Perfect Pitch: Who Says So Besides You?

Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more copies than almost any other book in the history of publishing – and deservedly so. Carnegie explains the essence of successful human interactions in terms of a few simple principles. The most important principle of all is this one: people want to talk about themselves.

There’s also an important corollary to that principle. In the business world, you have to talk about yourself – but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.

You have to talk about yourself because, if you don’t, the people around you will be glad to take up the slack with their own personal narratives. They’ll tell you about their triumphs and their tragedies, and how they turned their tragedies into even greater triumphs. They’ll tell you about how much money they’ve got. They’ll drop names. If they can’t think of anything new to say about themselves, they’ll repeat what they’ve already said. And if you choose to just sit there while this is going on, you have only yourself to blame.

So what’s the best response? Is there a way to assert yourself in a business conversation without simply turning yourself into another narcissist? Is there a way of blowing your own horn without actually blowing it?

In fact, there is a way. There are two ways. The easiest is to have a partner who will brag on your behalf. Someone who will declare, “My friend here would never say this about himself, but he (or she) is a genius. She (or he) is also a money-making machine. It’s a privilege just to know him (or her.) Don’t pass up this opportunity to work with us!”

Lots of successful enterprises have worked this way. There’s an outside person and an inside person. An extrovert and an introvert. Very rarely, there have been two people who were both extremely talented, but in very different ways. Steve Jobs the marketer and Steve Wozniak the programmer were a great example.

If you’re not fortunate enough to have someone who can brag on you, there’s still a way to invoke the high esteem in which others hold you. Who are the clients you’ve worked with that a new client might know about? Who are the people who would be eager to give you an over-the-moon endorsement?

As your career progresses, you should create a mental highlight reel of your most impressive clients and projects. Any given industry is a much smaller world than you might imagine. You will almost certainly have an acquaintance in common with a prospective client, or at least you will be aware of the same industry leaders. What example can use to reflect that mutual relationship?

Your basic purpose is answering to the classic (but often unspoken) question: “Who says so besides you?” Mention your work with other clients to show that you’re a player in your industry. Prove that you’re not out there all by yourself. Show that you’re in circulation. Drop some names. Unless you go totally overboard, nobody will hold it against you. Successful people want to be associated with other successful people and the best way to show that is through the successful people you’ve already worked with.

Sometimes even your setbacks can be valuable, as long as they involve impressive clients and you can laugh about the experience now. Did you ever lose a client in a memorable way? Did you ever miss a deadline and still somehow keep the account? Those stories can be as effective as your successes if you present them the right way. You’re showing how resilient you are and how much you can survive.

One caution: be very hesitant to say anything negative about people in your industry. The temptation can be great. You may imagine it will magnify yourself in a new client’s eyes. But this can burn by it sooner or later. If you need to put someone down, make it yourself. But building people up is a much better choice. Just be a good storyteller, with a good plot and great characters. No one will object to your saying how great they are, and they may even say the same thing about you.