Ramon Santillan is the founder of PersuasiveInterview.com.

We are delighted to welcome our new contributor and career coach Ramon Santillan Jr, and yes, we brag about it!

Ramon is the founder of PersuasiveInterview.com.  Before he was an Interview Consultant, he was a tax consultant for the world’s biggest accounting firm, the world’s biggest oil driller, and the founder of his own tax practice.

Ramon teaches his clients how to be more charismatic, feel (and look) more confident, and shows them the right way to “brag” about themselves during interviews.  He has been quoted by U.S. News & World Report, CBS, Yahoo!, CareerBuilder.com, Chicago Tribune and many others as an interviewing expert.

His clients think he’s pretty great.  He tends to agree.

Ramon is a graduate from the UT’s Red McCombs School of Business, a graduate from the FBI’s Citizen Academy, a Certified Corporate Trainer, has been Historian, Vice President, and President for the ALPFA Houston Chapter, husband of one, father of two, and friend of many.

He loves reading and consistently reads between 48-52 books a year.  Tell him about your favorite book and he’ll add it to his Amazon Wishlist.

Ramon also enjoys writing about himself in the 3rd person.  He thinks it’s fun.

Is there a magic 4-letter word that leads to success?

You’re putting in the hours, you’re delivering the results, but it seems like everyone else is reaping the rewards.  Why is everyone getting better jobs, better promotions, and better clients?  You’re doing everything right except one thing:

You’re not bragging.

We are raised to see “brag” as a four-letter word.  “I don’t need to brag.  My work speaks for itself” you might think with a look of disgust.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case in the real world.  Assuming that people are focused on what you do leaves the burden of promoting yourself to other people.  If anything, making people responsible for knowing who you are and what you can do is selfish.  We are all busy with our home life, careers, and countless other things so why would we spend time worried about YOUR career?

The case for bragging

I hope you’re starting to realize that as the CEO of YOU, YOU are your own best cheerleader.  Who better than you to talk about what you’ve worked on, the impact you’ve had or what your career goals are?  If you want other people to know how great you are, shouldn’t you tell them?  In your career, as well as in your life, you can’t take a passive role.  You have to actively participate.

I’m going to help you make the transition from someone who expects others to take notice to someone who takes an active role in her career in 3 easy steps.

When I’m working with my clients, whether it’s preparing them for an interview or to meet a meet a new client for their company, the vast majority of them have the most trouble with promoting themselves.  It’s hard to start talking about how great you are when you’ve had two or three decades of doing the opposite.

Step 1: Change your idea of what bragging is

I know “bragging” sounds like one of those words your mom would wash your mouth out with soap if she overheard you using.  I also know that if a particular word has a negative connotation and the more ingrained it is in your brain, the harder it will be for you to adopt certain behaviors associated with that words.  To avoid this, let’s replace “Brag” with “Promoting Yourself”.

The Old Way/BAD!

“Elena is always bragging about how great she is.  Uggh, I hate her guts!”

The New Way/Good!

“Elena is awesome at promoting herself.  I wish I was more like her!”

See the difference?

Step 2: Know when to brag, promote yourself.

The reason we don’t like people who “brag” is because they do it all the time/everywhere.  They are what we call tone deaf.  Although you should talk about your accomplishments when you get the chance, you also shouldn’t do it every single moment.  I doubt your boss would care much to hearing you yap about how great you are when she’s knee deep in a last minute request from the people in the C Suite.

You see, the art of promoting yourself is knowing when and how to do it.  A good time to promote yourself is after you completed an important project.  People will be receptive to the work you’ve done, how your involvement impacted the project, and to any ideas on other projects you’ve like to be involved in.

Step 3: Always be ready to promote yourself

Promoting yourself isn’t limited from 9-5.  Sometimes the best opportunities to show others how great you are happen at networking events and other activities outside the office.  I eventually learned this, but one of the reasons I started my research into self-promotion was because I was tired of all the missed opportunities.

On more than one occasion, I would find myself in an elevator with a VIP of an organization with nothing to say.  As soon as they would exit the elevator and the doors would close again, I would kick myself for not even introducing myself.  These were people who literally could change my career path if only I had learned to promote myself.

Instead of trying to come up with something on the fly, I’ve learned to come up with several things I think people would be interested in hearing about myself.  I call it my “Bag of Brag” and it includes projects I’ve worked on, things I’m proud of, and other things I think people would find useful and interesting.  Before an event, I mentally go through my Bag of Brag so that if I bump into someone I’d like to meet, I can immediately reach into my Bag of Brag and pull out something.

Now that you know how to get ahead, use the steps to reach your career goals.  The steps are easy to follow.  The hard part is actually sticking to the plan since it may not seem natural to you…at first.  Once you start practicing and you start seeing the positive results, you’ll be ready to promote yourself at anything you do.