I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know (12 page)

7. Avoid a lot of warm-up with your actual idea.
I’ve noticed that women often have a tendency to explain their thinking first (“I came across a study that said . . .”) rather than get right to the point. By the time they describe the actual idea, they’ve lost people’s attention despite how good the concept may be. Then some guy brings the same idea up succinctly two minutes later, and everyone gushes over it.

When you speak, also be careful not to use fillers such as “um” (practice delivering your ideas ahead of time), or end statements so they sound like a question. “We could do it in
California
?” Studies show that women are particularly guilty of these habits. And lock your hands to the table so they don’t flail around or touch your hair.

8. If you were asked to come to a meeting with ideas, do not, under any circumstances, arrive empty-handed and try to blend into the surroundings.
Your boss will notice if you don’t volunteer anything. And don’t think of your ideas ten minutes before you dash in the door. I can always spot those lame-ass ideas, as well as the ones made up on the spot based on what someone else just said. The best time to begin thinking of your ideas is as soon as you receive a notice about the meeting. Rather than putting off the task until you “have more time,” tell yourself you’re going to take thirty minutes ASAP to come up with some initial ideas. This will actually save you time in the long run because over the next few days your subconscious will be on the lookout for ways to flesh out and add to what you’ve come up with. It also allows you the chance to polish the good ideas and dump the stupid ones.

9. Get a sense of your meeting face.
I can’t tell you how many people look bored at meetings or even kind of sad. I had a staffer at one magazine who never sat at a meeting without looking as though her kitty cat had just been crushed by a Mack truck. I’m sure that most people have no idea that they appear that way, but though they may be blameless, the damage is still done. They come across as unengaged, and they can even end up sucking the energy out of the room, which bosses hate. So try to catch your reflection in the window or the flat-screen monitor during the meeting—or, when you’re alone later, reassume the expression you think you were wearing and check it out in a mirror. Do you seem invested, interested, enthusiastic? If not, fix it!

10. Compliment your colleagues’ winning ideas.
It spreads goodwill. Don’t, however, go overboard complimenting your
boss’s
ideas. You’ll seem like a major butt kisser in front of your coworkers. You should, however, nod at her good comments, really taking them in, and smile when appropriate. Later, you can shoot your boss an e-mail and comment positively on the new strategy or ideas she suggested and say you are eager to implement them. She’ll appreciate any additional thoughts you have.

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12 Ways to Get Buzzed About
 
}

T
hese days it seems that people are always talking about buzz—the secrets of getting it, the importance of keeping it, the danger of losing it. I even gave the name
Buzz
to the celebrity magazine in the Bailey Weggins mystery series I write. (I hope you don’t mind that I just gave a buzzy shout-out to something I do!) We often think of buzz now in regard to media—both traditional and social—but there’s also tremendous value to good old-fashioned word of mouth.

Is buzz really necessary? Yup. It is if you want news to travel about you and/or what you do. And buzz isn’t just for those in high-profile jobs. You want to start creating buzz about yourself
now.

But you want the right kind of buzz for your field and your particular job. If you’re a young associate at a conservative law firm, for instance, you don’t want party pictures of yourself in a drop-dead sexy dress all over the Internet. But you do want people in the office buzzing about how sharp you are.

Pretty much everything I’ve learned about buzz has come from the absolutely amazing publicists I’ve worked with—not only publicists who represented the magazine I was running at the time or me as an author, but also lots of terrific Hollywood publicists. They include the woman brilliant enough to talk Hugh Grant into going on
The Tonight Show
and offering mea culpa after he was arrested for engaging in a lewd act with a prostitute in 1995. Those talented gurus (mostly women but some men, too) have not only given me a glimpse of how buzz is created and kept alive but have also shared a few tips about quieting buzz when it’s bad.

1. Start close to home.
Yes, you want to be buzzed about in the outside world, but first and foremost you want your boss and coworkers to be gabbing about the awesome things you’re doing.

2. Learn to take credit for your successes.
This can be tough for women to do. And, yes, it can be tricky to strike the right balance. You want to make people aware of your latest accomplishment, but you don’t want to sound desperately needy of praise.

One age-old strategy for not sounding too show-offy is to present your triumphs as part of a group effort. You burst into your boss’s office and announce, “We did it! We figured out where the problem was.” There’s nothing wrong with that approach sometimes. It gets the big news across and makes everybody feel good. But if you always make it about “we,” your boss may lose sight of exactly how much you’re contributing.

How can you go there without sounding obnoxiously braggy? Try discussing your achievement in terms of the
process
that it involved. Bosses are often interested in the backstory of exploits and achievements—I know I am—because that info can prove helpful to them as they direct future efforts.

Perhaps you’re in sales and you just landed business that involved a monumental effort on your part. You don’t want to take your boss through every meeting you had with the client and every presentation you made, but perhaps the client revealed something surprising about the company’s new direction, a detail you then used to help make the sale.
That
could be valuable for your boss to know. So tell her you have something important to share. Explain how you’d been trying to get the business for a while and finally, after snooping around, you found out this one critical piece of information. The client had no idea how your organization would be able to leverage it, so you did a presentation specifically around that. You want your boss to know because it’s going to change how your company approaches the client in the future. She’ll appreciate the insight, and indirectly you’ve given her a sense of how much you kicked butt to get the business.

It’s not easy to stand out when much of what you do is teamwork, so find ways to separate yourself from the pack. An up-and-coming female attorney told me, off the record, how she does this: “I’ve found the best way to make a name for yourself can be through nonbillable work, such as pro bono cases. You usually have a lot more responsibility on those cases, which translates into more opportunity to stand out. It’s also a good idea to join committees, like the hiring committee or the associates committee, and to volunteer for roles on them that make you a liaison to partners.”

