How to Sell Yourself in Any Situation
By: Raquel Van Ry
Tags: Guides And Tutorials, Personal Growth, Selling, How To

How To Sell Yourself by Raquel Van Ry. Made with Canva.

You want someone to swipe right? You want that investor to give you the go-ahead? You want that job? Then you need to learn to impress yourself first before you worry about trying to sell yourself to anyone else. Before jumping into how you can better sell yourself, lets make sure you have a solid foundation in place.

You can start by engaging in a little self-reflection. In Buddhist context, suffering (Pali: dukkha) goes hand-in-hand with a lack of self awareness (Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). Thus, by reflecting more on yourself and what drives you — in relationships, your career, when you’re alone, and in life in general, you will be able to increase your awareness of what you have and what you need to move beyond yourself. Not only will heightened self-awareness aid you in your efforts in determining who you are and what you want, but it will also reveal to you strengths that you can use to your advantage. Further, mindful self-awareness enables you to have a non-judgmental attitude towards your own inner thoughts and feelings and to allow external “thoughts, images, and feelings to come and go without reacting to them or getting carried away by them” (Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). True strength rests in knowing yourself, so learn who you are before you worry about trying to sell who you are to anyone else.

Konstantin Stanislavski by William Carrick.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, I’d like to introduce to you to one of my inspirations for this guide: Mr. Konstantin Stanislavski. He was a Russian theatre practitioner from the 19th-20th century (Burgun, 2009). Stanislavski is best known for his contributions to the theatre world as an actor and director, and most notably, his acting method handbook (Burgun, 2009). Within the handbook, Stanislavski instructs actors on how to create truthful characters based on the given circumstances and various exercises (Cole, 2008). While I was reading through Stanislavski’s handbook myself, I noticed a parallel between his prescriptions and how one can sell themselves. I realized that the act of selling yourself is largely based on the construction of an image built from the limited knowledge you have of your “buyer”, which is not so far from how an actor creates a character from a short character description in any given script. Thus, I opted to build off Stanislavski’s acting method in order to create a guide on how-to sell yourself. Since Stanislavski was such a major inspiration for this how-to guide, I chose to model it after his seven-step acting handbook. By following these seven steps, practitioners will be better equipped to confidently sell themselves in any situation. Your character speaks for itself, but there are ways that you can train yourself to help your case.

Step 1: Prepare Your “Why” and Let it Shine

Before reading any further, you need to ask yourself “Why?”. Why do you want to sell yourself and to who? The point of selling oneself is to convince another person that you are worthy of whatever they have to offer, whether that’s a job, a friendship or otherwise. If you go into a social situation without an objective, you likely won’t succeed in selling yourself. Passion and interest are evident in every action one makes, but if you don’t have any real interest or a “Why” in any given situation, then you are not only wasting the other person’s time, but your own as well. If you haven’t identified your “Why”, then take a step back and refocus on who you are and what you want. Then, you can start setting tangible goals and homing in on the people who could help to achieve those goals.

As much as I passionately disliked writing out SMART goals in school, teachers were onto something: they really do work. Without clear objectives and a means to fulfil said objectives, trying to sell yourself with a foggy end-goal will likely make the task more challenging. So, try to set some SMART goals of your own; they could simply be to be to make more friends by being more optimistic, or to wake up earlier to apply for one job every day. No matter the goal, try to set a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound (Eby, 2019). If you find a goal that you’ve set is too difficult, or that determining any one of the five aforementioned elements is especially challenging, then maybe you should reconsider your goal as it may not be something that is truly important to you, or perhaps it’s unfeasible, in which case, don’t waste another second thinking about it.

Once you’ve identified your “Why”, then remember to come back to it and nurture it. If you lose sight of your “Why”, pushing yourself to attend social events or to knock on your boss’ door to ask for that promotion will seem a lot more daunting, and the idea of attempting to sell yourself impossible or not worth the “risk”.

