George H.W. Bush (41) and me...

Tom Kane had a posting about shyness hindering lawyers in their marketing efforts. The post got me to thinking about a trait I think often limits my marketing efforts: modesty. Like Bush in '92...he had a pretty good presidency but he couldn't compete with marketing efforts of William J. Clinton. Bush has acknowledged his patrician background where modesty was encouraged hurt him. Well I'm not the son of a U.S. Senator but I would say modesty and humility are values that I cherish and respect. But the problem...

I can think of maybe five people I've heard in recent times (after-the-fact) who needed legal work and they didn't use me (home sales primarily). And the people I'm thinking about are in the acquaintance/not-too-close friend category. Close friends and family know me well enough but it's sort of this second-tier friends group that I shake my head at. And, not to be immodest, but I think it's often because of my personal modesty and actually my strong social skills that I don't end of tooting my own horn much. For example, I'll be at a luncheon and I'll go out of my way to talk about the other persons or the interests of others. And often things don't get turned back to be to discuss "what I do." What to do?