Two Mindset Shifts to Help You Get More Visible

Kelly Sinclair: 00:00:00

You don't have to know exactly what to do or how to do it, you just have to get yourself into momentum by taking action because action creates results. Strategy is great. But raise your hand if you have ever been stuck, overthinking and trying to perfect things. Because you're trying to find out the exact way to do it before you actually just do it.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:00:21

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 3am, 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: 00:01:17

Welcome back, my friend, I want to have a really important honest conversation with you today. Because the reality is whenever you find yourself not doing something that you know you should be doing, and not just the guilty should be doing but the actual, I know I need to do that kind of thing in order to achieve my goals. I'm looking at you, I'm looking at you if you're not currently actively taking action to get visible so that you can actually grow your business, get the clients that you want to serve, and share the gift that you have with this world than the reason behind that is rooted in fears, right? We are afraid of something we're afraid of change, we're afraid of what happens if we are successful, or if we're not successful. All of these fears live in us all the time. And it's totally normal. And I want to acknowledge that. And I also want to unpack that a little bit with two really important mindset shifts that you can take, particularly when it comes to helping you to get more visible, to be more comfortable in the idea of putting yourself out there. And the reason I want to have this conversation right here right now on this podcast, is because I have spent some time lately in rooms with people in real life rooms and in virtual rooms with people. And when I talk about the fear of showing up, it is just is so resonant with everybody there. And so I know that this relates for you as well, if you're listening to this right now, because somebody just commented today was like, promoting myself equals me running away. And it was like, yes, that is how we feel particularly when we are not, quote unquote, marketers, or this isn't our skill set or our top strength to promote ourselves. And truly, there's a whole narrative out there that is really keeping us from being able to step in this more confidently. It's, it's the subconscious things that we have going on the belief that, you know, if you brag, you know, it's not polite to brag, or good work speaks for itself, or you know, somebody will notice you eventually, instead of empowering you to show up for yourself, and to really promote yourself and talk about what you do. And I really want to be an advocate for that for you. I want you to feel empowered, I want you to feel excited, I want you to to know that it is badass, to walk into a room and own it. Like you know what you're good at. And you share that from the rooftops like, I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly inspiring and attractive, not the opposite, right? And yet our subconscious is telling us that if people act like that, then nobody's going to like them and people aren't going to be drawn to them. And it's going to have the opposite effect. No, that is not true. So when I was in a room recently, one of the I played a little game and so you can play along here as well. And you can do that put a finger down. If her finger down if promoting yourself feels awkward or uncomfortable. Most of the time, you struggle with impostor syndrome, you want to be known as the go to brand in your space. So there's a conflict there. You'd love to collaborate with other people to grow your business and you want to get more visible so you can get clients. If you put any fingers down then you're just like everybody in the room like is every single person was still standing by the end because I told him to stay standing if the any of these related nobody sat down. That's the whole was like, Yeah, you are on the right space, and you are not alone. And the main obstacle that we face when it comes to getting visible is this fear of being seen, because we don't want to be vulnerable and exposed. So instead, we get stuck in overthinking, which leads to inaction.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:05:18

So I want to spend the time on the podcast today to talk about two important shifts. The first one is what it actually takes to squash impostor syndrome and boost your competence so you can get more visible. And the second is the foolproof mindset that you need to get yourself to take action, so that you can achieve those results, and actually get your goals to happen for you. And this, this applies even if you're not a marketer, or you don't like promoting yourself. And also, especially because you know me by now, you don't want to rely on social media for growth.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:05:53

