Self-promotion, how hard can it be?

I am thrilled because I have been nominated and shortlisted for an award. It’s the Author/Blogger category in the 2nd annual Women Inspiring Women Awards, sponsored by Damsels in Success. I feel privileged because the other women shortlisted in my category are people I have admired for a long time, whose blogs and articles I read and enjoy. The other categories, too, are filled with dazzlingly successful and inspiring women and I can’t believe that I have found myself in their company.

While it’s flattering to be recognised in this way, this experience also brings up more complex feelings. Once nominated, I was invited to edit my profile, submit a photo and make a video. The profile was the easy bit. I am most confident when I am writing and I have drafted so many CVs in my life that I knew how to approach the task. I wrote what I knew, in my heart, was the truth about myself and checked with a friend that it sounded ok. It did.

The photo was more challenging. I’m not naturally a visual person and I usually feel uncomfortable when someone takes my picture; it usually shows! Having just upgraded my phone to an i-phone, however, I am now able to photograph myself and I wondered whether I might feel less self-conscious doing this. I took myself into the garden and did some experimenting. You can see the result here and I am quite pleased with how easy it was.

Most challenging of all was the video. I knew it had to be done and planned out roughly what I wanted to say. It needed to be under two minutes long, and the first time I found that I rambled on for about five minutes! I tried to say less and then stumbled over my words and had to start again. In the end, I had a version I was reasonably happy with and, to be honest, couldn’t bear to keep trying any longer! I set about deleting the unwanted versions and found that there were 17 of them. So the successful take was number 18. I was really pleased with my dedication to something that was way out of my comfort zone. You can see the video here.

Having completed my profile, I just had to wait and see if I was shortlisted, and was so pleased to find out that I was. This meant a new phase, and new out-of-comfort-zone activity, however. I needed to promote my entry and let people know about my nomination and ask them to vote for me. Luckily, with social media, this can now be done online and without having to ring people up or confront them face to face. And I had learned a lot from my son’s recent experience.

I am mum to a 17 year-old guitarist/singer, also known as the Teenager. He plays in a local band and recently they were in a competition which entailed getting as many likes as possible – ideally more than the other bands – on a promoter’s Facebook page. The boys set about contacting all their friends and asking them to like the page. They were polite but persistent, seeming to know instinctively that you need to ask lots of times, not just once or twice. They also got their families involved and I asked all my own friends, again politely but persistently, to support the lads and like the page. I knew that I had contributed significantly when I visited the promoter’s page and found that I had 30 friends on it!

And here’s the thing: none of my friends were going to gain anything from going to that page and clicking ‘like’. They just wanted to encourage some young people in their creative ambitions. I had asked and they willingly supported the boys. It was a big lesson for me and a really positive experience. Incidentally, Oliver’s band won the competition which means the promoters are going to do some free recording for them. As the young people themselves would say, ‘f**king awesome!’ (Well they are rockers and that’s how they talk.) If you are interested you can find out more about the band here.

So, at the moment I am in the middle of my self-promotion, trying to share the link and drum up support and votes most days. Voting continues until midnight on Wednesday 5th June, so there is still some way to go. I believe in what I do and I know that people are sometimes helped, inspired and encouraged by my words so I feel quite comfortable about asking for votes, in the hope that, whatever happens, this process will help to increase my audience and introduce more people to my writing.

And I’ll let you into a secret. My dearest wish is that my writing will earn me enough of a living so that I can work on it full time. Of course, I have a number of projects on the go with this goal in mind, but becoming more visible and more well known through these awards will certainly help to move me in that direction. So here is today’s call to action: please vote for me using this link. It’s quite easy; you just have to click to vote and then wait for a confirmation email which sets you up to vote in all the categories. Please vote for me, or indeed for any of the other ladies in my category, and why not have a look at the other sections and vote in them too?

I may not be 17 but I’m learning that it’s ok to ask for support, encouragement and validation. It’s ok to become more visible and to say, ‘I know I’m really good.’ I’ve done a lot of selling throughout various career paths and I haven’t enjoyed any of it. I’ve knocked on doors, rung people up and approached people at gatherings. It’s not my bag and I’m not a natural salesperson. But when there’s something I really believe in, and when I can do it in writing and online, guess what? I can do it!

Are you promoting yourself, your business, your unique brilliance? Politely and persistently? Could you do more? It really is ok to push at those boundaries just a little, stretch the comfort zone and tell the world how amazing you are. Give it a try!