4 Non-Intimidating Visibility Strategies to Grow Your Audience in 10 Min/Day

Kelly Sinclair: 00:00:00

Those may seem challenging, but eventually they won't seem as challenging, so you're going to have to stretch yourself into new places in order to feel that challenge. And I think it's important that we have a little bit of each of these categories as part of our visibility strategy, so that it really is something that we can focus on on a daily basis.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:00:28

This is the Entrepreneur School podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out. On this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:01:16

All right. Welcome back. I wanted to do something really fun today and walk you through a very transparent behind the scenes case study of what visibility has looked like for me in my business over the last 90 days. Sometimes I think that we can get a little bit intimidated by what visibility is and what it even means to like, achieve visibility, and we think we have to do some big things. We need to get media features. We need to get be on all these podcasts, arrange to get speaking opportunities, and all that stuff. And that's great. And sometimes it is some of those things, but also sometimes it is such simple things that really can create a lot of amazing connection and visibility for you. So before I dive into exactly what I have been able to accomplish, I guess, to share with you over the last 90 days for me, and keep in mind this is being recorded in real time, so I'm talking about summer, summer where I took time off, where I went on vacation for two and a half weeks to the UK, where I spent time paddleboarding and biking and being in the mountains and hanging out with my kids and driving them to hockey camps and all the things. So I was not 100% on for visibility in my business. So that's the context. And I think you're going to be surprised at what was able to happen, even though I was really limiting the amount of time I was spending on this. And I think that's really what's exciting about it, is that once you start committing to visibility and really making it a priority in your business, you can see how it becomes a habit, and it becomes something that you can do in literally under 10 minutes a day. So I'm going to share a lot of examples of those kinds of things, just to really help you wrap your head around what that looks like, so we can get rid of the intimidation factor around any of these visibility strategies that I'm going to share. But what I want to do first is walk you through a framework that I have, which is called the visibility elevation matrix. And these are four different types of visibility strategies that you can sort of rotate through, that can be part of your overall visibility strategy. And when I work with you individually, we will create your customized plan, and it's going to include some things in each of these categories. And that's because, well, let's be honest, there's some days where you just don't have the energy to, you know, put out a big pitch for a sponsorship or a speaking opportunity or an award application or a media feature, and some days where you're just going to be like, if I just send one email, that's what I have capacity for, and that can have a significant impact. It doesn't have to just be all the big, flashy kinds of visibility. So I love them all equally, and I want to share what each of them are.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:04:31

So the first category is your personal influence boosters. So these are the types of visibility that allow you to deepen relationships with your inner circle and your existing audience, so definitely more along the lines of one on one connection and reach out and allowing you to just keep showing up, to be present, to remind people that you exist, to chat. Back in on a previous relationship, somebody you've either talked to before wanted to collaborate with, somebody who has connected with you and expressed an interest in working together at some point or another. Like I think sometimes we overlook the power of of these one on one relationships. I sometimes will go back and see who have I had discovery calls with in the last six months, and have I heard from those people anytime recently? And if not, can I go and check in on them on social media or email or wherever we have a relationship and reach out in that kind of a way? So I'm going to go into some examples. Actually, no Welcome to Kelly recording a podcast without notes. So let's do all four of them, and then I will do the examples of sort of my 90 days in each of those four categories afterwards.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:05:55

So the second category is connection elevators. So these are the types of activities that are going to help you to build your network and form new connection. So think going to networking events, getting yourself into different rooms, be them virtual, or be them in person, and actually finding the people that you can potentially collaborate with. So these are not necessarily you thinking about, how do I find my ideal clients? And I think that's something that we have to recognize a little bit more when we start thinking about, how do I find people who can help me get in front of my ideal clients, and when I collaborate with them, I have an automatic trust that is built, then those are the people who are your target for this type of activity. And sometimes this is things like, you know, going to local business groups or association events or participating in an online event, even one where it's not specific to networking, but where you may be able to connect with some of the people who are speaking or hosting or participating in it through just being an attendee or a participant yourself. So think a little bit outside of the box there in terms of where you can find some of these opportunities, because this is going to help you to eventually get yourself into the right rooms and to be able to land collaborations with people you potentially had on a dream list once like, I'm going to share examples of this is happening right now in my life, and I'm loving it so much, being able to connect with and actually get guesses from People who I've been admiring from afar, kind of like fangirling on for a long time.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:07:45