So let's talk about crushing that imposter syndrome. And the newsflash that you already know, is you have to talk about your business for people to know about it. It's truly the only way for you to make money for you to be able to serve the clients that you want to help. It's if you talk about yourself, and you build up that brand awareness, but it's scary. Because when you think about marketing and visibility, the thoughts go running through your head. When if I get rejected, or I fail, or I seem salesy, or I'm not professional enough, or I'm too much, or I'm just I'm not ready. Right? I heard it said before, and absolutely love this, if you don't have imposter syndrome, you're not trying anything new. So anytime that you try a new way of promoting yourself, or you have a new offer that you want to sell, or you're new at your business, or you're new to an industry, impostor syndrome is a requirement. So you actually better feel like an impostor at first, because that is how you grow. And so we really just have to build that confidence muscle over time. And it truly comes from taking action. So you don't have to know exactly what to do or how to do it. You just have to get yourself into momentum by taking action because action creates results. Strategy is great. But raise your hand if you have ever been stuck, overthinking and trying to perfect things, because you're trying to find out the exact way to do it before you actually just do it. Right. You've heard it said before, you need to start before you're ready. And overthinking is a disease. So here's how I suggest that you can get yourself to take action. I've just coined this term that I'm calling the future you mindset. So it's like how you don't want to plan your meals on a Sunday night. But you're so thankful when Thursday rolls around, and now you know what you're having for dinner and you order pizza. Like I'm literally patting myself on my back. I'm recording this on a Thursday, Thursday is the is the day by which I fall apart when it comes to the meal planning for sure in that scenario, but I already made dinner, it's in the crock pot. We're having it like everybody can go to their 17 activities tonight, because it's going to be easy because I planned for myself on Sunday when I didn't want to do it. I was like Thursday, Kelly, she'll be so happy that this meal was made. So do it for her. Right? Or that feeling like how amazing is it when you crawl into bed with fresh sheets, because you remember to change them before 10:30pm You didn't just like take the laundry out and put it on the bed and then come up to your room and go, oh, there's that pile of sheets on my bed. I have been there so many times. So if current you does not feel like writing the email to ask about the collab, that is fine. Do it for future you. Right? Think about where you're going to be two months from now. It's going to be summertime, are you going to be on vacation, your schedule might be looking a little different. If your kids are home or you have to take them to summer camps, you have to do something a little bit differently, there's going to be a big shift. Wouldn't it be amazing if you didn't have to worry about how you were going to attract new clients, because you already took the time to take action that's bringing them into your world. Because you know right now I'm so thankful to the Kelly from two months ago who applied for speaking opportunities, joined collaboration events, and continued to grow visibility. Even though like a couple months ago, I was living in my my in laws basement while our main floor of our house was replaced due to a water damage incident with a Christmas tree. Funny story. If you want to hear more about it, come find me on Instagram.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:09:35

But the truth is like visibility is a bit of a long game, right? And sometimes you have to be planning things now that are going to roll out in several weeks or even a couple of months from now. So I've shared this story before but I want to really illustrate the way that one small action can really stack into multiple amazing opportunities. And this is like The ripple effect of taking action. So last summer, I didn't want to work very much. I wanted to stay home with my kids. I was experimenting with their schedule as far as not putting them in so many summer camps because they're a little older. And this is going to be the same for me this summer. But I also knew that I needed to stay intentional about moving my business forward. So when September rolls around, I wasn't going to be starting from scratch, right? You know, that feeling where it was like, Oh, where did the Summer Go? Because you blink and it is gone. It's done. You've had the vacation, you, you know, you've maybe let some things slide your To Do Lists got shorter, or you just push things off? And then September comes in, you're like, Oh, no. How do I get the ball rolling again? What if the ball was already rolling, because you started pushing it just a little bit each day, right? I challenged myself to take one action a day to stay visible, to build relationships, maintain a presence. And now that's what I call going on a visibility tour, I unpack that specifically in a previous episode, which I'll link to below. So you can hear all about what that entails. And of course, I have a whole program now called the visibility revolution, that teaches you how to do this, how to implement it for yourself, how to make sure that you are taking intentional actions that are building your visibility, and that aren't taking up all of your time either. So that you can get to the result that you want, so that you can achieve those goals. Within a more reasonable timeframe. Then if you stop and start and you're ghosting your social media or your you know, just feeling a little bit like you haven't stepped out of your house into a room full of people in a long time. All of those things, take some consistent actions, right. So I have been able to trace back now some of the results that have come from specific things that I've done months ago, and that they've built upon each other to create even more opportunities. And that's what's really exciting is because sometimes it's like, it's that one thing that's on your to do list right now that you've been pushing off. For weeks and weeks, that you just know, you need to do it.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:12:06