3. Develop a digital strategy.
“That’s one of the best ways to self-promote today,” says Marisa Ollins, the director of public relations at Henri Bendel. “Start a website, a blog, a Twitter feed, a Tumblr feed.”

If you don’t own a Web domain name yet, get one. Your own name may still be available. Even if you don’t plan to use a domain name right now, it doesn’t cost much to keep the name, and then you’ll have it when you need it someday. Sophia Stuart, the executive director, digital, at Hearst Magazines International, points out that if you only want to blog right now, you can use a blogging platform for free.

You want to be sure, however, that whatever you do digitally doesn’t bite you in the butt. According to Stuart, one of the smartest and safest strategies is to update your website or blog with fairly neutral material, such as the latest articles in your profession. “That way, she says, “you can be seen as a fabulous curator of news and views but careful about opinions.”

Always check with your boss before doing a blog or website. Not every boss is cool with it, and it’s not appropriate in many fields.

Should you tweet? Again, you have to be sure what’s appropriate in your company, your department, and your field. You’ll want to check with your boss first.

Twitter can be a real asset if you take the time to do it right. Let’s say you’re just out of veterinary college and have started working as a vet at an animal clinic. You need buzz to build your business. With Twitter, you can create a hashtag such as “#healthypets” and regularly tweet helpful animal-care tips. This will create a clickable link where Twitter users are able to see who has been using that hashtag in their tweets and hopefully reply, thanking you for your advice. Ideally some will even decide to take their pet to you when it’s time for a check-up. Websites such as www.hashtag.org track the frequency that a hashtag is used on Twitter and provides details about the hashtag.

Just as with blogs, it’s possible to tweet without getting too personal. “Talk about the great speech you heard or the book you just read about leadership,” says Ollins.

You should also follow people on Twitter, particularly those who are in your line of business. They are probably tweeting about relevant trends, articles, and ideas that may be of interest to you and important for you to be aware of. Learn from their style of tweeting. What are they tweeting about? What seems important to them? For example, if you’re an aspiring food blogger, you should be following other food bloggers, chefs, restaurant critics, restaurants, food publications, and so on.

And retweet. You should do this with any tweets from the reliable sources you are following. As an inspiring food blogger, you can retweet something from a food magazine editor because you think it might be interesting to your followers. This lets everyone know that you’re keeping up with trends and want to be associated with brands that can help your own. If the editor retweets nicely, you have now been exposed to all of his or her followers.

If you’re not sure about how to use Twitter, there are books you can find online that provide all the info you need.

4. Be out there—in person.
“Though Facebook and Twitter are important,” says Zoe Weisberg Coady, a partner in Brandstyle Communications, “face-to-face time is still incredibly valuable. Talk to as many people as you can. Continue to do informational interviews. Tell people, ‘I want to know as much as I can about your business.’ ” (See “Advanced Networking [Never Say You’re Too Busy to Do It]” in part II.)

5. Volunteer to be on committees, task forces, and panels, both inside and outside your company.
This not only exposes you to tons of new people but clues everybody in to your growing expertise on certain topics. And when you do it within your own company, it’s a way to impress coworkers without seeming braggy. And stay active on LinkedIn. It’s not just for when you’re searching for a job.

6. Don’t be a whiner.
When you talk to people, frame what you say positively. If you trash-talk your job or your boss, even to people you think of as pals, that info can leak out and create a negative buzz about you. I mentioned earlier how a European company once purchased the magazine where I was working and suddenly everything was in a terrible upheaval. If I ever felt like whining, it was then. One day a
Wall Street Journal
reporter was invited to sit in on a meeting with me and the man now running the show. I knew it would be hard to disguise how dreadful I felt, but I told myself I had to. When the reporter got me alone for a moment, he told me, “This must be a hard time for you.” “Actually,” I told him with a smile, “I find it very exciting.” That quote of mine ran, and the next day a headhunter called. I had sounded like a winner, not a whiner. Within a short time, I had a great new job.

7. Develop a signature look.
Steal a page from the editors of fashion magazines. They get a certain hairstyle, for instance, and work it. If you do this, people will absolutely be more apt to notice you and remember you.

8. Start a “big-mouth” e-mail list.
It should consist of former bosses, former coworkers whom you want to stay in touch with, anyone who has mentored you, people you’ve met who seem interested in your career. When you have important job news—such as a promotion—share it with this list.

9. Create a network of women who are mutually supportive and want to create buzz for one another.
I heard this idea from Rachelle Hruska, the dynamic and gorgeous founder of Guest of a Guest, the online media site that features social news and tons of party pictures. “Women are far less likely to talk about their accomplishments than men,” says Hruska. “Having supportive peers to boost you up makes it easier to brag without feeling badly about it. Why do women ever feel bad about bragging? Men don’t seem to.”

Hruska is part of Women in Tech, an e-mail chain group. “Just becoming aware of other women and their struggles in the workplace has inspired me in my own job,” she notes. “I have stopped feeling badly about tweeting an accomplishment or asking for a favor to extend my brand further. If something similar doesn’t exist in your field, start one. Find a handful of women peers and encourage them to invite more, and before you know it, you’ll have a powerful support group that will be nominating you for your next big press story.”

10. If you can’t afford a publicist and must pitch something to the media yourself, develop a clear, precise strategy.
“Good PR is not about a gazillion placements anymore,” says Ollins, “or throwing a lot of stuff out there to see what sticks. That’s the old way. Do your research and determine the key outlets that will make the most impact, and then customize your pitch just for them.”

Over the years I’ve received pitch letters from hundreds of publicists and individuals who clearly had not taken a look at the magazine and had no idea what columns or features were carried. Your pitch will have a shot only if the outlet feels you
get
it and its needs.