So the third category is collaboration amplifiers. So this is where you really think about how to get in front of other people's audiences. I have always said one of the best ways to build trust is to be introduced right when you're standing beside somebody who people already trust, they're automatically transferring some of that trust onto you. You're getting an endorsement. You're getting that that transfer of trust from being in front of other people's audiences, so having a really clear view of who your audience is and who you're trying to reach will help you to make these connections, to see how you can add value to somebody else's audience, and how you can identify who some of these great collaboration partners might be for you. So you can think about, you know, participating in email list swaps or speaking on other people's paid communities, or CO creating a challenge or collaboration bundle or mini course, or anything that you're doing alongside somebody else to sort of share the spotlight and to be seen in community with them. It really does a lot to boost your reputation in front of a new audience, and it just takes you from that cold place where people don't know who you are into a warmer, trusting open space where you have a better opportunity to connect with the audience who eventually could potentially become your leads and your clients.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:09:23

And now to go into the fourth sort of quadrant, so to say, of the visibility elevation matrix, you have your expert authority accelerators. So this is all around becoming a thought leader in your industry, and this is where we want to be challenging ourselves. We'll be stretching a little bit more to get into this space, because this can involve like media placements and speaking opportunities and podcasting things that you may consider to be a little quote harder to do. So this is where we may get intimate. Dated a little bit by visibility and thinking that it's only these types of things.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:10:05

Ultimately, when you stack all of this together, you are going to be advancing your brand, enhancing your reputation, building a name for yourself. That's the whole point. And some of these activities that kind of fall into this expert authority accelerator category can be more of a heavy lift. Sometimes depends on what you like, and you know, at the beginning, if you're just getting out there, putting yourself on podcasts, those may seem challenging, but eventually they won't seem as challenging. So you're going to have to stretch yourself into new places in order to feel that challenge. And I think it's important that we have a little bit of each of these categories as part of our visibility strategy, so that it really is something that we can focus on on a daily basis. Sometimes the big reach ones, sometimes the little low hanging fruit ones. And I do want to just kind of acknowledge that these four categories sort of fit into a bit of a matrix in terms of there being lower reach and higher reach as well as lower and higher difficulty, right? And I think it's a little bit subjective, especially difficulty wise, I'm trying to determine what that is, because for one person pitching media may seem like absolutely wild and crazy, and for another person like me, because I have a degree in how to do that, it's not as intimidating or challenging, and also sometimes it still is. So I'm just going to admit that as well. And we have days right days where it feels hard to do literally anything, to send an email, to post a story on Instagram, and days where you're just going to, like, shoot your shot, and you're feeling so motivated, and you know, you feel like you can conquer the world. And so you have to kind of be able to acknowledge that and use your energy to guide what is an appropriate and possible visibility opportunity for you today.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:12:12

So to go into a little bit of the case study around what I've been up to in the last three months, and this is for the purpose of you being able to see what's possible in as little as 90 days. And there's a strategy behind why I'm talking about 90 days. First of all, that's a quarter of the year, which is a nice measurable amount of time that we can see results in. And 90 days is important here, because what I'm talking about is building a habit around visibility and everything that's out there. As far as the research goes, with respect to building a new habit or changing something, is it takes at least 60 to 90 days to really embody what that looks like. And what I want for you is for visibility to be a habit. It's just what you do now, it's just who you are. Now, it's not something that seems intimidating or you can't get yourself to do it every day like we want to be able to really break down what is preventing you from getting into this and build it as a daily habit. Again, that's why there's four quadrants in this matrix to help you to find some of that low hanging fruit, feel some really quick wins, and be able to advance from there, depending on your energy. And you know what we identify for you as your most high potential opportunities when it comes to visibility as well. So for me, in that category of personal influence boosters, so the one on one stuff, I reached out of my comfort zone, and I asked for a letter of recommendation from the mayor of my town, which I received. And it was lovely, nice kind of validation there for me to be able to use in potential future work. I also connected with a new contact that I met an event. So I met somebody, and I had her email address for like two months, and I finally reached out to check in on what she was up to. This is just like literally sending an email saying, Hey, we met at this thing. We talked about having a conversation. And here I am basically because if you don't follow up with people that you meet, then those don't turn into relationships. I also was offering visibility roadmap calls as part of, kind of on the back end of some of the digital products that I sometimes contribute to, things like bundles. And so I had five one on one calls with people who took me up on that offer. And so I just That's a new level of relationship with people who are interested in working with me around visit. Ability. So that's five new relationships. They also got brave, and I asked two people who are on my dream collab list to be on my podcast. Spoiler alert, they both said yes. So that's really exciting and coming up in the future.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:15:14

