20 Top Tips To Guarantee Your Next Promotion

Gone are the days when people get promoted simply by being there the longest. To guarantee your next promotion you have to earn it, be the best, stand out from the crowd. You have to get noticed.

Many people are happy to muddle along and there is nothing wrong with that, but if you want that promotion you have to go the extra mile and make it happen.

You need to be motivated, dedicated and disciplined…

Here are 20 top tips to get you noticed

1. Passion

If you love what you do, if you have passion, you’ll enjoy it and find it easy to excel.

If you don’t enjoy what you do and just do it for the money, you might be able to buy a nice house, but it won’t make for a happy home and satisfied life.

What is it you enjoy doing every day? If you didn’t have to think about income, what would you spend your days doing, what gives you the greatest satisfaction?

If you can’t see a way to make a living at what you want to do, how can you incorporate it into your week? Is there a way to make money, is it simply fear of failure that is holding you back or do you have to accept that this is just going to be something you do outside of work..

If you can truly incorporate your passion into your work and love what you do you will be fulfilled, you’ll do it well and the promotions will follow.

2. Become the Expert

Become the best at what you do, pursue it, work at it, study it, become an expert, make it a daily habit and you’ll get noticed.

Everything you do affects everyone around you…if you don’t give 100% you’ll never get promoted.

You must become competent at all the areas of your job and be able to become competent at the next job above you before you get promoted to it. If new skills are required, what can you do to get them, how much more work or study can you do in your free time to help you gain these skills and truly become the expert, the go-to person in the business.

3. Be Willing

Most bosses would chose to have someone who is happy and willing doing an okay job than someone who in excellent, but has a bad attitude. You can coach a skill, but it’s very hard to change an attitude!

Your inner thoughts are shown on your face; your countenance is very difficult to hide along with your body language. You can actually change your attitude by changing your body language. People stoop and slouch when they are not happy they bounce upright when doing or being asked to do something they love.

If there are parts of your current role that you do not enjoy then work at it, look at the long term goal and where this current role will lead to. If you stand up straight and practice smiling your attitude will follow, just try it for one day and see what a difference it makes to both you and those around you.

4. Please the Boss

Aim to please the person who pays your salary not your colleagues…your boss will promote you not your co-workers. Seek feedback, listen to advice and work on it. Focus on the detail and get it right, go the extra mile, do more than is expected.

5. Master Time Management

No truly successful man or woman followed the 9-5 mentality; clock watchers never get promoted or reach great heights.

They use their time during the day most effectively, working on the most important tasks, not leaving everything to the last minute and work on improving themselves outside of working hours, constantly striving for greatness.

6. Seize the Moment

Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk, many people have ideas, but simply don’t action them, seize the moment and do it now. Think of the issues and problems your boss or company is having, can you solve any of them, either on your own or with the help of people around you, that will get you noticed.

When you get asked to do something get on with it quickly, even if you are not that happy about doing it, this shows your boss that what he thinks is important you also think is important and will get you noticed.

7. Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm, creates energy and gets things done, enthusiastic people always get noticed.

8. Finish Strong

Make sure you complete tasks and finish strong, if someone has asked you to do something it’s important and needs to be done. Don’t stop and start tasks, focus on something and complete it.

9. Self-Discipline

Sometimes there are tasks we don’t want to do, but have to be done and it’s self-discipline that gets us through these moments, keep smiling and crack on, think of the long term goal not just the immediate task.

10. Be Assertive

No one enjoys working with aggressive colleagues and passive people are no better, you must strive for just the right balance and be assertive. Be honest and open and deliver your message in an engaging and respectful manner looking for the win win outcome.

11. All for One and One for All

No one can do it alone, you have to get the team on board, no company can achieve success without a spirit of teamwork and cooperation, everyone working together for a common goal. You have to cultivate a cooperative mentality and sacrifice your own time and effort for the good of the whole. A team is only as strong as its weakest player, so spend your own time and effort to help everyone grow and reach the common goal.

12. Take a Risk

Risk takers put themselves on the line and are not afraid of rejection; they try things just in case they work. They have ideas, do the research and come up with the facts to support the risk, they do not have a flippant let’s try this and see mentality they have conviction that their idea will work but also accept that if it doesn’t they will learn from their mistakes and move on.

We generally learn more from our failures than our successes, if you can’t see the sense in that do not expect to be promoted.

13. Have a Clear Focus

If you don’t know where you are going how will you know when you have got there?

Create a vision and move towards it, focus on the goal every day and each step you are taking towards it. Think about the difference between smart and hard goals, if you want to get to the top you have to aim high.

14. Clear the Clutter

Some people find it easy to be tidy and organised, for others they have to work at it, but even in a creative environment if you can’t be organised you’ll never get promoted.

Keep you work area clean and tidy, make sure you can get to everything you need quickly and easily, never lose things or bury them under a pile of tasks that can wait till next week.

This must include your computer files, organising and listing everything in a structured manner, following a pattern so everything is easy to find and grouping files into folders to keep tasks together.

15. Respect Yourself & Others

If you do not have self-respect it is impossible to respect others, you need to accept yourself; life is not a constant competition, there will always be someone better, stronger, richer, faster…you have to learn to respect yourself for who you are and then show respect to all around you, your colleagues and bosses.

Think about what you are saying, don’t talk for no reason, have purpose with your conversations don’t waste people’s time, especially the bosses. Do everything with a willing heart, if you have been given a job you do not want to do, show some respect to your superior who has asked you to do this task and do it to your best ability.

If you treat other people how you want to be treated, if you help enough other people achieve success you will achieve it to.

16. Smile & Compliment

Never ever forget the power of a simple smile, it will brighten your and everyone else’s day. Also learn to compliment, look for the good in people and simply mention it…”Thanks for your help”, “Can I ask your advice?”, “That colour really suits you”, simple but effective compliments ensures everyone thinks the best of you.

17. Communicate Effectively

Practice discretion, no one respects a blabber mouth; learn when to keep quiet and when to keep things to yourself. Successful people always guard their conversations, gossips and trouble makers never get promoted. If you work in an area where you are privy to sensitive information you simply must keep it to yourself.

Listen actively and always more than you speak. Remember two ears and one mouth, you’ll learn something from listening to others.

Be clear and concise, remove the additional and repetitive words, people get lost with long stories; be short and to the point.

When being given direction, don’t be afraid to ask again if you are not clear or do not understand what is expected of you…no one minds being asked for more clarity.

Think about your body posture and work on improving it, successful people are always upright, smiling and walking with purpose. If you slouch and frown you will never get promoted.

18. Dress for Success

If you want to get promoted you need to dress like the people above you, not those on your level. Bad hygiene, dirty or tatty clothes are simply not acceptable in any work place and will stop you being promoted. Even on a tight budget it is always possible to be clean and well groomed.

We all form opinions of people by the way they dress, we cannot help ourselves and once an opinion is made it is very hard to change it. Many work places are more relaxed these days, but you still need to dress for success. It’ll affect your mood, how you see yourself and how others see you. If you are untidy and unkempt people will assume the same lack of concern is put into your work. If you are clean cut, smart and consistently dressed this way, they’ll assume your work has the same polish and consistency.

19. Delegate

If you are at the bottom of the career ladder you will often find other people delegating tasks to you. In order to progress you must learn to delegate. Learn from how others ask for your help and use the best practice once you start to delegate.

20. Have Character

All truly successful people have a great moral fibre and character, some people might rise above you by stepping on others and cutting corners, but if you stay strong and true you will get there eventually and more importantly be supported by the people who have helped you