How to Sell Yourself

by Ray Grose

How to Sell Yourself gives indispensable guidelines on how you can get noticed and promoted at work, through developing and managing your 'image' for success.

Genres: Business

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 3, 2010

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely give bad reviews to books but this one was disappointing. I think reading about such topics is always useful, even here, where the advice offered wasn't too helpful but it does at least provoke thought around the subject matter. The reason I didn't like it was it felt like it was written by a person who can't remember what it's like lower down in an organisation and who has been sat high up the corporate ladder in an expensive suit for far too long, someone who hosts leadership lunches and runs through theory about how to do everything right but not accounting for what makes us and others around us both human and flawed. In essence, the message is to never lose control of your emotions, pre-empt all potential issues and deal with them early, have a neutral personality, don't take risks, don't disagree with your superiors, don't be too friendly with or get drunk with colleagues, seek out key influencers within organisations and ingratiate yourselves with them etc. Basically, be the kind of person every boss and soulless company wants you to be, serve the organisation and put all your feelings to one side and play the game. Clearly the author is on to something because you do find so many people like this high up in organisations. But he makes no apology for that, or discusses why this system encourages such conformance to a stiff upper lip mentality and the negative consequences of removing challenge, diversity of thought and personality / ideas from a place. Following this may see you succeed in an insurance company but it wouldn't work at Apple.

In my view there is nothing wrong with getting angry and showing emotion sometimes - this leads to breakthroughs in relationships and breaks the ice, at others it just helps to clarify thought and can help reset things. It's good to have personality and to take risks with ideas, getting drunk or having fun with colleagues, within reason, can be invaluable under certain circumstances and I've known many senior directors who do that and keep their dignity. And heaven forbid, someone falls in love with someone at work, just 'don't do it' according to this image guru. Granted, one has to be careful about all the above but this book will have you scared of your own shadow and churning out leaders with no personality and courage to do things their own way. This aspect of personality is mentioned right at the end of the book but seriously, don't waste your time worrying about all this stuff, be yourself and be reasonable to those around you and use your emotional intelligence to guide you. Image and leadership is not a set of hard rules as this book would have you believe. As I said, at least it provoked plenty of thought and there are some useful exercises to consider within. I also just checked and it was published in 2010 which may explain things some what, times change and as should our view of good image. I only read to the end because I found it increasingly insightful and hilarious listening to this outdated view.

[RoxAnne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was helpful in that it was straight to the point. It gave me some reminders on the dos and don't's in my working relationships.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is concise and straight to the point. The contents do look like common sense, especially to those readers that have been working for sometime in an organization. However, I still find this book useful and personally, I'm using it as a reminder of Dos and Don'ts.

I would recommend this to whoever new to the workforce, as I believe it will be helpful on how one should portray their image as a professional from day one.

[Ryan Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very specific and tactical perspective on how to approach selling yourself. The book read like some of the Asian books that talks about how to apply "the art of war" in the business world.

[Maureen Valdez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cool info on how to carry yourself without all the fluff!

[Alaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and informative book !

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

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