How to Sell Yourself
Learn how to effectively sell yourself by mastering personal branding, strategic content, and credibility-building techniques. Discover the power of consistency, authenticity, and engaging with your ecosystem to unlock new opportunities.
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How to Sell Yourself: Mastering Personal Branding and Self-Promotion
Selling yourself is an essential skill for career growth, business success, and personal development. Whether you’re networking, job hunting, or establishing authority in your industry, knowing how to present yourself effectively can make all the difference. Here are the key takeaways from the session “How to Sell Yourself” to help you stand out and make an impact.
1. Understanding Intent and Personal Branding
The foundation of selling yourself lies in intent—why are you putting yourself out there? Whether it’s for career advancement, entrepreneurship, or thought leadership, having a clear purpose guides your actions. Personal branding is the strategic way you present yourself, shaping how others perceive your expertise, values, and credibility.
2. Building Your Personal Hub
Your personal hub—whether a website, LinkedIn profile, or portfolio—is your digital presence. It serves as the go-to place where people learn about you. Keeping it updated with relevant content, achievements, and testimonials strengthens your authority and visibility.
3. Strategic Content and Distribution
Creating content that showcases your expertise is crucial. Whether through blogs, social media posts, podcasts, or videos, content helps establish thought leadership. But distribution matters just as much as creation—leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or industry newsletters ensures your content reaches the right audience.
4. Credibility: Long-Term and Short-Term Strategies
Building credibility involves a mix of short-term wins (such as speaking engagements, guest posts, or media features) and long-term efforts (like consistent content creation and networking). Both play a role in establishing trust and recognition in your field.
5. Believing in Yourself and Staying Consistent
Confidence and consistency are key factors in self-promotion. If you don’t believe in your own value, others won’t either. Showing up regularly—whether through content, networking, or engagement—keeps you relevant and top of mind in your industry.
6. Engaging with Your Ecosystem
Selling yourself isn’t just about broadcasting your achievements—it’s about genuine engagement. Commenting on others’ content, participating in discussions, and supporting your network fosters reciprocity and enhances your credibility.
7. The Power of Being Yourself
Authenticity is one of the strongest assets in personal branding. Trying to fit into a mold often backfires—people connect with those who are genuine. Embrace your unique perspective and voice to differentiate yourself.
8. Asking for What You Need
Many people hesitate to ask for opportunities, mentorship, or collaborations. However, clarity and confidence in asking can open doors. Whether it’s a job referral, partnership, or advice, making your requests clear and direct increases the chances of success.
Selling yourself is not about boasting—it’s about positioning yourself effectively, building credibility, and forming meaningful connections. By applying these strategies, you can confidently present your value and create opportunities for growth.
Would you like help refining your personal brand or content strategy? Let’s discuss!
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Selling Yourself
00:21 Understanding Intent and Personal Branding
02:13 Building Your Personal Hub
03:52 Strategic Content and Distribution
06:38 Credibility: Long-term and Short-term Strategies
09:58 Believing in Yourself and Consistency
12:43 Engaging with Your Ecosystem
13:50 The Power of Being Yourself
15:18 Asking for What You Need
17:16 Q&A Session
36:09 Closing Remarks and Upcoming Events
Transcript:
[00:00:00] How to sell yourself is the topic of today's call. And it's, I know, super basic. It feels super basic, but I thought I will talk about it anyhow, because sometimes it's the basics that will help us to succeed. So what we will go two things before we go into sell yourself is the intent.
And this is
intent is the starting point of everything. What do you want to achieve with selling yourself? But for me, it's a critical element. You need to know before, because if you look for a new job, it's, things are slightly different than if you want to sell something or if you want to do other, so it's just something that I have learned from myself, always look into what do I want to achieve with [00:01:00] what I'm doing as more clear I am to myself, as easier it gets.
And then I would just as more what as more clear I am to myself with what I want to achieve as logic. I know, but still a lot of people struggle with myself included in certain types. So slightly different, different way than showing it. Um, until now I'm showing you the personal branding system. One of the critical things that I see people not understanding is that the starting point of everything is your personal brand.