Step 2: Know Yourself and Your Value

If you still feel hesitant to take the leap to prove to the world and your particular “buyer” what you have to offer, then it’s time for you to move on from the “Why” stage into the “Value” stage. A certain wise man (my father) once said that everyone is a 10 in their own way. They may not be good at singing or calculations, but they might be amazing at cooking and taking care of others. The point is, you have something to offer whether you are aware of it or not, all you have to do is uncover your assets. Yes, it’s a lot easier to criticize yourself. Self-deprecation is a natural reflex, but if you repeatedly self-deprecate around other people, then they will start to believe it too (White, 2016). After all, “the way we present ourselves and our work can have enormous consequences [on] the way it is received” (White, 2016). While you’re at it, try to stop comparing yourself to others. We get sucked into wanting to sell our souls for society’s ideal — yearning to impress others or obtaining something else, anything else, instead of loving what we have. Let’s look at Katy Perry or Shawn Mendes for example. They both are extremely talented individuals and are loved by all, yet both have admitted to struggling with depression or anxiety (Gupte, 2018). We all know that mental health issues are a common side effect that often go hand-in-hand with fame, yet many of us still choose to see only the highlights and disregard the fact that at the end of the day, whoever we compare ourselves to is human with problems just the same. So, it’s time to stop comparing yourself to others and embrace what you’ve got. If you can’t already list five things about yourself that you like, then it’s time to hunker down and sit yourself in front of a notebook and get to writing about how fantastic you are. If you’re like me and need a little inspiration, then personality and skill assessments are a great place to start.

Personality tests such as the Big Five or True Colours are great resources that can be used to get to know oneself, why you are the way that you are, and what you can bring to the table. If you don’t already know yourself inside and out, then this is a crucial task that you should complete in order to succeed on your journey to sell yourself. You must know what you are selling in order to convince the buyer. Fortunately, most personality tests and skill assessments are affordable or even free to use. The Government of Alberta for example, offers a free self-assessment called Assessing You which provides you with a list of skills from which you select the skills that you believe you possess (Alis, 2020). You can then home in on the skills that you are not only good at, but that you enjoy too. This way, you’re doing a bit of career searching while simultaneously uncovering skills that you might have taken for granted but a potential “buyer” would value. Once you have a list of your personal assets, you can pick and choose which skills are relevant for any given situation, depending on whomever you are selling to. For example, if you are speaking to a potential investor, you might want to outline your strengths in implementation and creation, whereas if you are trying to get a job as a barista, you could promote your serving and speaking skills (Alis, 2020).

Finally, in your journey of realizing your self-worth, self-efficacy is something that should be taken into consideration. If you’re not sure what self-efficacy is, it’s essentially the faith you have in your ability to accomplish something. Whether that’s successfully walking through a room without tripping or neutralizing a bomb before it explodes. In both situations, having a high level of self-efficacy means that you’re going to have the confidence you need to pull off such a task. But as soon as you second-guess yourself and doubt sets in, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Measuring self-efficacy has become a recent focal point when it comes to personal selling with over 125 researchers writing articles and conducting experiments on test subjects in order to identify the impact of self-efficacy on personal selling (Peterson, 2019). Self-efficacy is not to be confused with self-esteem or similar concepts, as self-efficacy refers more specifically to your choice in goals, your ability to form reasonable expectations for yourself and most notably, your level of determination and effort to pursue the goals you set for yourself (Peterson, 2019). If you’ve come this far and you realize that you score low in the self-efficacy category, then maybe it’s time to take a look at your life and the people in it. By surrounding yourself with positive, encouraging individuals, your self-efficacy will have room to blossom where it otherwise wouldn’t.

Step 3: Know Your Buyer

People hate salespeople. Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word, but no one likes to feel like they are being sold to (Zack, 2010). Think about the last time Telus or your bank called you up with a new promotion. They ask you how you are doing, and you ask the same to be nice, then they respond with an over-exaggerated happy voice saying: “I’m great! Thank you so much for asking!”. They don’t care that much, no one does. But what they’re trying to do in this situation is make you feel as though your opinions matter to them, like you matter to them. This can be a powerful tactic if done correctly but most people see right through it and hang up. You don’t have to be a trained actor to tell that they aren’t being genuine.

A good salesperson is one that makes you feel like they genuinely want what is best for you and they are an open book, just stating the facts (Zack, 2010). So why would that be any different in real life? If you go to a job interview, it could very well prove to be beneficial to compliment your potential employer’s outfit, but if you do so in a suck-up schmoozy way, chances are they’re going to be turned off more than anything. You need to be aware that people are human, just like you and I, and they too can see through ill personal selling attempts. Know this, and make sure it doesn’t happen. This doesn’t mean that you should just train to be a super good actor who can cheat their way into any situation, but you should know that if you’re going to say or do something, it better be genuine because even if they fall for a farce the first time, eventually the truth will shine through and they’ll drop you like a hot potato.