And again, it just goes to show that sometimes it's just like the one on one outreach, like, for example, one of them came I'm I'm following her, I'm on her email list. And she sent out an email about a collaboration that she had done with two people who I know personally. So rather than getting one of them to send an introduction, I just took it as an invitation to be like, hey, you know these two people. I think they're awesome, and I would love to also do something collaboratively with you. And that turned into a yes. And they also requested and received two speaker testimonials that I can use to secure more speaker opportunities. So sometimes it's like, oh yeah. Remember, I went to that event in Nashville back in April, and I spoke, and I have all these lovely pictures. I would really love a testimonial to be able to include on my website, on my speaker media kit, etc. So just asking for that was the personal influence booster. So see how these can be really simple and just like you connecting with someone else, this is where I really like to define visibility as anything where you're putting yourself in front of somebody else so somebody else knows that it happened. It's not all of the like visioning and strategizing and things that you do behind the scenes which can keep us very busy and we can keep ourselves distracted with very easily. It's not those things. It's something where somebody else is involved. So think about that next time you're trying to figure out, is this thing that I'm doing really visibility, or is it not.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:16:48

For my case study on connection elevators, I did networking calls, one on one with three new contacts that led to podcast opportunities and other speaking opportunities. So I actually, I went to a virtual networking event, and I met a couple people, and I had follow up conversations with them. Or some of them were like introductions from other collaborations, or other people in my kind of peer space who have said, hey, you need to talk to this person, or you need to meet this person. And eventually I do calls with them, because I want to make sure you know where we vibe and we have similar values and all of those kinds of things before we pursue like, do you want to be on each other's podcasts or do something cool together? I also attended one in person event. That was when I went to Dallas. I swear I made at least 30 new friends and collaboration partners. Not just like, hey, how's it going? What's your business card, but like people who I will be following up with, or already have followed up with, or have invited onto my podcast, or have planned to do more collaboration opportunities with. So that's only three sort of categories under the connection elevators. This is something I usually do more of, but because it was summer and I was away, et cetera, et cetera, excuse, excuse, excuse, or whatever, just the season that I was in, that's where we landed for the summer. Now for collaboration amplifiers, I actually did quite a lot of collabing this summer, mostly so that I could get things organized and be able to just schedule out some of my communication and not have to be like creating new stuff over the summer, because I knew that I wanted to be a little more hands off. So like you may have noticed if you're a podcast listener, every podcast this summer was a guest episode, and some of those were tied into bigger collabs that I was doing, so I spoke as a guest expert inside of a peers paid community. I set up two email list swaps, so I had somebody else sending out kind of one of my freebie offers or a special gift for their community, just via email.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:19:06

And I also participated in two collaboration bundles. Now this is something I used to do a lot more of, and I'm kind of still assessing how effective these are, in particular for me, especially just kind of understanding how long it takes people. And this is going to be a separate podcast episode. How long does it take people from like, discovering who I am to eventually buying something for me? And the answer is a long time currently. So I don't have very good stats to say that. Like, you know, three months, six months, nine months, it's definitely months. It's not immediate. There's no like, Oh, someone just found out who I was. I sent them five emails, and they bought a course from me. That's not happening in my world right now.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:19:51