It's not social media. I hear this quite a bit in, in the last couple of weeks that everything is about social media. It's not about social media. It's about you and being yourself truly understanding of who you are [00:02:00] and what your superpowers are and how can you utilize yourself as the attraction point for your business, for your person, for everything that you want to achieve with your personal brand.
Then the next step is the personal hub, which is your personal website. Everything that hosts your personal brand is your personal website. So the personal website is different than the business webs. Yes. The personal website is utilizing you as a human being through and throughout. If you talk about the business, let's say I have a personal branding business.
I cannot talk about certain things as the personal branding business, because that doesn't fit. Let's say I'm, I'm talking about running or inline skating or whatever I'm talking about that doesn't really fit with the business, [00:03:00] what I'm talking about. So it's a critical part that the personal website is the, the hosting platform and the differentiator.
If we go into search engines. So when you search my name, which the people that want to work with me in my, uh, ecosystem. And want to be associated with me, want to book me as a key keynote speaker. They look for my name. They don't look for my business. So if I have it on my business side, they might not find me.
So key part is building a digital ecosystem that is linked to myself. And that's why I'm always saying the domain should be your first name, last name, because that's what people look for. And slight variations and everything will go back into that hub. So then we're producing content, which is strategic content that links to the five brand pillars that we're [00:04:00] utilizing.
And then we put that into our, into the hub. And then from that hub, we're distributing it. We're distributing in all the different potential social medias that are coming or are already out there. We are utilizing the power of the internet where we have an omnipresent. experience for people so that depending on their mood, let's say you are on TikTok is a different time of the day and most probably different mindset that you're looking at things comparing it.
You are looking at something on LinkedIn. So it's just two different versions of yourself and different mindsets. So you're looking at the same thing with different eyes and different ears. Um, and it's hearing or listening to it, not looking. Then as well, when we talk about search, Which is like Google and or other and any search engine out there that's also utilizing the distribution that you're [00:05:00] putting in because what Google or or being or any of the search engines is doing is utilizing the internet, which is your website in the end to show what you're about to show whether someone can find you.
Same with large language models large man language models are many many out there, and one application is chat GTP.
And then as well driving strategic and tactical leads to your business with them. And that's then when we talk about business website, that's where the business websites landing pages and everything business related is connected. So that's that's the whole system just bringing us back to this because I know it's it's It's easy to understand but it's some some people still focus only On social media, and that's completely different game because what we're think [00:06:00] talking about is personal branding when it comes to thought leadership and not being an influence was we're building legacy in what we're doing, but we want to have something that we own and that's that's our personal website.
And from there, we can play with everything else.
And that goes just different visualization of that. It starts with the brand and then it goes up to the business. So having said all of this. Yeah. Let's go into selling yourself. Obviously that's linked to personal branding. One key element of selling ourselves is the credibility. And there are two ways of how we can get credibility.
The long term version of this is you build it, which means you're delivering results over your lifetime, let's say. And this [00:07:00] results are compounding and you can show them. So when you have delivered results, you have worked in exposed position, you have done things in the past. That's that credibility, nobody will be able to take from you.
So you have done a lot of things. And that, that credibility is long term credibility that you're built. And then there's another way where you can get further short term and you can combine that obviously. And that is getting it from other people through association. And this works like this. You are, you know, someone who is 20 steps ahead of you.
And this person spends time with you. Everyone that sees you and the other person together Associates credibility from the person that is 10 steps ahead of you to yourself and that that feels Wrong and feels awkward, [00:08:00] but you see this all the time. I give you a hollywood movie example So someone who has been in a hollywood movie who just started their career and has been together Let's say with tom cruise or someone very very Established in the movie industry.
This person will be seen far more and higher than ever before. And you see this even that's more influencer, but let's say if you have an influencer and they use their face and they give their face to a brand. So the brand is associating the credibility of the influencer with their brand and the other way around.
So it's a very, very easy. Thing you can organize. Obviously, the long term version, which is building it yourself, you need to deliver things you need to do things over time and get better and get recognized of that because of that. The other thing is, you can do this strategically, that [00:09:00] can be Personal brand engagements, you do a podcast with someone else who is five steps ahead of you.
