"Don’t Sell: Market. What’s the difference?
Selling is persuading someone to buy your wares.
Marketing is creating conditions under which
the buyer is attracted to your offer and
decides on their own to invest in what you offer.
How do you do that? Public relations. Advertising.
Word-of-mouth. And since "the product" is also "you",
a whole lot of Self-Promotion!"

That great advice is from Burt Dubin—THE public speaking expert and speaker trainer who is featured on another page on this site. I couldn’t have picked a better person to open the topic of Market-U, a.k.a. Self-Promotion. That’s because Burt is an ace in that department—which is a great deal responsible for his major success.

Debbie Allen is also an ace of Self-Promotion. In fact, she wrote a book entitled Confessions of Shameless Self-Promoters—68 Marketing Gurus Share Secrets, Strategies, And Unique Ideas That Will Take You To The Next Level Of Success! (Her Arizona license plate reads: SHAMLSS) A lot of what you’ll read on this page comes from the "marketing gurus" featured in her book. Like top-of-the-line speaker and self-marketing expert Jim Cathcart below:

"Self promotion requires a different mindset
than most people are used to.
Although it’s not always easy to do,
you MUST think of yourself
as a brand or a product."

"You must think of yourself as a BRAND or a product." A "brand"… Your "personal brand"... A great many articles and books have been written about branding (I talk about that much in my Milk & Cookies book), but that is mostly in terms of business entities (companies and corporations)—although you could certainly apply most of that wisdom to your "personal brand." Like this brilliant observation by Stephen King, of JW Thompson, UK:

"A commodity is something that is made in a factory;
a brand is something that is bought by a customer.
A commodity can be copied by a competitor;
a brand is unique.
A commodity can be quickly outdated;
a successful brand is timeless."

With a bit of imagination, you can re-write that remark and apply it to your personal branding. Let me help you visualize that by sharing with you a few more penetrating statements that I’ve "adapted" to the topic at hand.

"A [personal] brand that captures
your mind gains behavior.
A [personal] brand that captures
your heart gains commitment."
Scott Talgo, brand strategist

"The primary focus of your [personal] brand
message must be on how special you are,
not how cheap you are …
The goal must be to sell the
distinctive quality of the brand."
Larry Light, brand strategist

"… how special you are …" Harry Beckwith addressed that in his mind-blowing book Selling the Invisible when he wrote, "Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are."

"[Personal] branding means nothing more
(and nothing less) than creating
a distinct personality
… and telling the world about it …
by hook or by crook."
Tom Peters

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What do you mean "Tell the world about it?" Are you saying it won’t make a beaten path to my door? What about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous observation? "If a man make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

Well, that is a CROCK! It’s a myth! One of the biggest fallacies in business today that is causing thousands of businesses to fold, and hundreds of thousands of very good websites to fail because people are just sitting there by their computer waiting for the world to "beat a path to their secret website".

If you have a wonderful product to sell—particularly if it’s awesomsational you—you have to, as Neil Simon wrote in his 1961 Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, "Toot your own horn lest the same be never tooted." In other words, praise yourself; others may never do it. There’s also a proverb that reads "Don’t hide your light under a bushel," meaning don’t conceal your talent, skills or good deeds, and don’t be too modest.

"You cannot afford to be humble. If you wait to be discovered and rewarded based on merit alone, you had better bring a lunch and several good books because you’re going to be waiting a long time. The bigger your ambitions, the more likely you are to offend people while achieving those ambitions. And your opportunity to have meaningful impact will be in direct proportion to your willingness to offend." — Dan S. Kennedy, No Rules—21 Giant Lies about Success

"My parents taught me to be proud of my talents and accomplishments, and that it is selfish not to share them with others. I do believe I have something wonderful to offer to a potential client, which they won’t know if I don’t tell them." — Dana Burke

And tell them you must. As popular author Larry James wrote in Debbie Allen’s book, "Self-promote or disappear. Do something every day to promote your product, your services, yourself. Promote, promote, promote!"

Self-Promotion … Marketing-U … This all has to do with personal branding… It was Russell L. Hanlin, CEO of Sunkist Growers who said that "An orange … is an orange an orange. Unless, of course, that orange happens to be a Sunkist®, a brand name 80% of consumers know and trust."