So therefore, I am assessing whether the free bundle offers which are Creating a lot of leads, so I'm definitely still getting hundreds of new subscribers as a result. It's just whether those subscribers are actually like high quality potential clients, and that's what we ultimately want, right? So again, this is just part of the process of understanding what's effective for you and your specific business like that is why I would never say everybody should go do bundles, because maybe that's it doesn't fit as a good lead into what you sell. I know people who it works so amazing for, and now they're hosting their own bundles because they sell sort of smaller ticket digital products. And those are, they're proven, and they have, you know, they already have the sales mechanism in place, so they just need the leads to come into it. So anyways, I'm getting into like, nitty gritty on sales strategy as well. But when you're thinking about your visibility. You're thinking about, how do you, like bring in leads? How do you bring in a high quality audience of people who are, you know, hands up raised for you. I'm interested in what you're doing. They they have the problem that you can solve, and all of those kinds of factors are in consideration. So anyways, I did do two collab bundles this summer, and I do have a lot of new people on my email list as a result, and we're still kind of TBD on how long that's taking to convert into actual sales.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:21:34

Again, I sell a higher ticket offer, right? I sell one on one strategy. I sell consulting services. And I now sell a mid high ticket group program, the brand visibility accelerator, which the doors are open right now for applications for my first five founding members. If you haven't heard please do check that out. Go to ksco.ca, forward, slash b, VA, as in brand visibility accelerator. And check out all of the details there, because that is going to help you to come up with your custom visibility strategy. In fact, I'm going to create one for you. I'm going to tell you exactly what to do, identify what your top visibility opportunities are for you and your specific business, and what's going to fit into your strengths and your desires and what you actually want to do, what are your goals? That's why we can't do cookie cutter plans. It has to be customized 100% that's what I'm all about, and that's why I'm talking to you about these four different categories, because you may be really heavily loaded in one or all of these and that's going to depend on you entirely. Just like, what you like to do? Do you like to collaborate? Do you have a platform of your own? Are you a speaker? Do you love podcasting? Like, let's not say everybody needs to be a speaker. I don't believe that's true. I think speaking can be really effective, and it's certainly helpful when it comes to authority building, but if that's not in your wheelhouse and you want to create one on one relationships, there's nothing that says that that is less effective. So I just want to put that out there and really give you permission to step into whatever is going to be really the best for you, and I would love to help you figure that out, and also to hold the space for you to implement, to try these strategies out, to see the results that you can create as well within your 90 days.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:23:35

So the last category in the visibility matrix is expert authority accelerators. So for me, I was nominated for a woman in podcasting awards, and that was a like two month process for the voting. So it's closed now. I will hopefully hear, I think, sometime in the next month, how that all landed. But regardless of whether I win or not in the category that I was nominated in, I have the leverage now, and so that is a badge that I can put on my website. It's something that I can share in every episode. It's in my show notes. Now you're going to see that and associate my podcast with having been nominated for an award, nominated and winning are very close to the same amount of power as far as your authority, and so therefore I was able to leverage that into media feature. I had a radio interview and an online story written about me, with respect to these awards, that's definitely helped to spike attention and hopefully garner a lot of votes as well, which was my mission, but not just to have that call to action, but actually just to have the recognition and awareness that comes with being featured. In the media. I also spoke on two summits. So seemed like it's more of a summit season for me in the last three months, sometimes it's more bundle season. Now it's summit season. And I'm also, I'm also calling it podcast parade season, because in just September like I didn't. I don't think I've recorded any podcasts over the summer, but in just September, I recorded five plus podcast episodes where I am featured as a guest expert. So those are already starting to go live and drop, and so that's going to create another little cycle of attention and just me getting in front of other people's audiences to build my reputation and my recognition for me as an expert with respect to visibility and strategy, and particularly the kind that doesn't rely on social media. So that's what I am constantly sharing, that message, that key message is being now amplified over other people's platforms, through their podcast, through their summits, and through the media. For me, now I'm really like honing in on that expert positioning, right? And that's kind of the big picture goal when it comes to building a brand and to getting visibility for boosting that brand to become known as the expert in the space that you're in.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:26:27

So if you are in any type of I'm going to call it an expert based business where you're the service provider or a coach or a consultant or a course creator. You sell your brain. You sell being the one who knows about the thing that you do. And this doesn't have to be online only. I actually love working with businesses that are either hybrid, where you sell something online, but you also sell, maybe in person services, or you do things within your local community, I love that, because we can really create a unique combination of the strategies that are being used in both of those spaces. I think there's kind of where innovation comes from. If you ask me, where we borrow from different industries, and we use those strategies for what you are doing, rather than just talking about, okay, I'm a retail store. How do I, you know, boost my retail presence, like retailers do, I should be in a retail group. I should talk to other retailers. Blah, blah, blah. What if we applied digital marketing strategies to your retail store?