And because you do a podcast with someone, you invite that person into your personal show or podcast, you associate the other person or you are associate yourself to the other person. And everyone that knows the other person says, Hey, let's say Christian and I did a podcast last week. Hey. Hey. Hey. Jens is doing a podcast with Christian.
So everyone on Christian's side will say, Hey, if Christian is spending time with Jens, he cannot be that bad. The other way around the same way. If Jens is dedicating time to Christian, Christian cannot be that bad either. So that's both ways all the time. So that's something you can use for yourself, just doing strategic.
engagements with certain people in your ecosystem. Then as well as [00:10:00] super basic one, but often tough one is if you do not believe in yourself, who should or who would, and that's, of course, we all have imposter like everyone does, but it's, it's more it finding a way for ourselves to truly believe in ourselves and going back to the initial energy that we are about.
And finding that energy and, and, and showing that to the external world is a critical element in being successful. 'cause as more we are dependent on other people giving us energy and believing in us as less we will succeed when, when the time gets tough and the time always gets tough over time as more we can rely on our strengths, on our energy and our beliefs as easier it gets.
It doesn't mean that you should not believe and support. and tech [00:11:00] as well as support of other people. It's more about building the resilience in internal as as better you will be able to sell yourself as better people will see you and can feel that you truly believe in yourself
and then as well a no brainer consistency show up show up and be there and that can be in a in a in a personal context be there for other people um show that that you are reliable People understand what you are about, and then that linking that to predictability. I always use that in leadership, but a key part is as more predictable you are, as easier it is for other people to work with you, to engage with you.
If you, let's, let's give two extremes. If you are one day an asshole and the next day, the nicest person ever, you're not predictable. That means other people [00:12:00] don't like to spend time with you. And that's the same when you sell yourself. If, if people know that you are this person and you show up as they predict you show up, as easier it gets, because that's what people will get used to.
And that's one of the reasons why we do social media five days a week, because you just show up. And that's one of the human elements that gets us into that being recognized and being, being clear of who we are and then connecting that to the consistency.
And then specifically in a physical environment, but similar in the digital and environment being present. And that starts with listening. Like you listen to understand, you know, you don't just listen because you have to listen. Go, go always deeper into the other people that you engage with. Um, and with that and linking it as well to show that you are [00:13:00] there.
Show that you are present. And that can be obviously in physical environments. If, if you're not believing in yourself, you show up differently when, when, when you're presenting yourself, when you are in a physical environment, people will see automatically without conscious, um, if you're confident or not, and these are all the things you can learn.
So every one of us can learn to be more confident by body posture, by, um, ways of working with ourselves to be clear of who we are. And what we want to represent, but also show the whole room that we're just entered without being cocky or without being like over the top. It's just, you can do that in a couple of simple ways.
And then one of the best superpowers we all have is being ourselves. When we are in a physical environment digital environment doesn't matter, be if [00:14:00] we are ourself and true self. It's always easier because we don't need to remember how we should be. We are just ourselves.
Another thing I truly believe in is give more than anyone would ever expect to get.
If we focus on giving in everything, but specifically business, but for me, this is critical in business because nobody does, or many people are just takers and in a business environment, that's not normal that you give and you give more than, than the people would expect. If you do this and do this more often, people will get used to it.
Obviously it's a challenge for you because you always need to deliver, but it's a positive challenge because you deliver people, people use that as a prediction mechanism. And because of that, you will get more business. [00:15:00] You will get more speaking gigs. You let's say if you are predictable in how you speak and you deliver more when you speak than everyone else, we are linking that always back into that loop.
give more than people expect. And then only the last thing when it comes to selling ourselves is ask for what you need. Ask if you can help the other person. And that's sometimes at least if we, if I talk about myself, I forget that I don't ask. And as, as sad as it sounds, we're living in a world where there's so much noise going on.
If you don't ask for things, you're not getting them even with your best friends and partners sometimes. So learning to ask for what you need, and that doesn't mean you need to ask every time for money or something. But if you, if you just learn to ask, [00:16:00] it's, it's way easier for people to, to give you something.
If you don't ask people need to guess what you need, something, at least for myself, I have unlearned to, to ask for what I need that can be small stuff. And that can be big stuff. So when, when we truly show up as ourselves. And in the end, then asking for what we need, there are a lot of people who would help us.
