Why "Show Your Work!" Is Personal Branding for People Who Hate Personal Branding
Most corporate professionals flinch at the phrase "personal brand." Austin Kleon offers a version that has nothing to do with self-promotion.
Say "personal branding" to an experienced manager or director and you can usually watch them wince. It sounds like humblebrags on LinkedIn, staged photos and talking about yourself far more than anyone wants to hear.
Show Your Work! offers a different idea. Austin Kleon argues that the way to become known is to share your process: what you are working on, what you are learning and how you think about problems. Your expertise does the talking.
I will be upfront about the fit. Kleon wrote this for creative people, like writers, artists and designers, and his examples come from that world. You will need to translate them to corporate work. The idea translates very well, and the book is short enough to read in an hour or two.
The Core Idea
Share the work, and let the work make the case.
That line is my summary. Kleon's point is that people are drawn to how someone thinks and works far more than to claims about how good they are. Sharing small, useful pieces of your process builds trust slowly and naturally.
The Ideas That Matter Most
Kleon lays out ten ideas. These are the ones I would read first:
- You don't have to be a genius. You can share what you know while you are still learning. Being a step ahead of someone is enough to help them.
- Think process, not product. How you approach a problem is often more interesting to people than the finished result.
- Share something small every day. One small, useful observation at a time adds up over months.
- Teach what you know. Explaining how you do something rarely costs you clients. It shows them you know what you are doing.
- Don't turn into human spam. Share to be useful, and pay attention to other people's work too.
What This Looks Like for You
An illustration:
A procurement director does not need to post about how talented she is.
She can share a short note about the three questions she always asks before renewing a vendor contract, or a pattern she has seen in how companies overpay for software.
Each post is useful on its own. Over time, the people who read them start to think of her as the person who understands vendor costs, which is exactly what a future client needs to think.
This is close to how Scott uses LinkedIn and the newsletter: observations from real work, shared plainly, with very little self-promotion.
How It Fits With the Rest of This Section
The 1-Page Marketing Plan helps you decide where to show up. Building a StoryBrand helps you decide what to say. Show Your Work! gives you the habit, and the permission, to share your expertise in public without feeling like a salesperson.
What I Like
It is short, illustrated and easy to come back to. You can read it in one sitting and still find something useful on a second read.
Austin Kleon also wrote Steal Like an Artist and Keep Going.
What I Don't Like
Creative-world examples. Most examples involve artists and writers, so you will need to translate them to corporate expertise.
Light on strategy. It tells you to share and how to think about sharing. It does not tell you which platform to use or how to turn attention into clients.
Very short. Some readers will want more depth. For a busy professional, the brevity is mostly a plus.
The Bottom Line
This book will not build you a marketing plan. It will change how you think about being visible, from promoting yourself to being useful in public.
Pick one thing you know well and share one small, useful observation about it this week. That is the whole method, and it is much easier than it sounds.
Get the Book
Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon
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Know What Work to Show
Showing your work starts with knowing which of your skills are worth showing. The free assessment identifies your three core professional superpowers.
Take the Assessment (Free)Calculate Your Freedom Number
Know what you will share. Now find out how much monthly income the work behind it needs to produce. The calculator takes about five minutes.
Calculate Your GapFortune favors the bold. But fortune also favors those who let people see how they think.
Scott Fulbright
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