One of my clients first met me twenty years ago, long before I was a coach.
We were at McKinsey, on the same project but on different teams. One night, at around eleven, I noticed an analyst on the other team buried in the work our manager had handed down. So I walked over. I didn't do her work for her. I talked her through how to think about it, told her not to get stressed, and showed her how to approach it.
Then I forgot about it.
She didn't. This year she told me the story almost word for word. She remembered feeling calm. She remembered that nobody else had helped. And she remembered the exact night, because she had been afraid she would still be there at three in the morning.
She's my client now. She pays me for something I did for free, two decades ago.
What people actually remember
She isn't the only one. Two or three of the people I coach today worked with me years ago. When they found out what I do now, they came to me, and each of them said a version of the same thing: "I remember working with you. You were always coaching us, even then."
I wasn't a coach then. I wasn't certified. I wasn't marketing anything. I hadn't even decided this would become my work.
But they had already filed me under something specific. Not a title. An experience: the person who helps you find clarity, feel calmer and move forward when something is hard. So when they saw how that connected to my work now, choosing me took no effort at all.
That is how recommendation really works. People don't remember your job titles. They remember a pattern. And they repeat it in rooms you will never stand in.
When breadth starts working against you
Here is the catch for senior people with rich, varied careers.
If your pattern isn't clear, your network has to work out for themselves what twenty years across functions, industries and teams adds up to. Most won't. Not because they don't rate you. Because the next name on their list is easier to explain.
So you become very experienced. Capable of almost anything. Known for nothing in particular.
And when someone asks, "Who should I speak to about this?", your name doesn't come up.
The wrong fix
The usual response is to rewrite the CV and send it to more people. But the CV isn't the first signal that needs to change. Before anyone can put your name forward, you need your own answers to three questions:
- What problem do you solve?
- What are you particularly good at?
- Where do you want to take that next?
Once those are clear, the profile, the introduction and your answer to "So, what do you do?" become much easier to write. They were never the real work. They are the expression of it.
And the goodwill already sitting in your network, the former colleagues who would gladly put your name forward tomorrow, finally has somewhere to go. Goodwill was never the problem. They just need to know what to put you forward for.
This isn't about being louder
If something in you bristles at this, I understand. It can sound like self-promotion. Most capable people would much rather do the work than sell it. I would too.
But the clearest people in the room are often among the quietest. They aren't saying more. They have simply made it easy for someone else to explain, in one sentence, why they matter.
That isn't bragging. It's refusing to let people guess.
The reframe
Think of three people who have worked closely with you. Not your closest friends. Colleagues.
If someone asked each of them separately, "What kind of problem should I call [your name] to solve?", would the same answer come back three times?
If you'd get three completely different answers, that isn't a flaw in you. It's the gap between the value you have created and the story that has reached the room.
When you are easy to describe, you become easy to recommend, and easy to choose.