Welcome. Welcome. Welcome, episode 437. I know I say this a lot, but man, that’s a lot of episodes. I’m really stoked today because we’re going to talk about visibility. Because we are about midway through the quarter, just like almost exactly midway through the quarter and some of the new year, new energy starting to wane a little.
And so all the people who said they were super committed to getting visible in 2019 or maybe running into where they don’t feel super visible or maybe in the energy and spirit of getting visible you forgot that visibility takes energy and it takes strategy and it takes time. And maybe you realize that it’s meaningless without a plan.
So it’s what we’re going to talk about today. I want to approach visibility from two perspectives. The first one is what does visibility really mean? Like it’s such a broad term, what does it actually mean for your business? And how can it actually be impactful for your bottom line?
The other thing I want to talk about is from time to time, I am given the wondrous compliment of “oh my god, you are everywhere right now.” Cool. Thanks. I hope that’s a good thing. But I want to tell you exactly how I do that, exactly how I create that sensation in someone’s brain. We’re going to talk about that today. Does that sound good to you? I’m going to pretend you said yes and that I can hear you. Let’s move on.
Before we jump into today’s actual show though, I do want to remind you that Backstage Live in New York is a thing of the past. However, Backstage Live in LA is very much so a thing of the imminent future. In about two weeks we are going to be live in Santa Monica, California hosting this event again. I’m so excited to bring this event home to California because it’s a good one.
It’s going to be a good day. We’re going to be talking through social media and email and content and funnels and do all the things that actually generate revenue in our business without us necessarily having to like knock on doors and shake people down. That’s exciting stuff. So if you would like to join us, I highly recommend joining us now because there’s only so many seats and I want to make sure you get one. Sound good? All right. Head over to thestaceyharris.com/backstagelive to reserve your spot today. With that, let’s start the show.
I’m so tired of people talking about visibility like it is a ever love and cure all. But it will solve all of your problems if you just get more visible because first of all, what does that even mean? So like if I wander the streets and lots of people in cars see me, that means for sure I’ll get more business? If I randomly get myself on obscure podcasts that no one really listens to suddenly I can pretend everyone knows what I’m doing and everyone knows who I am and they’re all going to buy stuff right away?
These are examples of what I like is called faux visibility, pretending like we were doing something when we’re actually not. And that’s the kind of visibility that I think 80% of people are teaching. Like just keep making ads and just keep getting out there and eventually it’ll take hold and it’s like well how about instead we get really strategic about why we’re getting visible, we get really strategic about where we’re getting visible and we learn to get visible to the people who actually matter to us, our potential customers, the people who we are going to have an impact for. So that the people who were not going to have an impact for can find the people who are going to create an impact for them. Like no part of like visibility for the sake of visibility is going to help you and/or the people consuming the content.
Answer These Questions First
So let’s get really clear on what you need to figure out before you go, I’m doing some crazy air cause right now, get visible. The first thing we need to figure out is who are we talking to? Who is it that we want to be speaking with? Because shouting at the internet almost never nets good results.
And so I want you to focus on being in the places where your clients actually are. We see this a lot when we talk about choosing our networks for social media. This is something we talk about our VIP days, one on one with clients. This is something we talk about with our agency clients. This is something we talk about during Backstage Live.
Visibility With a Purpose
And the reason we always start here is because if we don’t know this piece, it’s impossible to make good decisions. And so who are you talking to? Where are they spending time?
If you are talking to people who hate Pinterest, then blowing up Pinterest with 40,000 pins a day, it’s not going to be a worthwhile visibility investment for you. However, if you have an audience full of people hungry for podcast content, a regular podcast is probably gonna help. Making sure you’re in places like Apple Podcasts and Stitcher and Spotify and Google Podcasts and all of those places is going to be really critical because that’s where your audience already is. If they love some YouTube, setting up a YouTube channel is probably going to be a worthwhile time investment for your visibility. Start with looking at who you’re talking to.
From there, we need to make sure we know what we’re talking about. This one is again, seems like a gimme but it’s so critical because so often I hear people talking about specifically like media placement for the sake of media placement. Like it doesn’t matter where you get quotes, it doesn’t matter where you guest post, it doesn’t matter what podcasts you show up, as long as you’re showing up in these news media sources, that’s good press.
Well, okay, but for me in my business, a quote on health and wellness in a women’s fitness magazine is A, going to be misguided at best and B, not at all going to drive me business. It’s not, it’s just not going to help in the grand scheme of things.
Now I can go ahead then and put the logo for women’s fitness magazine or whatever on my website. That also doesn’t build credibility with my audiences visiting my website. You know what does? The fact that I’ve been in Social Media Examiner, the fact that I have been in HuffPost, those kind of things. Or if I had done a blog post for Entrepreneur or the fact that I’ve been quoted for Business Insider and Forbes articles, that builds credibility with my audience. Those were media relationships and opportunities worth grabbing home to with both hands because they got me visible in the right way because I knew what I was talking about and who I was talking to.
So a great example is the Forbes quotes that I mentioned, is all about women in podcasting. Well guess what guys? A lot of people come to me to learn about podcasting. A lot of our agency clients come in with the foundation being that we edit podcasts. And we don’t just edit podcasts, but then we do a bunch of stuff with the podcast so that people listen to it and stuff. That’s important.
So look at where you are figuring these pieces out for yourself. Look at where you want to be, what you want to be talking about and who you’re talking to. And by the way, the what and the who are what informed the ware.