Kelly Sinclair: 00:27:41

Now, I know I'm not talking about expert positioning in that example, but I have worked with retail stores to come up with launch strategies that really are different from how a store would quote normally open. Oh, and one more thing in that category for me, in terms of my case study, before I wrap this part up, I have another Award nomination for the Women's Business Club Award, and now I'm going to be fully transparent. Some of these are self nominated, or, you know, get a friend like I did, and say, Hey, let's nominate each other for this award. And it took us 30 minutes. We got on a call, and we took 30 minutes, and we now are nominated for this award again. Does it really matter if you win the award? I think sometimes we, like, are afraid, especially with awards. I'm just going to go on a little tangent about awards for a second, and we feel like, Oh, someone has to nominate us. Otherwise it's not, you know, valid. No, like 90% of the awards out there accept self nominations, because it's a lot to ask somebody else to do that. And if you feel like you're qualified, yes, you are. So maybe, maybe don't use that as a litmus test. Get yourself to a space where you feel like you're qualified and just go for it, apply for all the things, and then talk about all the award nominations that you have, and then share about that. This is, this is even just a bio filler, right? Bio booster, I would say, like your biography, because now you can be Award Nominated, blah, blah, blah expert. Your name here, instead of, you know, just your business title. It just really just adds to it. So anyhow, that's the case study. That's 90 days. It seems like a lot. And it also was simple, like I said, all of this was done with probably 10 minutes a day of dedication to visibility, because I built a habit around it, and that is exactly what I want to show you how to do inside of the brand visibility accelerator.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:29:47

So if you want your next 90 days to include podcast guesting, setting up collaborations, growing your email list, increasing your visibility, improving your brand boost. Using your reputation, enhancing your awareness about who you are, so that more people can come into your world. You can grow your audience, and you can grow your revenue by attracting those dream clients, then I would love to see you apply for the brand visibility accelerator. We're starting this off the second week in October with a small group, intimate group, that is going to get the most access to me, personalized support, as well as the best price that this is going to be available at ever again. So if this is piquing your interest, I just want you to go to KSCO.CA/BVA brand, visibility accelerator, and just fill out the application. I am going to make sure that it is the perfect fit for you. I'm here to answer any questions that you have, and I would love to talk about how I can support you, if it's not within this container as well. So I'm really pumped about this. If you can't tell I'm so excited about this program, I have actually not felt this excited about anything that I've done, probably for like, two years. So we already have applications in that I'm reviewing. Founding members are starting to sign up, and I want you to be part of it, so I hope to see your application ASAP. Just go over it. It'll take you five minutes to fill it out. It'll help you to see sort of what your vision is, as well around your own visibility and what you want that to look like.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:31:41

Now we've talked about this before. It's all about being proactive, right? If you have anything big that you're planning or you're ready to level up into 2025, then what you do now, in the last quarter of this year, for the next 90 days, is what is going to kickstart all of that. So it is going to create that momentum, build those opportunities and really set you up for success. You need an audience if you want to make sales, it's literally the first step in the sales cycle. If nobody knows who you are, you don't have anybody to sell to. That is just the cold, hard truth. So that is what BVA is all about, the brand visibility accelerator, helping you to attract those ideal clients, build that audience, to grow your future sales.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:32:31

You did it. You just listened to another episode of the Entrepreneur School podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prepped dinner or picked up your kids at school. Thank you so much for being here. I want to personally celebrate your commitment to growing your business. You can imagine I'm throwing confetti for you right now. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. Make sure you're subscribed and let us know you're listening by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram, head to entrepreneurschool.ca. For tons of tools and resources to help you grow your business while keeping your family a priority. You can subscribe to our email list and join our community and until next time, go out there and do the thing.