I was a junior cheese buyer, when a new boss, Jeff, came in. He was a trader. Very different to the stiff upper lip of Sir John Sainsbury’s head office employees. We got on well. He was a good buyer, but lazy. I did everything for him, while learning the alternative ropes of his type of wild west trading.
In my appraisal with Jeff in 1993, he asked me where I wanted to be in five years. I didn’t really listen to the question, and responded with: “If people notice me doing a great job, I’ll get promoted anyway. I just need to continue doing a great job.” I was doing a great job. Really great.
Jeff was amazed by my naivety. “You truly believe that, don’t you?” he asked. I vehemently explained why I did for the next 10 minutes. It didn’t go anywhere. I never did forget it, though. He wasn’t a great boss, but he did teach me a valuable lesson about looking after my own PR.
Just doing a great job won’t get you promoted, and it’s because most senior people expect you to do a great job, to do it silently and not to bother them. It was years later when I realised that I had to do more than ‘just’ a great job.
People had to know when I was doing a great job, what I had done, and what I could do. I started looking for more. Yes, more. Even though I was working a long day, I would look for project or opportunities to show what I could do.
One such project was coupons. In frozen foods, someone had forgotten about charging suppliers for multibuys where the retailer got back, say, 50p for every ‘buy 3 for £5’ family type deal.
It took me six weeks to pull together the data, but pull it together I did, and found we hadn’t charged suppliers a total of £1.4m. You can bet I made sure my colleagues heard about that.
My point? If all you needed to be successful was hard work, most of us would be millionaires. Here are some practical steps you can take to put the spotlight on yourself.
First, look for projects and opportunities to showcase your talents. Next, make an impression in every meeting. Even more so if senior people are involved.
It’s also important to network internally. Don’t just get to know who you need to, to do your job, but who you might need in the future.
Remember to be your own PR machine. And finally challenge yourself to update your CV with what others can’t say.
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