Now that we’ve established that the average person appreciates truth, it’s time to get a little more specific into knowing each “buyer” individually. We’ve all gone for an interview or participated in some event in which we are attempting to sell ourselves, and if you’re like me, then you’ve attended such events without adequately preparing and have consequently fallen on your face. I once had a phone interview with a potential employer and I didn’t even know the other person’s name, and let me tell you, I felt like a fool. If you really want to get that job or woo a potential partner, then doing your homework beforehand will give you the knowledge you need to confidently present yourself and show your stuff to your “buyer”. Simply researching them and looking at their LinkedIn, company website or social media pages can help you feel better equipped to know which skills you possess will appeal the most to them.

Your “buyer” will change depending on the situation you’re in. Sometimes it could be a new friend at work, other times it might be an investor for your new start-up. The point is to know your “buyer” as much as possible before meeting with them or attempting to sell yourself to them so that you can identify which personal assets you want to emphasize.

Step 4: Be the Best You, You Can BeYour Ideal Self

As we’ve already covered, you have lots to offer. However, that doesn’t mean you can just rest easy now that you know what you want and how to do it. Your next step is to identify the best version of yourself and how you can push yourself to be a better person. “People do business with people they like” (Lederman, 2012). That’s a fact and you need to learn how to cater to it. When the average person goes for a first date, they might focus on how they look, or try to seem more interesting, attentive, or outgoing. We naturally try to be our best selves when we’re walking into something important and the same should be true for any situation in which you’re trying to sell yourself; putting your absolute best foot forward is your best bet for success. You should be yourself of course, but you should also aim to be the best version of yourself. We all have an idea of who our ideal self is; how they look, sound and act. We already have an idea of what that looks like so it’s just a matter of actually acting on it and showing your “buyer” what you have to offer. The more you do it, the easier and more natural being your best You becomes, until it simply is, just, you.

There is a saying that goes “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. While this may be true in some instances, I would argue that this is too simplistic on two counts. First of all, what you know is most definitely valuable, especially if you possess the drive you need to make what you know mean something. Second, it’s not who you know, but rather, who knows you. Every time you interact with another individual, you are presented with an opportunity to make an impression, whether that impression is lasting or a positive one is up to you. This is where it pays to be and show your best self. You should know that before you say so much as a word to another person, they will have already formed some judgement of who you are based on the way you dress or walk or look, so be aware of this fact for when you first approach your “buyer” (Michelsen, 1993). How you present yourself to the world impacts the impressions you make. To follow this train of thought a little further, I let’s look at Erving Goffman’s Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life in which Goffman discusses the importance of social interaction and perceptions (1956). He relates social interaction to an actor on stage and how social interaction can be split into two subsections: the impressions that one actively makes, and those one passively creates (Goffman, 1956, p. 2). The impression we make on the world, whether it is intentional or not, will be perceived by all that are around us and that is why it is so important to consciously manage what you present to the world around you.

However, sometimes there is a disconnect between how you perceived yourself and how other people perceive you (Lederman, 2012). You might think that you’re showing everyone a sweet, thoughtful or shy front, but what they perceive could be entirely different. They might see a snobbish person looking down at them because you’re too good for them. In order to understand why other’s form varying perceptions of you, it might prove helpful to understand how perceptions are formed. As we learned from Erving Goffman, there are impressions that others adopt of us that result from both our active and passive acts. Similarly, people form perceptions of us based on what we do and don’t say or show (Lederman, 2012). No one can completely control other people’s perceptions of them, but something you can do is positively influence those perceptions. Look at your favourite celebrity for example, you likely place them on a pedestal, think they’re amazing, bright and everything nice, but they most likely have a whole team of people working to positively influence your perception of them. Whether that’s posting articles about how charitable they are or how they love kids, etc. You may not have a whole team of people working to make you look good, but you can do the same on a smaller scale by getting out and talking to the people whose opinions matter to you, show you care and create a solid impression of yourself before someone else gets the chance to share a negative impression of you with them. Once an impression is left alone, it becomes a perception, don’t let that happen unless it’s a positive one.

Step 5: Be Honest

While being your ideal self is certainly important when it comes to personal selling, you don’t have to lie to be interesting, but you do need to highlight your unique qualities. Whether that’s being able to speak six languages or having a passion for making highly structured Excel spreadsheets. The most important thing to keep in mind when selling yourself, is that your end goal should be to make a lasting, genuine impression as it will open doors and take you where you want to go. Trust yourself. No matter how shiny the foot you put forward is, your character will speak for itself in the end.