So make sure when you’re talking about visibility, you’re not talking about visibility for the sake of visibility. You’re talking about it because you have a specific goal. This is something we do in Backstage Live. We work through our workbooks and we start with who are we talking to and what are we trying to sell for the next 90 days? Because when you know those two pieces, your editorial calendar is going to build itself. Your email funnels and what you’re paying attention to is decided on. What social content needs to go up and what frequency is clear, because we know those pieces.
So the same is true for your visibility. If you have a goal to get on, I don’t know, 25 podcasts in the first half of this year, great. I want you to get more specific though. What 25 podcasts would you like to be on? What type of podcasts? What are you going to talk about on those podcasts? Because that’s how you’re going to build your pitch. So look at that with when we start talking about your visibility, make sure you have those pieces in play first and foremost.
The next thing I want to talk about is sort of answering that question that I get, or the comment that I get rather around, oh my god Stacey, you’re everywhere right now. It sometimes seems like that because I’m doing two very strategic things. Not difficult, just strategic.
Pay to Play
And that strategy is twofold. One, sometimes I paid to play. That’s right. There is literally nothing that will work for visibility faster than paying to put yourself in front of the people who you want paying attention to you. That means running ads.
Now, the default for most people who listen to the show is Facebook ads. That might not be the right option for you. I would highly recommend going back to that who are we talking to? Where are we talking to them? What are we talking about? Because it could be that Pinterest or pay per click through Google or Instagram ads or YouTube ads are the way to go for you.
Whatever it is, and this comes down to building your larger marketing strategy Backstage Live, but whatever, knowing that you are guaranteed to get in front of your ideal clients because you are literally paying to target them and put content in front of them is a great way to get visible. And it’s one I employ on the regular.
This is also true of retargeting ads. Part of the reason you feel like I’m everywhere is because sometimes, during some seasons we don’t have any on right now, but usually, we do. If you listen to an episode of the show through the website, like you go to listen to it on the website, you’re probably gonna get retargeted with something. If you check out the Backstage sales page, you’re probably going to be retargeted with something. If you watch Hit the Mic TV, you’re probably going to get with something.
So again, I’m paying to be visible. This is one of my favorite ways because again, I’m able to get in front of exactly who I want to be in front of. I’m not talking to the whole of the internet. I’m not yelling into the wind and hoping that it all works out. I’m strategically placing myself in front of my buyer and saying hey, look at me.
Consistency is Critical
The second way I can sometimes feel like I’m everywhere is because I repurpose all the things. I’m always sharing or repurposing my content, always, that is consistently being put in front of my community. It could be the same piece of content in a new way. It could be the same piece of content with a new take on it. It could be a video that we repurposed from a podcast or a podcast we repurposed from a video or a blog post or a guest post or an interview. But it can seem like I’m everywhere because I’m often saying the same thing.
For example, and again guys you’ve ever listened to the show before, you know this is what I do, not looking to trick you. This is just a new angle on a conversation I’ve been having with you for years. Every part of this has been marketing strategy. It’s just dressed up in visibility. It’s not a different conversation than we’ve ever had before. It’s just dressed slightly differently. I’m just taking a slightly different perspective.
But the content here is content you’ve listened to before. I mean, I don’t want to ruin the magic, but I mean there is a man behind the curtain and well, there’s a woman behind the curtain, which is really a much better choice. And so I want you to recognize that. That is what makes it feel like I’m everywhere, is because I am unapologetically consistent with what I’m sharing with you.
Now again, full transparency, sometimes I’m better about being brutally honest. And that’s something I’m actively working on right now, which is not just being visible but also being really, as my friend Tara Newman over at the Bold Leadership Revolution would say bold, really standing in the perspective that I want more people to be hearing. But the message didn’t change. The content didn’t change. The core of my visibility and my marketing and my content is the same. It’s get strategic with this or get left behind. Easy as that.
And so no matter what I’m looking at, I’m saying that. And so that makes it feel like I’m everywhere because not only am I consistently showing up, but I’m consistently saying the same thing. So that’s where my visibility can feel omnipresent because it’s consistent. It’s reutilizing the same content. And if you follow me on Twitter, you see content shared that I originally created quite actually, literally years ago. We do that because there’s always somebody new coming. There’s always somebody who wants to relisten. There’s always something new to be heard. And so I want to make sure that it’s there for you.
So as you look at your own visibility, look at where you can add some of that repurposing to add to the consistency of what you’re saying
All right. Removing myself from the soapbox for a second. I want to wrap this up by saying yes, visibility is wildly important. But visibility looks different for all of us. You don’t actually need to be visible to millions of people. If you work with four people a year and yes, there are businesses that are 100% service based that quite happily work with four people per year, you don’t need to be visible to millions of people if you want to work one to one all the time.
Yes, you do need to be visible, but don’t get caught up in the idea that you need an audience of 10,000 people to do that. There are people successfully building large revenue generating businesses who work one to one, who are visible to a couple of hundred people. Because they’re in front of the right people sharing the right content.
So we go back to where we started. Who do you want to talk to? What do you want to share with them? That’s where I want you to focus.
If you have questions about this, if you have thoughts, bring them over to Instagram. Bring them over to Backstage, hitthemicbackstage.com. I want to hear from you on this one because this is something I’m hearing a ton about and everybody wants to be more visible. I want to you to actually think about why you want to be visible. What is the result you want in your business from that visibility? Start there.
Again, bring your questions to Instagram. Bring your questions Backstage. I will see you next Tuesday. Thank you for listening. If you haven’t yet, join us Backstage Live happening in LA in March, March 6th. Super excited. Santa Monica, California. Our next date is not yet announced, but it’s going to be happening in Q2 and it’s going to be a slightly different event, but I’m really excited. Thank you for listening.
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