And we have seen this, of course, on the internet, but specifically if we take our community. I think if you, any one of you that is regularly showing up predictable and being truly yourself, you would ask people for help. People will show up for you. If you don't ask, nobody knows. So selling ourselves is different than you might expect.
But in the end is being consistent, being, being there, helping other people, giving more than we, we, we would [00:17:00] expect from each other. And then in the end, if you need something, you ask. But only after you have given. If you ask first, a lot of people will not give you any
questions. I know it's slightly different than some of you thought.
Sorry, am I still echoey? Yes, but it's okay. I don't know what's happening, I'm sorry about that. But, uh, yeah, I had a question about, um, You emphasized the importance of having a personal website. From a business website for branding. Um, I know with the approach that I've taken here, uh, my, my current website on Squarespace, uh, built on Squarespace integrates both featuring me as a, you know, keynote concert speaker and a performer in, in one place.
Um, So, uh, [00:18:00] do you think I should consider any adjustments to ensure that, uh, my website is effectively serving both, um, personal branding and business objectives? For you, it's different because you are the product. Okay. So you as the musician, that's your business. So you are the product. It's not that you have a business that does consulting.
So if you would have a consulting business that does certain things that would not fit. But because you are the product, it fits 100%. Okay, thank you. You're a little bit the exception of that. Okay. Sounds good.
Other questions? Thoughts?
When you have the feeling, you know, like I experienced this right now, um, as I lost like kind of traction professionally. Like with the [00:19:00] crisis and stuff and I see like how much I was defined unconsciously by what I'm doing and Now it's like really hard for me to sell myself as I don't really feel like the value of what I would I have achieved In the past because I have not much traction with that right now so I'm like also in the process of like redefinition or Yeah, yeah, repositioning and so forth.
But it's like very hard to speak from a very point of like powerful anchoring. And, Oh, who am I? Because I feel like now, wow, I have to redefine myself, you know? So it's like, uh, it's for me, for me, it's not so easy then to say like, Oh yeah. And what are the achievements? Because then also, when I look critically back, I always gave people a great time.
Did it matter to the world? Not at all. In a way, you know, I just see that I give this teams like crazy time, crazy insights, but I know it's all forgotten two months later because the fuck up is the fuck up in the corporate world. My experience, you know, like I'm not the boss of a [00:20:00] company that could rain like my imagination and I would probably like suffer reality then as well.
So, but this is like, this is where I am right now where like I feel like a hesitation even to sell myself. You know? Yeah. I think for you in this, If, if I understand you, right, it would make sense to go back to who are you as part of this and not defining your, like, I'm not defining myself as part of what business topics from a person perspective.
So maybe for you, it's kind of stepping backwards and looking into what am I about? What, what is it about me and what are my superpowers connecting that my superpowers? And that can be business topics, but I think even if you think business topics, like if we take rapid prototyping in your case, like one of the things, but it's, that's not the superpower, the superpower that is [00:21:00] under that, under the hood, that's not visible is you engaging with people and, and this kind of things and going to that superpower level and to the things that are under the surface will help you to define yourself.
And then from there on, you use that for business. Hmm. But it's not the other way around in my understanding at least, because I, of course I'm communicating business, but everything that I am about is not about business at all.
It's for me, it's like the values that define me and the values of the people that I want to work with. That's what I'm about. In my case. Because like, I tapped a little bit, like in the whole like self in the, in the, in the branding sphere. And what I dug out was like pretty much like two or three of the people I spoke with is like.
It all starts really with the values.[00:22:00]
How do you, how do you, for me, like, for years, I would have said, I would have said, like, I don't, I never care about values till I, like, feel, okay, they are violated. Right? But still, like, when I do a value test, there's like, I don't know, like 70, like, different values. Yeah, pick your 10 favorite ones. I don't know if that's always the same, you know?
Yeah, I think it's more, I would focus on what you care about. Hmm. Most. And it's, it's not, I mean, it's not this scientific approach. It's more of what feels right as a starting point. What are the, like, if you go into, in the community, there are all these different exercises. One of, one of the ones was like finding your superpower and then looking backwards.
