Act Like Your Own PR Firm

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

If no one knows what you do or how good you are, how will you stand a chance?

Career Coach Office Hours: March 12, 2024

The title of this is a little provocative– acting like you’re own PR firm.  Firm.  What W What do I mean by that?

Many of you lurch from job search to job search to job search and the only time you create any buzz for yourself is when you’re looking for work.  Then, you wonder why it is you have to work so hard to get a job.  You are so focused on your current job that you take no time to cultivate a network, cultivate relationships and to promote yourself, for your successes and triumphs. 

When I talk about being your own PR firm, I want to be clear.  You don’t have to be as aggressive as I am with videos, podcasts, articles and blogs and all the things that I do because that’s part of my business.  But if you dissect what I’ve done and think about it for yourself, If I wanted to be known, I could do few more things than what I’m doing now to get in front of millions of people on a regular basis with all the action that I take and, through that, build a coaching practice.

For you, you may not want to be as aggressive as I am.  You may just want to start by staying in touch with people that you worked with in the past, people that you know personally.  I want to be clear; I’m not talking about every day; that would be ridiculous.  But staying in touch with them, just talking with them about what you do and what you have done so that you become “top of mind.” 

Remember, the person who gets ahead isn’t always the smartest, they don’t always work the hardest, although those a great qualities to have.  People get ahead by being alert to opportunities.  Sometimes, those are internal opportunities.  Sometimes, they are external.  As a matter of fact, most of the time, they are external because what starts to happen is people take individuals for granted and they’re not thought of in that way of what they can do in the future.  The or thought of for what they can do now. As a result, they don’t get those upscale opportunities.

For you, The way to stay “top of mind” so that people reach out to you is through “acting like a PR firm.”  Acting like your own PR firm.  Marketing and promoting yourself.

For many of you, you can appear on other people’s podcasts.  I do a segment now as a video interview, for example, where I interview people for what they do professionally so that in this way they can teach others what it’s like to work in their career (by the way, if you be interested, email me or actually connect with me on linkedin@linkedin.com/IN/TheBigGameHunter and,  in your message, say that you have seen this video and that you would to like to appear as a guest in 1 of those videos about what it’s like to work in your profession).

Continuing on, what you may want to do is write from time to time about some element of your work and share it on LinkedIn, share it on medium.com.  Be the expert so that as people start looking for someone does the work that you do, they may find video or they may find the podcast interview that you did.  They may find the article that you wrote.  Doing that can separate you from the Average Jane or Average Joe who is just doing their job and doing it well. 

Remember, it’s easier if people are reaching out to you, right?  That’s because they’re favorably disposed to you, right?  They think you know your subject, right?  I know that’s true for me as a coach when people start to watch or listen or read things that I have done, lo and behold!  They start to think, “This guy knows his material!” The same will happen for you, too. 

Promote yourself period contact people through email about appearing on their podcast, Many of them will love to talk to you. 

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