The Importance of Marketing Yourself
Lesson 7 from: Work Remotely: Thrive in a Job From HomeDarren Murph
The Importance of Marketing Yourself
Lesson 7 from: Work Remotely: Thrive in a Job From HomeDarren Murph
Lessons
How to Ditch the Office Cubicle
1Class Introduction
08:28 2Fears and Misconceptions on Working Remotely
05:22 3Shifting from Office to Home
17:05 4How to Pivot to a Remote Career
11:43 5The Nonlinear Workday
10:27 6Methods for Remote Communication
13:51How to Stay on Task: Goals & Boundaries
Lesson Info
The Importance of Marketing Yourself
So in this section we're going to talk about three things in particular marketing yourself as someone that doesn't have to go into an office every day what job opportunities exist for remote workers and do you need to get out of where you're at or just make a different lifestyle for yourself where you are currently and how do you ah how do you adjust the work life balance when you work and live in the same place how do you make balance with that so I want to get started with a very serious question as you can see it's a very serious dog here this is my pup and if if you aren't taking him seriously yet his name is gangster so it is very serious pump he never smiles sometimes he smiles when he gets all worked up but but in all seriousness you have to wonder who networks with the guy or gal who never comes to work if you never show up to work how in the world are you ever going to develop relationships with people that matter and we're going to help you in your career if you aren't there ...
to network how does the networking take place? How do you have any network of colleagues or or people that you can call on if you're eager for a new opportunity or your current opportunity expires and you need to go somewhere else if you go into an office every day it's pretty easy to sort of comes with the territory you meet people every single day you're familiar with these people, you know their email address, you know, their phone number if you don't show up to work, how does that happen? Well, it happens by you marketing yourself, I would say marketing yourself is probably the one thing that remote workers have to do daily deliberately that office dwellers don't have to do so if you're thinking like what? What other requirements are there of me when I'm looking at a job description the same one for an office worker compared to one in a remote worker, marketing yourself is going to be at the bottom of it and it's not easy, but it's not impossible, so I talk about a life of constant marketing and it's really a mindset that if you don't showcase your talents and you don't make yourself available and you don't make an effort to connect with people on digital means and traveling to client sites traveling to the office, making time for face time, how were you market yourself? How will people be familiar with you? How will they get to know who you are, what your personality is, what you bring to the table that's on you that's on the remote worker to figure out how to do that when you go into an office every day that's sort of a given you're going to run into people, whether you like it or not, they're going to learn your personality just by rubbing off on you. So who was looking out for your career if you aren't making a direct impact at work? Uras good is invisible. So this goes back to what I was saying about when you have deadlines and timelines and projects that you own make sure that you own them. Make sure that you see them through there's very little room for error in the remote life, because people assume that you have an easier time getting something done than someone that has to go into the office right or wrong that's the assumption that's going be there, it's all about who you know remains true, but finding those people is very different. We're going to touch on that briefly. Where are these people? If you're home every day, you've got to act as your own hr department largely if you don't have a person there in the office saying, hey, what? What jobs are opening up? Where can I transfer to what divisions need help that's on you to make the phone call, send the email you can't just run into this person if you're not going into the office? A remote workers to do list so this is is a pretty basic list, but it's it's a good start, keep a daily pulse on linked in. So if you are going into the office every day, consider lincoln for the time being, the digital networking office it is as bigas any networking platform it's in the world and it's important to be on it's important to have a great profile, really professional photo baked out resume on there when you don't come into the office every day, what you say on linked in matters a lot, especially for freelancers that are trying to find new clients. This is where they're going to look first, they're going to say, what does this person look like on linked in? And a lot of judgments will be made based on that. When you meet somebody face to face, you buy yourself a little bit of leeway uh, when you can't meet somebody face to face in your first interaction, there's an email or a phone call, your online presence means a lot. Consider a freelance gig or two to stay fresh, so if you're in in in an environment where you have a full time job, most of your colleagues work in an office you work from home those extra hours that you're saving when you're not commuting. Consider doing something with them professionally, so maybe if you're tapped out at work, you're doing as much as you can do there, you know, maybe you've got a thing for graphic design, maybe have ah yearning tio do some photography on the side, whatever hobby you have that you might be able to turn into a business, use that commute time to consider doing that five to ten hours a week might not sound like a lot, but it's a lot to get a side business going to start something to take on new clients to reach out, it basically forces you to do some interaction to go hunting for clients. It's good to stay in practice when you're a remote worker it's on you to go find the next thing volunteering your community take every travel opportunity you can and one last thing goto a co working space if you have one near you it's an amazing way to build a work family when you don't go into the office every day co working spaces are full of people just like you that have to work here there and everywhere, maybe a different place every month, maybe they have colleagues in an office and they just feel disconnected this is the best place to get in person, uh, networking when you can't travel to your home office I want to share two examples about doing exactly that in my own life, so I spent eight years working at engadget and since then have moved over to a career of marketing and consulting, and in between all of that, I wasn't cs a few years ago, this is a consumer electronics show had to be there for in gadget. We were covering news from the show and I met a gentleman in the hallway and we had maybe a five minute conversation, and he said, I'm running a company called snapped power. We're going to launch our first product on kickstarter. Do you have any tips for me now? It reached in the media because at the time I was in the media and I said what? I've got five minutes here's what I've got, we converse for five minutes shook hands, and that was it. I didn't speak with this guy for a year. A year later, I get an email from him because, of course, after we met and when connected with him on linked and I wanted to make sure we had some sort of connection because he was a nice guy thought it went really well, he e mailed me and he said, you know what I remember you from a year ago, you gave us a really good advice we're going to launch our second product. Would you work with this on a consultative basis? We'd like to have you for a couple of months give us some advice, pr tips, things like that if I wouldn't have connected with him right after that, would he have ever remembered me? I don't know, but it's making the effort when you meet someone to not just think that interactions over to say, you know what? I'm going to make some sort of meaningful impact on connecting with this person it's a small world, things come around, karma comes into play so on so forth, the second option, uh example here swiftkey. So I was going to tokyo for a trade show similar story, and I thought, I wonder if if there any anyone I know is is going to tokyo because it's it's kind of a random place to be, and while I'm there might as well take advantage of who else might be there. And so I scoured linkedin and facebook for a bit and saw that a few of my friends at swiftkey said, hey, we're going to be in tokyo. Any recommendations for nightclubs or bars had nothing to do with work, but I said, ok, they're going to be there, I haven't caught up with this guy in a while, a perfect opportunity so I sent him an email hey, it's, all that you're gonna be in tokyo, you have some time to catch up, we did no agenda whatsoever and during our conversation, he said, you know what? We really need some help on our block. We have no one in house that could do it better than a blogger that's been blogging for eight years, said, hey, man, maybe I can help with that. Sure enough, I was able to write a few post for them, nothing huge, but it's a little bit aside and come and it keeps the relationships going it's really important to be proactive had I just said, you know what, I'm going to tokyo and thought nothing else of it. I would have never had this encounter, uh, it's really important to reach out, look at your networks on a daily basis. It does take effort to see what people are up to and to keep up with people and could be overwhelming at times but it's worth doing to keep those relationships fresh.
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Ratings and Reviews
Moorea
Full of valuable information. Talks about pro's and con's of working remotely. I already work remotely as a freelance graphic designer but Darren had plenty of tips that I will implement for myself. Class moved at a nice pace.
MIke Woitach
Love it! I've been working from home for two and a half years and have been struggling with my productivity. This helped me think through the classic sticking points and how to think about my day.