Recognition for Your Work: Part Two – Getting Recognition from Your Peers

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Recognition for Your Work – Part 1 – Getting Recognition from Clients

This might feel counterintuitive—why do you need your peers to recognise you? Why do you need to be more established within the professional group that you’re working in?

There are several good reasons why you need recognition from your peers. They often make introductions or referrals, but more importantly, you will also bolster your reputation across the niche that you’re working in. Imagine you are a fractional sales director specialising in medical device firms. Recognition from your peers and other sales directors will help endorse you for existing and potential clients.

Good, but How?

Several straightforward strategies can make a difference.

1.Engage with your professional or industry organisation.

If you’re in sales, is there a local sales group, a local sales training organisation, or some other industry sector group where you can meet other salespeople and help with their development? Perhaps you can mentor emerging salespeople and build your reputation around the sales community. This can also help you find the salespeople you need for your clients as you develop their sales teams. If you are a salesperson for manufacturing businesses, join your local chapter of Make UK or a relevant specialist interest subgroup.

2. The way you operate your LinkedIn profile.

Start to do video webinars and then draw your peers in to speak on your webinar. This will build your reputation with your peers. You’re doing something for them; you are giving them exposure. They are unlikely to be your direct competition, and you show yourself as a leader within your niche. You might want to do a series of webinars with other people who specialise in channel development, field sales forces, or people who talk about breaking into overseas markets. You can start building a sales director podcast and get other people you interview to demonstrate your knowledge through your conversation with them. Video podcasts and LinkedIn Live webinars are great ways to build your reputation among your peers.

3. Teaching or training can build your reputation.

Short master classes, working part-time as a visiting professor at a local university, or acting as a trainer for a sales training organisation such as Sandler will bring you more recognition amongst your peers. I became a Visiting Professor of Software Enterprise at University College London, strengthening my reputation as an IT expert witness generating six-figure fees over subsequent years.

4. Write a book.

This is a substantial amount of work; it might be that you wait to start something of the scale of a typical business book (typically 200 pages or so). Perhaps begin by writing a relatively short book that you publish as an eBook, just 30 pages long, telling a story about your experiences as a sales director in a particular environment, sharing it with your peers and getting them to endorse it. You are drawing on some of the experiences you’ve shared through your video podcasts and developing your brand within your professional sector.

5. Engage with Awards

There are three ways that you can gain recognition from awards. Firstly, assisting your clients in winning awards associated with your professional contribution will build recognition from your peers. Nomination and shortlisting for an award can be celebrated even if your client doesn’t eventually win. Ideally, you would want to attend the award ceremony to meet and greet others and benefit from the photo and social media opportunities. My clients have won four separate awards as the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies while I had business development roles.

Secondly, you can become part of a judging panel for an award. This could be a professional award or a business award. Joining a judging panel is prestigious in its own right. Still, you will also get exposure to all the nominations and have an opportunity to engage with everyone on the shortlist.

Thirdly, you can apply for an award yourself. There are so many awards covering so many different niches that you can almost certainly find an appropriate award for which you can be nominated. Often, nomination relies on you using your existing network to get endorsements. Bear in mind that if you are shortlisted, you will need to budget to attend the award ceremony, and you will be strongly encouraged or even required to pay for a table of guests.

Finally, you can assist your clients in getting royal recognition. After working with me, several of my clients have received Royal Honours, such as OBEs, MBEs and CBEs. I have worked for two organisations that have received King’s Awards for Enterprise for outstanding achievement by UK businesses in one of the categories:

innovation
international trade
sustainable development
promoting opportunity through social mobility

Conclusions

Increasing your reputation amongst your peers through explicit recognition of your contribution by others is a powerful way to increase your confidence, improve your professional brand and increase opportunities for referrals and introductions.

Recognition for your Work: Part Three – Getting Recognition in your Niche