Personal Value Portfolio | Your PVP
A tool to help you understand and articulate your value
Have you wanted to persuade your boss to give you that promotion or raise but don't know where to start? Have you gone to update your resume and been stuck with how to articulate the value you bring to your company? Have you struggled with feeling confident about your abilities and talent you bring? I created a tool that has allowed me to continually answer these questions. Feeling awesome about yourself is hard. Talking about how awesome you are is even harder. Let numbers and “testimonials” do the work for you.
Let’s dive into your PVP - Personal Value Portfolio
When I worked in Customer Success we would often do Partnership Reviews with our clients. The goal of these meetings was to prove, in qualitative and quantitative terms, the value we’ve given to their teams and the impact working with our firm had on their business. This sparked the idea to do this for myself! I was up for a raise and a sticky negotiation that involved moving countries and I needed a way to gather data that would allow me to articulate my value to the firm. Thus, the PVP was born.
What is a PVP:
A Personal Value Portfolio is just as it sounds - a system to keep track of the value you bring to your company, clients, community - and more. It allows you to quickly build and maintain a central place where you store your impact. It allows you to look back when in need to understand and articulate your success.
When do you use a PVP:
Your PVP can take on many different forms. Even if you just started a new job, this is actually the perfect time to start! If you are collecting the value you provide from Day 1, you will have a great story to share when it’s performance review time. Other scenarios where the PVP is useful:
● Starting to look for a new job and need to update your resume
● When you need a confidence booster regarding your fit, performance, or value
● Wanting to apply for an internal promotion, raise, or be given more responsibility
● If you struggle to articulate your value in any circumstance
The best thing to do is constantly collect data on yourself. Never stop. Don’t let confidence be emotion based – know your impact in real terms.
What is in a PVP:
The type of information collected will vary by person - which industry you’re in, your role, your stage in life, etc. It’s more about the prompts that’ll go off internally that say, “Hey! I need to record in this in my PVP!” You’ll also get better at this over time and realize what you specifically like to collect to best tell your story.
It helps me to think of three different buckets of information - External, Internal, and Personal. You do NOT need to sort the information into these buckets while storing/tracking, they are just to help you get used to what type of information is helpful to track.
External:
Clients, partners, advisors -- anyone outside your company
You never want to miss a chance to create quantitative data! Are you starting a new project or beginning to work with a new client? Make sure you know the baseline metrics. You can’t track your impact if you don’t know where you started. Be creative. Don’t know what metrics you should be using? Ask yourself, “What does success look like?” and how do you measure that success. How does the client measure your success?
Other examples:
Did you get an email from a client praising your work? How about a text message of gratitude?
Any formal surveys or feedback mechanisms your firm uses? Make sure to keep that feedback.
A huge praise from someone during a meeting - write it down!!
Did a client specifically ask to work with YOU? Take note.
Continue to collect impact long after the project is finished. Can you check in with a client in 3, 6, 12 months later to update metrics?
Internal:
Colleagues, your boss, direct reports, etc. Anyone in your company (If you own your own business, this may be partners, vendors, etc.)
This is about your internal brand. Are you known as someone who is constantly challenging thinking? How about someone who is foundational to any strategy conversation? A teammate who is reliable and considerate? This is harder to quantify at times, but “soft skills” are just as important. Find ways and be creative – this is your value story, remember you get to chose how to reflect, track, and share.
What this may look like:
A performance review - make sure to save these! As well as any notes from the conversation.
Company meetings or presentations - did you contribute a great idea? Present on something you are an expert in? Get selected to speak on a regular topic?
Give your time to mentor someone?
A slack message/ email/ text of praise
Did you have a great in-person conversation - jot down notes/quotes from it
Were you highlighted in a company meeting or newsletter? Receive an award?
Did you go above and beyond normal scope of work or role? Take initiative without being asked? Make a change or have impact outside your normal scope?
Personal:
How have you developed yourself personally that has added value to your corporation or professional identity?
This can look like:
A certification or online course you completed
Developed a new skill – such as a new coding language
Did you organize a fundraiser at work? Such as Movember or a 5K for cancer?
Volunteer to lead a Lunch and Learn for colleagues
Collection System – How to Build Your PVP:
This will look different for everyone. Engage system(s) that you already use. The goal is to find a way to collect these pieces of information in one place, quickly.
I’m somewhat old school. My system has two main components:
One folder on my desktop (cloud-enabled) that I use to place screenshots and documents. I screenshot all the things – emails, texts, Slack messages, screen grabs, etc. I get enough information in the screenshot that allows me to go back later and find the actual source. I store copies of performance reviews, project post-mortems, and similar documents.
One Google Doc that I keep specifically for long term project metric tracking as well as performance metrics. I update these monthly but at minimum, I’d suggest quarterly.
Do you like Trello? OneNote? G-Drive? Use what you already engage with on a daily basis and try your best to work this into your existing workflows to minimize the chance you’ll forget.
Creating your PVP:
You can use this information, as stated above, for your eyes only. If you only use it for keeping your resume packed with stats or pumping you up for those harder conversations, awesome!
If you want to use this system to help build out an actual presentation, just make sure you give your boss a heads up. Before scheduling the meeting, let them know what you’ll be going over and any expectations you have in terms of timings, outcomes, etc. A sample presentation skeleton could be as follows:
1. Intro (goals of meeting – ex. Promotion, raise, etc)
2. Personal / Professional value
3. Internal Value – Company focused
4. External value – Client focused
5. Summary of value
6. Your Ask (promotion, raise, etc.) / Discussion / Feedback
Be sure to include quotes or “testimonials” from your clients and colleagues. Go through your PVP collection area and pull out specific quotes or circumstances that prove the message you’re trying to convey.
Go forth and Kill It!
This may seem overwhelming, but remember it’s simply the act of remembering to track ourselves -- which we have FULL ownership of. As you practice, this gets easier and more automatic. It’s difficult to discuss ourselves, our accomplishments, our shine. Having hard data behind us makes it easier.
Let me know how you use this in the comments or if you have any questions!