When you’re trying to sell yourself, you need to ground yourself in your “Why” because doing so will ensure that you come from a place of authenticity. “When we come from an authentic, genuine place in ourselves, our efforts to connect with people work to their fullest” (Lederman, 2012). When you’re being honest with your “buyer” about your passions for whatever they have to offer, and why you would be the perfect candidate, you don’t need to worry about putting up any fronts or maintaining some image that isn’t true to you. Being someone you’re not is draining and it will show, so if you feel drained by whatever personal selling you’re engaging in, that might be indicative that you’re not being honest, with yourself or the other party. By being honest and showing your true self to your “buyer”, you’ll find that you’re able to form stronger, deeper connections that would be otherwise inaccessible (Lederman, 2012). So, if networking and being the centre of attention is not your strength, then don’t force it. Selling yourself is all about harnessing your strengths and letting them show. Maybe trying to appeal to your boss at the big holiday office party is something that doesn’t sit right with you, in which case you can pivot and propose a private meeting with your boss at a time during which you will be better able to highlight your abilities without the added tension of feeling the need to perform in a social setting. “You do not succeed by denying your natural temperament; you succeed by working with your strengths” (Zack, 2010).

If you’ve lost who you are at your core, then you might want to reconsider starting over from the beginning. Reassess your SMART goals, and your “Why”, ground yourself in what you want and how you’re going to get there. It’s so easy to say and do the right things, but again, if you’re not being honest with yourself then you won’t be able to sustain whatever persona you’ve created. As Goffman said, “to the degree that the individual maintains a show before others that he himself does not believe, he can come to experience a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others” (Goffman, 1959, p. 236). Be honest, present your best self, and share a version of yourself with others than you can be proud of even when you’re alone.

Step 6: Failure and Practice

A common phrase said often in the entrepreneurial world is: “fail cheap, fail fast”. Failure is inevitable and so rather than fearing it, successful entrepreneurs choose to embrace it. We’ve all been told at some point that we should learn from our mistakes and grow from there, and this statement cannot be more applicable than in this situation. Like the investors and consumers an entrepreneur might face during their start-up process, in your life, you will face countless peers, employers and individuals that you want to impress. Chances are, unless you’re already well-practiced in the use of charisma and confidence, possessing one or both is not always plausible. At one point you will mess up or not everyone will like you and that’s alright. The more you talk to people, the more you’ll screw up and embarrass yourself. Fortunately, the more you fail, the thicker your skin will get and the better-equipped you will be to face the next opportunity head-on. In fact, the next time you prepare yourself to enter a situation in which you need to really impress the other party in order to sell yourself, just ground yourself and stride in with a smile on your face. “When stress causes our physiology to direct blood to the extremities, our breathing becomes shallow, not entirely filling the lungs”, in other words, we hold our breath without even realizing that we’re doing it (Zack, 2010). So, take a deep breath and try.

There is so much pressure in this increasingly interconnected world to appear great from all angles. Whether that’s through social media, the way you dress, who you know, where you go, etc. It can get overwhelming and even stressful to feel the need to live up to the expectations you and society and set for yourself. One way to rise above such a construction, is to shatter it at the base. Here’s an exercise you can try, but just a quick disclaimer: you DON’T HAVE TO. Do the worst thing you could possibly imagine doing to your “image”, take away its power. You can start by sharing a not-so-flattering photo of yourself on Instagram or Facebook or what have you. Take control of your image so you don’t have to worry about what everyone else will think. Once the initial feelings of horror and embarrassment have passed, you can take a deep breath and keep going. Life goes on, and you are now better prepared to face it.

Another common concept that has been promoted among the entrepreneurial world is something known as an “elevator pitch”. This concept is essentially referring to selling something (e.g. product, idea, oneself, etc.) to someone within the amount of time it would take to ride an elevator (McKenzie, 2019). The object of the elevator pitch is to clearly promote whatever you’re selling in a concise manner and in a way that entices people to learn more. If the idea of pitching yourself to someone in under 60 seconds terrifies you, then the good news is, you are well and able to practice an elevator pitch on your own. As Goffman said, “an individual may be his own audience” (Goffman, 1956, p. 50). You can look yourself in the mirror and pitch yourself to yourself. Alternatively, you can record your elevator pitch and watch yourself so that you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the pitch. By creating and memorizing a different pitch for different situations and different people, you’ll always be well-equipped to sell yourself and seize any opportunity that comes your way, like sharing an elevator ride with a potential “buyer”. The first few times you pitch yourself, you may fail, but you’ll be able to learn from your failures so that next time you can avoid making the same mistakes and wow your “buyer” instead.

