You can be very good at what you do, but if people within and outside your organization don't know much about you or your performance it's unlikely you'll develop a strong professional profile that can move your career forward. The good news: there are some concrete steps that anyone can take to positively raise their professional visibility, like creating a personal marketing plan for you and your career.

Self assessment
Begin your personal marketing plan development by taking some time to assess where you are and where you've been in your career. Write down what you consider to be your personal strengths and weaknesses as they relate to your professional skill set. Jot down key interests and dislikes of yours as they relate to work..

Define career goals
Define your career goals clearly. Evaluate where you'd like to be and what you want to be doing at short-term (1-2 years) and longer-term (3-5 years) points in the future. Be as specific as possible and attach target timeframes for when you'd like to accomplish certain goals or milestones. Having a written definition around your career goals – tied to desired deadlines – will be key to determining the action steps you'll need to take to execute on your plan.

Develop expertise and unique content
Becoming a person with expertise and/or unique content provides you with important material to share and communicate with others. Committing yourself to ongoing professional development will allow you to gain a base of knowledge that you can use to connect with leaders in your company, industry and profession.

Build and maintain your network
You need to continuously build and maintain your network of contacts. In the book Never Eat Alone, author and master networker Keith Ferrazzi states "The dynamics of a network are similar to those of a would-be celebrity in Hollywood: Invisibility is a fate far worse than failure. It means that you should always be reaching out to others, over breakfast, lunch, whatever." Relationship management is likely the most critical success factor for creating, building and maintaining a positive professional profile.

Develop and refine your brand
Begin to think of yourself as a brand like any company or product. A great book titled The Brand You 50, by author and management guru Tom Peters, outlines a wealth of knowledge and suggestions on personal branding. What attributes or core strengths do you want others to associate with you as they relate to your professional profile? Coming up with a short paragraph that describes your personal brand value may be a great way to get started.

Get out there
You must work to arrange your own visibility. Look for opportunities to write or speak about your area of expertise. Get your views or content across in written publications such as local newspapers, professional trade journals, company or association newsletters and even on the Internet through Blogs such as this! Attend important events, conferences and meetings in your community. Become an active member of a professional association or volunteer group. The opportunities are endless.

Making the efforts to raise your professional profile may seem challenging, especially if you're just getting started. But once you start to get the ball rolling, you'll begin to reap the rewards of your efforts and be on your way to enhancing your professional profile and positively impacting your career success.

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