How to feel at ease being visible so your ideal clients can find you.
Photo credit to www.aistesaulyte.co.uk
You want to create your own business and you feel that rise of energy, big smiles and anticipation for all the incredible people that you can help and that is actually your real new job.
But then you discover that clients don’t just appear at your doorstep the moment you launch the business.
You quickly realise that to hire you they need to know you exist first!
That may be obvious for you because you did all that work behind the scenes but it’s so much harder for other people to discover your amazing offering.
People are constantly bombarded with information and they’re so busy nowadays so the only way to be at the front of their mind is to be visible in front of them.
Almost all my coaching clients who are heart-led and purposeful new entrepreneurs freak out at this point in one way or another because showing their face in front of an audience feels very scary.
What if their ex-colleagues see them? What if people find them dumb? What if they get lost in all that online noise? What if they have nothing interesting to share? What if _______ (fill in the blank with your fear)
I get it and I’ve been there.
I launched my business in 2016 and it took me months to hit publish on my first FB post where I shared the news on my business.
I remember creating a video series about purpose and intuition as a free opt-in because my first coach recommended it to me and I took 6 months (no jokes) to finally share it with the few visitors on my website.
I had memorised the script and asked a friend if I could shoot it at her place because she had a cuter apartment and a professional camera.
I made such a big deal out of it, choosing my outfits and making sure it was perfect and then basically almost no one watched it.
I got so worried about how I looked and making it perfect that I lost sight of an easier way I could have shared that content and actually asking my audience If they even wanted it.
This is to say, visibility is not easy and I totally understand how frightening it is AND I also know how essential it is for your business.
So these are 3 ways to make it easier for you :
1. Focus on serving others and not on yourself
This one has been a game changer for me.
When I shifted the focus from myself (how I look, how I speak, memorising words etc..) to my audience I overcame a lot of my fear of visibility and my perfectionism.
I knew people were listening thinking “What is in there for me?” and caring much more about their lives than how my hair looked so I focused on that and it helped tremendously getting my message out there.
There is a quote I love that I learned from Sonia Choquette from one of her spiritual workshops where she said “If you want to be interesting, be interested” and it stuck with me since then because it’s so true, the most interesting individuals are the ones really seeing you and caring about you.
2. Do it in a way that feels good to you
What works for me may not work for you in terms of how to share content online.
I really enjoy Instagram and dancing on some reels but you may hate that!
You’ll probably never see me on Twitter but you may love it.
Find a platform that feels fun for you because when something feels good and fun you’ll probably do it more and better and your audience will feel your good vibes.
To add on this note, even what feels fun may feel scary at the beginning so remember that practice makes perfect.
I used to feel very uncomfortable with videos at first but I knew that it was a skill I wanted to improve so I did it more often.
Ask yourself : Am I avoiding this tool because I truly dislike it or because it’s out of my comfort zone?
3. Plan it in advance
One other practice that truly helps it’s to plan content in advance so you don’t have to be “on” all the time.
Some people ( me included) have days in which it’s really hard to show up for visibility tasks both because of busy days or feeling a bit more introverted and that’s exactly when planning comes in handy.
Over the years I developed ways that work for me to create content like :
Content batching where I write a few captions for my social posts at once on a Google Document
Deciding when things will be published and scheduling them on a separate software like Planoly
Delegating some of this work to a VA because I know that consistency is hard for me
There are many tools and ways to do it. For example, a dear client today shared with me that she doesn’t enjoy scheduling on a spreadsheet and she prefers much more using pen and paper and writing on post-its because it feels more fun.
It’s really about finding your flow in planning and I can guarantee it works like magic when you tend to procrastinate on putting your face or content out there!
How do you feel about visibility now? Do you resonate with any of the tips? I’d love to know in the comments below.
