What is Personal PR? And How Can You Use it to Improve Your Professional Career?

What is Personal PR? And How Can You Use it to Improve Your Professional Career?

Back when I was in college at North Carolina State University, I was majoring in Public Relations, and working at a local retail store, selling athletic shoes. Through watching countless interactions between customers and shoe salesman, I realized something extremely important… Sometimes it’s a lot more important HOW you sell, than what you sell.

I would often bet my coworkers (I got a lot of free lunches this way) that I could make a sale even after a customer had told them no. I found that selling is sometimes more about selling yourself to the potential client, and less about selling the product or service at hand. Sometimes a product is just a product, what matters is how you present it to them. I didn’t know it at the time, but this ties in very closely to a principle I grew to call Personal PR.

Personal PR is about how you present yourself when selling or representing a product or service. This could mean anything from your physical appearance to your knowledge level of the item or service you’re selling. Or it could simply mean the tone of voice or overall level of professionalism displayed during your encounter. There are almost infinite ways to describe your personal PR, but try to think about it in its simplest form as “the way you represent yourself to others”.

Although I was only 19 or 20 when I first thought about this principle, I believe that it still holds true in businesses today. Retail stores, insurance companies, even SEO firms like TriMark Solutions (shameless plug) all thrive on successful salesman who know how to efficiently and effectively represent themselves and their services in a very positive manner. And while Public Relations is typically only thought of in the business sense of the word, it is also extremely useful in a person’s day to day life, while interacting with strangers you may encounter.

Personal PR is also useful when you aren’t trying to gain new business for your company. The entire dating scene is a giant interwoven example of Personal PR. Every single person is trying to represent (sell) themselves to potential partners just like a smooth talking auto-salesman tries to persuade you to take a used car off his lot.

Without getting terribly off topic, Personal PR is a valuable principle to remember when attempting to gain new business in any industry. Especially an industry like Internet Marketing and Advertising, where clients often get frequently “spammed” with generic proposals and messages offering services. Set yourself apart from these types of companies, and use a bit of Personal PR to represent yourself and your company differently. I guarantee it will pay off. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet you lunch on it.

Please tell me what you think? Do you use any Personal PR tactics in your work or daily life? If so, what kinds?