Like, what are the things that always have been there? Like, you talk to your parents, you talk to people that know you over the last 20 [00:23:00] something years, they will tell you certain things that always been there. It's just that you don't have them in your active mind. And they're most probably still your superpowers today.
They might be hidden behind other things, but in the end, It's always there. I give you mine, which everyone, I hope at least will acknowledge, like, I'm, I'm a true community builder. Like, I do this from a, from a true connecting, I want to connect people to each other. And I do this without spending a single calorie and energy on it.
I just do this naturally. Like, you ask me for it or not, you will get it.
And that's, I do this since I'm, was a small kid. Like, I was the guy that was bringing all the, like, The guys on the football pitch, let's have a game in the school break. I was the guy that was organizing parties. I'm still [00:24:00] that person. You take my personal environment with my buddies from, from school.
Like, when I'm back in my hometown, I'm the guy organizing that they're meeting each other. They don't meet each other when I'm not there, only when I'm there. And they live like two kilometers from each other, see each other once a year when I'm there. So that's one of the things that is like 100 percent naturally me.
So for you, it's going backwards, looking into what are these things that somehow defined you over time, like kind of the hidden red thread in your life. And they're for sure things. It's just digging into that text sometimes a bit.
And maybe finding someone who's listening to you, asking you all the questions. Okay, tell me more. How did you come up with that? [00:25:00] And that can be as easy as part of the personal brand development, what we always do. And I just did it today, um, with Sabine, who is on the call with Oskar. Um, we, we talked about her, her, her story and life defining moments.
And while we stepped through the life defining moments, we, we went back to, okay, let's link it to childhood. What was before your life defining moments. And then you see, it's like, oh yeah, this all is kind of logically fitting together, though that it is 20 years ago.
It helps a lot just going backwards
and taking maybe business out for you. If business always defined you over the last, at least 10 years, take business out and focus on everything else. Yeah. I think it's good. Might be tricky. [00:26:00] Because especially when you have defined yourself with business, then it was all about business. Yes. Businesses as well.
If we think from an edit life, it's quite a lot of time of our days, but I think there's still a lot outside that
other questions, thoughts,
ideas on selling yourself
disagreements.
Yeah. I could say a couple of words. Yes. Yeah. For me, I, I just want to encourage everyone because many of us, you know, What I hear is somewhere on their entrepreneurial path. [00:27:00] And I, I did it exactly what you told not to. So I was ideating a lot and, uh, jumping again and again to the new fresh and inspiring ideas, like an engineer with the proper hat on, on their head.
But what I did not do was enough discussion with the customers, because honestly, probably I was afraid of. not being competent enough to provide what I was hoping to provide. So that's definitely something I, I will never do again in a wrong, uh, wrong order. So for me, it was very painful lesson, but very worthy.
So I hope with Jen's talk and with my talk, some of you might skip that level. I don't recommend that.
Yeah, I agree. I[00:28:00]
mean, this is all, it's, it's always a thing in, um, Well said, Oskar, as well, that it is linked to your, kind of, your self doubt sometimes. Yeah. That you don't, that, that you don't sometimes do the things that you logically know, but you don't do them because it's kind of, nah, I'm not the right person to do this who I am.
Who am I? Um, and everyone has that. I mean, let's, let's take Jim as an example. He has been on world stages and was last in, in one of the five minute keynote discussions, he says like, yeah, I'm not sure if I have the credibility for the keynote concert. And for me, as an external, it's like, what the fuck? Of course you have.
I just think a lot of that is just me coming from the academia world of those people who [00:29:00] received quote unquote, you know, formal education for training and being a speaker and public speaking and, and everything. I'm getting past that, but. Yeah, absolutely. The tricky thing is with formal education.
Sometimes that doesn't mean that much, unfortunately, in the practical world. You might have all the theory of being the best speaker in the world because you have done 20, 000 speaking courses, but that doesn't mean you can speak on stage. Unfortunately. Absolutely. I'm more a practitioner when it comes to that stuff.
I just do and figure it out.
Other questions.
Um, yeah, I was, I was wondering because like now, nowadays you see like a lot of like Coaches of any kind they come and like want to sell [00:30:00] something slash themselves um Is the approach to sell yourself selling?
