brick: Good point. Do you have time for, like, maybe 2 or 3 more questions?

Dan Schawbel: Sure.

Anita Brick: Okay, great. So an alum said, and this is an issue, a problem that multiple people have. But this is a good example, he said. I have this visibility in the marketplace through social media over the last several years. Unfortunately, I have two conflicting messages out there. One is my day job. I'm an accountant and the other I'm a tech entrepreneur.

By night. How do I eliminate or at least reduce this confusing personal messaging? There are a lot of people who do their day job and then they have whatever that is. For some people, it's related to business, like this guy, tech entrepreneur, and others. I know that there was someone who was a CMO of a company and he was also a flamingo dancer. Those two messages were out there. So what do you recommend that someone does if they have two potentially conflicting or at least confusing messages in social media?

Dan Schawbel: Pick the one you care about more. You know, I always say bring yourself for the career you want, not the job you have. So if you hate your job and you're constantly out there talking about what you do in your day job, you're only going to attract opportunities that are relevant to that day job. The ones that you don't want.

But if you focus and I remember, you know, I worked for three and a half years at EMC, three different positions there outside of work I built, my brand was focused on personal branding and everything that I would do would be focused on personal branding and social media. And the benefit ended up being that I created the first social media position in a fortune 200 company, EMC, back then, and that actually complemented what I was doing outside of work that could be, you know, lowercase, right?

Because it could be what you do for work. They might not ever need a position that's relevant to you, outside of work. But again, brand yourself for the career you want to have. Position yourself for future opportunities. And that needs to be related to your strengths and passions. I really believe that I do see people who have conflicting messages, and they do so many different things, and then they get lost because there's just too much competition out there.

So you need to be much more specific in my opinion. I think that you need to just focus on the side hobby, keep them as separate as possible, and make sure you put the bulk of your energy on the side hobby. If you're really batting on that, if you really believe that, that could turn into something full time for you.

Anita Brick: So many HR departments monitor LinkedIn. They monitor it from the internet. How do you mitigate the risk of someone saying, oh, well, Dan's looks like everywhere. He's talking about being a tech entrepreneur. Well, what about this or all he's doing for us? How do you mitigate the risk of being found out by someone whose attention is not in your job, when you're not ready to leave.

Dan Schawbel: That job, you need to be upfront. And this is what I always believed because I lived this lifestyle and I always told them, this is what I'm doing, I, I actually they hired me based on what I was doing outside of work, but I was very open. I'm like, this is what I'm doing outside of work. I mean, I have a speech here talking about this tomorrow because if you don't be upfront, they're going to find it out anyways, like you were saying.

I mean, you're absolutely right. Everything's a search engine online. That's how I look at it. Twitter is a search engine. Everything has a search feature and everything's meant to be used as search, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, everything. So if you're not up front with your manager about what's going on outside of work, then they're going to find out anyway, and then it's going to look bad because you weren't honest and up front.

And if they don't like what you're doing outside of work, then I would start looking for a different company to work for, because clearly that company doesn't understand how things are in this social age where everyone's doing this now and they're obviously not an employer that embraces someone who's like, very passionate and has other things going on. Here's the catch.

Yes, what you do outside of work distracts you and makes you a worse performer. You should get in trouble for what you do outside of work. That's the only way, though. If what you do outside of work does not affect what you are doing at work, only a bad employer would say to stop it. And then I would definitely look at other employees to work for.

Anita Brick: Yeah, he has to continue to do a great job as long as he's.

Dan Schawbel: Hiding a lot of value and performing, and you have results to back everything you're doing up. You're almost invincible in the workplace, especially if you're someone who's a revenue generator.

Anita Brick: And it maybe some people love being in staff positions, but they are definitely more vulnerable. So an executive MBA student said, and I could just hear this person saying, because where do you find the time? I work in a field with big time commitments. I'm in school in this very rigorous executive MBA program, and I have a family. Where do you find the time? Thanks in advance, Dan.

Dan Schawbel: Like anything else you got out, what did you put in your hat? You have to be in it for the long term. I mean, it has to be something that you care about. And, you know, even though things might shift a long term strategy, you can make better short term decisions if you know where you're going, if you're putting much effort and don't expect much of a return.

Anita Brick: Well, it's a good point, but there are things that you can do. What are 3 or 4 things that someone could do at least begin today with that longer term perspective to enhance their visibility?

Dan Schawbel: Yeah, I think number one is get feedback in your peer group and be curious to know where you stand and what you need to do in order to reach the goal that you have. Who knows what someone's exact goals are, their true goals, but be honest with yourself and then get the feedback so you know how you can potentially accomplish those goals and actually let people know what your goals are.

It actually would do service. If your manager knows that you want to become the CMO someday or a director someday, because then if that's how they saw you, then, you know, it just becomes an easier conversation of how do we get there? How do we go on this voyage together to make sure that you win as well as I get to a higher level or whatnot?

You know, I think that's really important, getting these performance metrics and having your manager set the right expectations for you so you know what you need to do. Another thing, part of this is having a mentor. So somebody, you know, not just obviously the CEO of your executive, but other people in your industry and other people in different areas of the company.

I think it's just really important from a networking aspect, from the mobility aspect, and from an educational aspect. Another important point is that you should build your online identity, because everyone's going to need it. Everyone is searching online. Already, 96% of recruiters use social networks for recruiting. You talk to some of these executive recruiters. They almost expect you to be in Google News getting press already.

They need someone who already has that voice in the media that has that much more value. And more and more companies are recruiting based on the amount of reach you have. And, presence so established that I'm an online identity relative to the options that you want doesn't have to be something that you already have. Where am I going to ask that question?

I think it's the most important question. Where am I going? Where's this whole ahead? And consistency is also important. Online consistency is putting out new information on a consistent basis regularly. And then, you know, in the office consistency is always showing up for meetings on time. And it's really the little things that matter the most in corporations.

Anita Brick: Got it. And I think one of the things you said at the very beginning is know what you want to be known for, because that will shape not only how you develop your message, but how you then disseminate that message both online and certainly in your company. We appreciate that you took the time today. I know you're very, very busy and for you to give us this time and all this great advice, we so, so appreciate it.

Dan Schawbel: It's been interesting.

Anita Brick: Can't wait to hear about all your progress because you are doing an amazing job.

Dan Schawbel: So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.