Step 7: Persistency

We all have one of those friends that just won’t give up. That is, unless you said “no” enough times and they finally quit trying. Regardless, when you have a last-minute excursion that you don’t want to do alone, that persistent person is likely going to be the first person you think of asking. Whether you are trying for a better grade, a promotion or you simply want to be the one your new friend calls when they’re looking for a +1, you’ve got to be persistent so that you make an impression that’s strong enough that they’ll think of you when an opportunity arises. You can be nice and smiley, but if you don’t leave a lasting, positive impression on someone, chances are you’re not going to be the first person they think of when something comes up (Michelsen, 1993). This means that you need to appear in front of them, whether that’s in person, over text, email and even social media. Show them what you have to offer and sell it. They likely won’t go out of their way to do the digging to find what you’re worth, so do it for them.

You might resent having to be persistent or detest the idea of sending follow-up emails after an audition or a first date, but persistency can and will pay off if done correctly. It shows that you care and are willing to put in the extra effort. Remember, your fate and the weight that your persistence holds, depends largely on the initial impression you make on the other party so make sure its a good one.

At the End of the Day, There’s No Single “Right” Way

Everyone has different ways of doing things. Similarly, people react differently to different tactics. Take Donald Trump for example. He certainly doesn’t follow a personal selling guide that is remotely similar to this one, yet he successfully sells himself to many nonetheless. Psychologist Bobby Azarian took it upon himself to study Trump to determine what traits he possesses that has persuaded so many to follow him. Given the fact that Trump won roughly 48% of the United States’ votes and nearly a second term in the 2020 presidential election, there must be a method to his madness (Kommenda et al., 2020). As it turns out, one of the major reasons that Trump has such a devoted following is thanks to his authoritarian leadership style (Azarian, 2017). According to Azarian, the vast majority of Trump’s supporters have something that is known as a social dominance orientation (2017). Basically, they love social hierarchies and having power and prejudice towards other groups, which in the U.S’ case, unfortunately happen to be targeted toward minorities. So, while Trump may not prioritize honesty or being the best version of himself, he sells himself nonetheless. Stanislavski may have followers that live and breathe by his acting methods, but there are others who passionately dislike it and opt for alternative styles or even disregard acting prescriptions altogether. The moral of this story is that you need to figure out what resonates with you and how you want to sell yourself then follow that path and see where it leads you.

Happiness

Learning to successfully sell yourself to your “buyer” can help you to obtain some of your greatest desires, but one final food for thought that I would like to leave you with, is the overarching objective of happiness. The ultimate goal and most desirable reward. Know that constant happiness unobtainable, it’s not meant to be. Getting a promotion or a major role in a play can certainly make you feel happy for awhile, but that does not mean it will last forever, nor is it realistic to expect it to. If you’re trying to obtain guaranteed, eternal happiness through knowing how to sell yourself then I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but that’s not the answer.

We humans possess a natural human tendency known as “hedonic adaptation”. We cannot sustainably be happy at all times because of it (Lyubomirksy et al., 2005). Hedonic adaptation (aka. “the hedonic treadmill”) refers to the survival instinct that we humans have which automatically return us to a state of happiness equilibrium of sorts. If something tragic or euphoric occurs within our lives, we’re able to return to a stable mid-ground in which our happiness levels are more normalized (Lyubomirksy et al., 2005). The challenge that comes with this automatic response is the fact that we tend to take positive life events for granted whether we want to or not, and it becomes our new normal. With constant happy events occurring in your life, no longer would a big house or a great job be enough to make you very happy, you just become neutral because you’re used to good things happening to you. “Human beings are subject to desires and cravings, but even when we are able to satisfy these desires, the satisfaction is only temporary” (BBC, 2009). Even if you manage to obtain that which you always wanted, “if you don’t have a plan for what comes after, even after signing the deal of one’s life, you could easily spiral into an abyss” (Gupte, 2018). If your only plan is to sell yourself to as many people and obtain as many things, positions and acknowledgement as possible, you will find that it becomes increasingly challenging to reach the same level of happiness. It is the simple law of diminishing marginal returns: for every additional victory, you get less back. Regardless, doing things that you are passionate about oftentimes result in happiness as a side effect so by doing what you love, you could obtain happiness indirectly.

This guide to sell oneself may seem self-centred and it 100% is, but in this world of constantly being exposed to other people and what’s happening in their lives, I believe it is important to focus on ourselves before we can hope to make a mark on the world around us. What makes life meaningful and what rewards you happiness is not the title of your job, but rather “the sense it gives you that your are earning your success and serving others” (Brooks, 2020).