Yeah, I I think it's it it's in my world It's branding because branding is still selling in the end, but it's it's different because branding is long term It's not a quick set and that's completely different approach if you if you focus on selling then you try to get Let's say if we talk business, you try to get someone buying something from you as fast as possible.
If you focus on branding, then you focus on giving. That's why I'm focusing so much on that myself as well, because I know it's leading to sales. I'm giving and giving and giving, and then some people are saying, Hey, can you help me? And it's happening every day, and it's only [00:31:00] because I have given so much.
So for me, it's like the branding aspects of that is way stronger than any short term sales say someone giving me right now X amount of money doesn't always lead me to being the person that I want to be long term. Obviously it helps always. It's not too bad to get money today. If you think branding wise and like person.
I think if you take the coaches, you already said it's like there are a lot of coaches. out there and they're only selling. And that's why they're not going to be successful long term, most of them. They might have short term results that might be huge, even on school. There are a couple of school communities, if we take the context of community building, they're extremely successful.
Like they are on a level of 250, 000 euros per [00:32:00] dollars per month. That's fairly successful, but they're destroying everything and they're not going to be long term successful is obvious already today because they don't care about anything they just so they they literally take your money at the entrance door, and then they don't care about you anymore, which means you're never coming back to that person.
Never. And maybe Sabina knows who might talk about because I've experienced it with the same people. And she was in the community as well. But that's, that's, you only see it from the bad examples when people are not I can confirm the chance. I'm not going back on that. But you're totally, totally true on that.
And the person is a nice guy. I think it's just that the person pushed too much on sales. And it's not going to work long term. [00:33:00] Because he has fucked up two individuals already, not fucked up. I mean, it was hundreds of Euros. It was not A lot. But in the end, I will not trust this person anymore. Like Sabine was saying.
And that's, that's done. You will always remember that. That's why, if you give, and then you fuck up, and it is for free, it's still not good, but hey, it was for free.
So the expectation is as well different. So yeah, for me, selling is branding. Successful long term branding. If we go up, especially when we of course look as an individual. But even for businesses, I mean, I had the pleasure to work in Ikea and Ikea is top of voice, top of, of mine, not top of voice, top of [00:34:00] mind worldwide when it comes to furniture.
It doesn't mean they're always the best and the cheapest or whatever, but in, I think all the countries where Ikea was operating, at least when I worked in Ikea, not because of me, they were every time in the top two or three of. Top of mind, and that's nuts if you think globally, like if I talk, if I tell any one of you Swedish furniture company, you, there's only one.
And sometimes it's even furniture company and you say Ikea. So that's the power of brand. You see this as well with sports shoes. Sports shoes is now slightly different, but in some countries, everyone would directly say Nike when it comes to sports shoes. It's all brand. That's the same for us individuals.
If we talk [00:35:00] about electrical car, every one of you would say Tesla, or at least in the top three. Not that you like them and that you, but every one of you will, will, will say that. Don't know, but for those of you that have not been in the community in August last year, we did one of the first calls was about that.
And I did like a quiz with everyone. Like, do you know the face? And then I ask who, who it is. And some people like some of us, we have not heard about that person. This person is super famous and they have millions of followers. It's only because of their personal brand. That doesn't mean that everyone knows you or everyone knows them.
And of course they're still famous and personal branding is not always together.
Any more questions?[00:36:00]
Then we're closing a bit earlier today. So I have time for before my next call good Thank you very much for today for those that are in the netherlands or close by We are meeting on this saturday. I'm looking forward to see the finnish crew. That's on the call on oscar's phone likewise likewise So we are meeting in the hague in the netherlands and we are going into Doing our personal branding blueprint together for seven hours.
I would love to join. You're welcome. It's The Hague. The Hague, Saturday.
It's not that far away from Berlin. No, no, no, no, no. I just have, uh, I have like DJ obligations. [00:37:00] We will do this more often. Maybe we do one in Germany as well. Just need to find a couple of more people that want to join. Okay, good. Thank you very much, everyone. See you next Monday or in between. Thank you very much.
See you all. Thank you.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.