Never be afraid to call yourself the best

SHAKING THE TREE #42

When asked at U.S. Customs if he had anything to declare, Oscar Wilde, arriving at the Port of New York from Liverpool, England on January 3, 1882, is alleged to have said "Nothing except my genius!" 

There's little evidence that Wilde ever uttered these words, but nevertheless, it's a story that provokes some interesting questions:

Do you find it difficult to toot your own horn? 

Do you cringe at the thought of telling other people how great you are? 

Do you think it's arrogant or conceited to proclaim your accomplishments? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you're not alone.

Whether you like it or not, at some point someone will ask you what you do, or, more importantly, they'll give you an opportunity to tell them what you've done for other people. 

While some of this is a chance to demonstrate the value you've built for others, what this really gives you a chance to do is to talk yourself up. 

This is a good thing.

It took me a long time and a lot of effort to come to terms with being seen as an expert, and in truth, I prefer not to refer to myself as an expert. 

Instead, I prefer to think of myself as someone who helps people create value.

If I've done my job properly, you'll have gained something of value from one of my articles. At least, that's my goal.

I have my haters and that's OK: like my Dad always said, if they're talking about you, they're leaving some other poor bugger alone. 

Showing how you've helped other people is good for your self-esteem and good for your reputation.

In terms of building a reputation as a specialist in your niche, it's important for others to know what skills, experience, and results you offer, and it's important to demonstrate the value of your experience and wisdom.

It's possible that you've looked at the achievements of others in your niche and thought there’s no way you could ever measure up. 

Throughout 2007 and much of 2008, I thought the same thing. 

That was about the time I came up with the dream of setting myself up as an authority in the world of small business marketing. At the time I knew next to nothing about marketing but I wasn’t going to let that hold me back.

Through a combination of soul searching, digging, and searching I came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was by becoming a contributor to an online forum. Rather naively, I chose the largest forum I could find.

However, the leading contributors to this forum at the time were all heavy hitters with decades of experience I didn’t have and all of whom had an impressive list of accomplishments along with a list hundreds of questions to back up their reputations. 

Me? I had nothing. To say this intimidated me is an understatement. 

It took me sixteen months to summon up the courage to answer my first question, and even then, once I'd written my answer, it took me a whole weekend to paste my answer into the contribution box and to press the SUMBIT button.

I expected a train of derision to follow. 

I anticipated being torn a new you know what. I even toyed with the idea of deleting my account and hiding in a cave, my dream of becoming a recognized specialist up in smoke.

But none of these things happened. 

The person asking the question liked my answer enough to award me actual points! What? You mean, my opinion had value? Wow.

So I answered another question. 

Then another. And another. I clocked up more points. 

Then an odd thing began happening: people began reaching out to me via e-mail to thank me for my contributions. 

Within 30 days, my name appeared on the Top 100 contributors list (in 100th place!). 

Within six months I made my way onto the Top 50 contributor list. 

Within nine months I'd become the leading contributor on questions connected to social media. 

Within a year I became a Top 25 contributor. 

Within 18 months I made my way into the Top 10 list. 

And today, 5,100+ questions and over a million words of content later, I'm the forum's top 3rd contributor.

All because I showed up. 

All because I stuck at it, even when I was crippled by self doubt. 

And all because I didn't quit.

If I can accomplish this—with no marketing training, with no formal qualifications or course credits to my name—what's stopping you from doing something similar in your niche?

The truth here is that although you may not realize it, you're probably the expert already.

Even if you're just starting out, you probably have some real-world accomplishments to talk about in a way that few others can.

And if you already have an established background, others in your niche will take you far more seriously than you give yourself credit for. 

The reality is that with planning and a simple strategy, it's possible to brag about yourself (or get others to brag about you) without seeming the least bit like you have an inflated ego.

You can do this by writing informed opinion pieces that you share via social media. You can do this with simple videos. You can do this with a podcast.

You can do this via intelligently-written and well-thought out articles that you post on your own website or someone else's.

You can do this by answering questions in niche groups on social media.

You can do this by answering questions on industry-related forums, which is what I did.

And if you're tempted to make self-deprecating remarks about your accomplishments to try to appear humble, don't. I've made this mistake and it's come off as looking needlessly pathetic rather than being humble. 

I think it's much better to be excited about your story. 

Rather than playing down your accomplishments, it's more refreshing to turn them into a series of stories you can use to inspire and encourage other people. 

Even if your story borders on the mundane, it's possible to find something about that story that excites you and other people. For instance:

Back in 2010 and after losing my job, I came across a posting on Facebook about a free local mastermind group. I had time on my hands, so I signed up. 

Over eight weeks, this small group fielded all kinds of subjects connected to small business marketing, one of which was social media. 

At that time I was close to giving up on the idea of doing anything with social media for small businesses. That was, until a chance remark with the mastermind's facilitator sparked a reason to keep going. 

Speaking about the competition, he said "You know what, Gary? The bar really isn't set that high!" 

He went on to say that from what he'd seen, I had a lot of value to offer. 

Had it not been for this chance comment, I'd have moved away from social media. All it took to keep me going was a little extra encouragement.

Another great way to help toot your horn is to get someone else to do it for you. Taking a friend to a networking event and having them talk up your accomplishments is a great way for others to hear about the value you offer.

Ideally, it helps if the friend has their own list of accomplishments so that you can brag about them as well. But by boasting about the other person's skills and experience, you help each other.

People at networking events seem to be more receptive when a third party’s opinions and thoughts about you break the ice rather than you doing it. It's always better to have someone else talk up your skills than it is to have someone hearing you telling them how great they are. 

Another good way to build up your portfolio of awesomeness is by sharing your sense of humor. 

Putting a little humor into your stories makes you more memorable.

Is there something funny in something you've done that at the same time, helped you help other people? 

Finally, one of the best ways you can elevate your accomplishments is by telling a really good story. 

Back in July, 1995 I had the pleasure of meeting the renown naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. 

At that time I was working in museums; David had been invited to open an exhibition about bats. I was the design lead on the project and David asked to meet the design team. 

He was incredibly gracious and charming and he was genuinely interested in each member of the design team, making a point to ask each person about their background. He was also kind enough to answer our questions, something he did with grace and humour.

And even though he was talking about himself, because he was telling stories that talked up the accomplishments of other people and that included elements of hilarity, it didn't sound as if he was bragging. In fact, he had no need to brag: his accomplishments and his reputation stood for themselves.

Because most people love a good story, it’s important that you use your stories to uplift other people. The upshot here is that in doing this, you brand yourself as someone who values other people.

Every day, most of us hear, read, see or are exposed to tens of thousands of words: online, in newspapers, on the radio, in conversation, on television, on social media. We're overloaded with information and trivia, all of which is vying for our time and attention.

So it's increasingly important that we invest time and effort in making our personal messages as mentally sticky as possible: so that we get ourselves  remembered for the best reasons.

The key lies less in talking about ourselves and more in talking about the ways in which we've helped others. This way, not only is what we've done remembered but so are the reasons why.

Be proud of who you are, of what you've done, and of the ways in which you've helped people. 

Sign yourself up for an online forum. 

Get involved in a networking group. 

Answer people's questions with value and with style. 

Be yourself. 

And in time, you won't have to toot your own horn because your accomplishments will speak for themselves.

Don't be shy. 

Get out there and show the world how brilliant you are!

As always, thanks for reading.

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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … How many ways are you using your content?