You’ve got to post 12 times a day.
You have to live stream
You need to post daily pictures on Instagram and Snapchat
The list of must-dos and must not when it comes to visibility online is endless and exhausting and yet without it, you have no business.
Visibility has become the new online buzzword.
But knowing where to begin, what to say and do is often a huge stumbling block for women. Fear takes over and inaction sets it.
We all know the benefits of being visible:
- Makes you stand out in a sea of sameness
- Enables you to make connections
- Build relationships both with clients and peers
- Allows you to spread your message far and wide
- Helps you bring inspiration to others
- You ultimately will sign more clients
If people don’t know you exist, how can you help them?
But a lot of women struggle with being visible for one core reason – FEAR.
What will people think?
Am I good enough?
I am going to look stupid
I can’t say that
I don’t know what to say
I felt the same.
Added to that I felt a lot of personal shame from being in debt, I used that as a barrier to stop people getting close to me and knowing who I am. I would hide behind my laptop, censoring my posts if I posted at all and withheld my true self from my community. The result – not a very impactful business.
It wasn’t until I became a coach that I had to work through my own visibility issues (they say we teach what we need to learn ourselves!) and address those fears.
What fears come up for you when you think about being more visible in your business?
Are those fears justified? Are they truth?
I had to challenge each and every fear I had with truth.
I quickly realised that if I want to see real success in my business, I needed to “come out of hiding” and be me. Open myself up to be vulnerable and use my journey as a way to encourage and inspire others coming up behind me. It was okay to remove the mask.
I reconnected with my WHY, the reason why I do the powerful work I do and chose to believe that my message was bigger than my ego. People need to hear from you, the real you, not the Instagram filtered you.
We have to get over ourselves.
Decide and make a commitment to show up consistently.
If you are not being as visible as you would like right now in your business, why? What is the fear?
As soulful creatives with big messages to share, but more importantly, lives to live, we don’t want to be online for the sake of it. Every interaction we have, we want it to be meaningful and impactful and so it is important to define what visibility means for YOU.
I teach my clients to work from a place of strength, leveraging the things that they are good at and what feels good. So whether it is writing and blogging or speaking and video and use that in that their visibility plan. Just because you see me on video doesn’t mean that you should make that your primary platform if you hate live stream. (I encourage you to try it at least once, but you are under no obligation). Choose what feels good and then commit to it.
When I got serious about my own visibility, one of the questions I continually asked myself was “why was being visible important to me?” What impact would it have on my business, clients and community, if I was able to address my fears and show up for them”?
The answers I came back were astounding and I also realised that I was actually being selfish by not showing up.
I committed to daily consistency whether it was through my videos, writing and speaking.
This consistency allowed me to grow my business quickly and eventually make the leap out of my 9-5 a few months later.
Like an onion, your visibility has layers and as you address one fear, reach another level, new things will appear but keep working on it because the world needs to hear from you.
True visibility starts by being visible with yourself.
Time to remove the mask.