Successful people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Unsuccessful people sometimes think negatively about selling and promotion. Resenting promotion is one of the greatest obstacles to success. People who have issues with selling and promotions are usually broke. It’s obvious, how can you create success in your own business or as a representative of one if you’re not willing to let people know that your product exists. Even as an employee, if you aren’t willing to promote your virtues, someone who is willing to will quickly bypass you up the corporate ladder. Some people have a problem with promotion or sales for several reasons. You may have had a bad experience with someone promoting to you inappropriately. Maybe they were doing the hard sell on you or bothering you at an inopportune time. Maybe they wouldn’t take no for an answer. In any case, it’s important to recognize that this experience is in the past and that holding on to it may not be serving you today. You also may have had a bad experience when you have tried to sell something and that person rejected you. In this case, your distain for promotion is merely a projection of your own fear of failure and rejection. Another factor is that your issue might come from past parental programming. Many of us were told that it is impolite to “toot your own horn.” However, if you live in the real world when it comes to business if you don’t toot your own horn nobody will. Please don’t mistake this for ego. There is a big difference in letting people know what you have done, over egotistically defining yourself by it. Some people feel that promotion is beneath them. If you expect that sponsors will come to you because you are doing so well then you will be waiting for a long time. There are a ton of athletes out there winning races, writing awesome stories and helping others in their sport, and promoting themselves to sponsors; these are the ones who get the jobs.
There is a quote, “build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.” Well this is only true if you add five words: “if they know about it.” Successful people are almost always excellent promoters. They can and are willing to promote their products and ideas with passion and enthusiasm. They are also skilled at packaging their value in a way that’s extremely attractive. If you think there’s something wrong with that, then let’s ban makeup for women and suits for men as all that is nothing more than “packaging.” If you had a cure for arthritis would you hide it from others because you did not want to promote it? Of course the answer is no. More often then not, people who have a problem with promotion don’t fully believe in their product or don’t fully believe in themselves. If you believe that what you have to offer can truly assist people, then it is your duty to let as many people know about it. You will not only help them you’ll be successful as well!