Branding is not just for oranges, coffee and laundry detergent. It’s for people too. Like marketing gurus for example. Because "…a marketing guru is a marketing guru is a marketing guru … unless, of course, that marketing guru happens to be a Perry Marshall …, a Mike Dillard …, a Simon Leung …, a Debbie Allen …, a Charlie Page …, a Debbie Bermont …, a Kevin Hogan …, a Derek Gehl …, a Robert Middleton …, names home based business owners and Internet marketers around the world know and trust."

That’s because they are unique, and the best at what they do—which is why you’ll find many of them featured on this website.

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The Science of Shameless Self-Promotion -
How & Why It Works To Build Success
By Jeffrie Story and Debbie Allen, All Rights Reserved

"If you don’t toot your own horn,
you can’t enjoy the music."
– Debbie Allen

Shamelessly Effective Self-Promotion by Debbie Allen
When a friend of mine, Larry James, first stated, "I’m a shameless self-promoter," I laughed. Then I thought for a moment, and I realized that I’m a shameless self-promoter, too. I had never thought of my marketing approach as being shameless before. I would have described myself more like the Energizer Bunny. I just keep on marketing and marketing and doing whatever it takes to make it happen. I had never thought of this as shameful, unless it’s shameful to believe in something so much that you want to tell everyone you meet. I call it good marketing!

Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, I learned early that you must self-promote on a daily basis if you want your business to succeed. Since my family had many different businesses, we were always promoting something new. Most of our businesses started out with little or no investment; therefore self-promotion was essential to getting those businesses from idea to success.

My father taught me that the first step in marketing success is to have a strong belief in yourself and your ideas. No matter how crazy other people may think your ideas are, you must believe strongly enough to never give up.

How can you be successful if you don’t believe in yourself and what you have to offer to your customers? You can’t. Therefore the first step in shameless self-promotion is to have a strong belief system.

After writing my award winning book, Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters, I began to survey my audiences to see how many believe in promoting themselves. It amazed me to discover that 87% or more do not feel comfortable nor believe in the concept of self-promotion. Now this goes against the grain of all sales and marketing success!

Here is why effective self-promotion works and why you believe in it:

The Science of Self Promotion by Jeffrie Story
Excerpt from "Confessions of Shameless Self Promoters"

Studies have found that self-promotion is directly related to success. All successful people are self-promoters, from Madonna, to Dennis Rodman, to Howard Stern, to Jimmy Carter, to Bill Clinton. Some do it with more political acumen or integrity than others, but we all must self-promote to succeed. In fact, we were self-promoting in grade school, when we raised our hands in fervor to show the teacher we knew the answer.

Undeniably, there is unethical self-promotion. We’ve all witnessed it, and maybe even lost business to it. But that’s not what we’re discussing. You can do shameless self-promoting with class, ethics and truth. As Will Rogers said, "If you done it, it ain’t braggin’."

Natural self-promoters are those people who don’t hesitate to show the world what they can do and have done, and for which they receive recognition in the form of money, fame or service to others—their rewards for many sales. We can emulate what works for them, regardless of our goals.

The first is Position. They position themselves frequently with people who can make a difference in their goals. They automatically wake up each morning asking themselves, "Who can I meet today who will make a difference in my success?" Then they get themselves in front of those people.

Ask yourself the same questions: Who can help me meet my goals? Is it a prospective customer? Is it a colleague who has contacts? Is it an association with key members who may be prospects?

Too frequently we settle for working with the people who are the easiest to reach, not the most effective. Work on meeting the one person who can have impact on your life, versus the 25 who cannot.

The second behavior of natural self-promoters is Style. In marketing, we call this "differentiation." Ask yourself what is it about you that’s different, and what makes you memorable to your customers or potential clients?

How do people remember you? Are you distinctive in some way, and do you point it out? If you meet a lot of people and they seem to forget meeting you, you have a problem, but also an opportunity—an opportunity to present yourself in a more memorable way.

It might be your message, your picture, your business card, your words, your hairstyle. Maybe it’s the uniqueness of what you offer, or how you relate your experience to their particular issue, or how you know what their issues are in the first place, or even your personality on the phone. Best of all, it might be your obvious caring about them and how you demonstrate that caring.

The third attribute of natural self-promoters is Repetition. Natural self-promoters don’t say it once; they say it many times. If you had seen a wonderful commercial once, would you remember it? Probably not. Advertisers know this principle, which is why they design multiple ‘impressions’ for their target market, and why we get to see those commercials over and over and over. We, too, have to make multiple impressions in order to achieve "brand awareness." Repetition also applies to positioning. Once you’ve found people who can make a difference in your success—find hundreds more.

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