And I promise you, if you do that thing today, it's going to create some amazing momentum for you, you're going to feel like you've accomplished something, first of all, which is a powerful mindset to shift into. And you're going to actually get a result from that energy of having done it. So whether the action that you take leads to something like for me, my first action was pitching the media about this podcast, which resulted in great media coverage. And of course, that's cool. I love to be able to go, I did this, and then this happened. But it was actually what happened after that, that has been even more exciting and has built upon it over the months that it's happened that there has been in the meantime, right. So I got the media coverage, the podcast spite, I got a great guest on the show that I would have never, ever been able to speak to normally. And then from there, I was able to turn that into a case study which allowed me to pitch myself for speaking opportunities. So I just spent the last week in Nashville on one day at a podcasting conference talking about PR for your podcast, because now I have this example of what I've done, and how it worked for me and how it's continued to stack. And I met so many great people in that room, that now I continue to reach out and connect with them. And I'm having the follow up conversations. And this is the critical part is like, you're continuing to let these little things stack because of the people in that room. There are some I mean, they were all incredible, truly, and who knows what is going to happen because of relationships that I've now created by being in that space. And who knows who is going to see me or hear me on the recordings of that event or future versions of that event if they use the video footage again, right? Like I'm connected to it. And we can't undo that. Right? It's there and it grows, and the longer that it's there it continues to expand and create even more exciting results from it.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:14:12

So this is the whole, like ripple effect of taking an action. And I know that a lot of the time we want to know the result of what our action is going to be like, Wouldn't it be great if we could have a guarantee on every single thing and not feel like we're experimenting? That's, that's great. Like, yes, I would like that too. But sometimes, I find it even more exciting to think, What could this be right? What exciting thing could come from speaking at this event or going to this networking? Tonight like a lot of people we feel a little bit nervous to go out into a room but I'll tell you the power of being in the room. If you're uncomfortable with it, like challenge yourself to do it once like a quarter or something like that because you can create some amazing relationships you don't know who's going to You're in that room. And if you never went, you'll never make that connection, they might be going to refer you to your next client that signs a huge contract with you for a whole year. Like this literally happened to me too, when I first started my business that one of the first things I did was go to a networking event. And then it got my first client. And then I got my second client, that was a five year contract, like it renewed for five years. So had I not gone to that cafe that day and had that coffee, I would have never met her, and we would have probably never worked together. And that would have changed the entire trajectory of my business. So that is the excitement about when you take an action, that's intentional, to connect to your potential clients or potential collaborators, and get more visible.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:15:49

So these are the mindset shifts for you to take to help you to step out of your comfort zone, to challenge yourself to embrace your imposter syndrome. And to think about that future you mindset when it comes to getting yourself to take action now, because there's never a perfect time, you're never going to feel perfectly ready to start anything, you have to just get started. And just like any new habit that you're developing when you're developing your visibility habit, which is truly what I call it, and like why I built the visibility revolution, the way that I did, it's about taking small actions and letting them build up over time.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:16:29

So we don't go all in, we don't do a big like, Let's do 30 reels in 30 days, or like, show up on Instagram five times a day. First of all, if you haven't been around me enough, you would know that I don't recommend any of those. But when it comes to taking these actions, it's like 345 times a week. And let that build week over week. And by the time you're done eight weeks of this, you will have built this in as a habit that it's no longer intimidating to you, it doesn't feel hard or scary. And some and so the things that right now maybe feel that way, are going to be like piece of cake, no problem, I can do that in my sleep. And for me, I have built this habit up now coming on like eight months. And it just let it stack and stack. And now I'm doing more than one thing per day. Because it's part of what I do. And I know the value and the ROI of doing it is just building more momentum and creating more opportunities. And then you can really feel that web developing around you have all of the little things that you have put out, you know, that analogy of like putting a line in the water, the more lines that you have, eventually you're going to catch fish. So we're putting all of these lines out, we're building this web and mixing analogies together for you now. But eventually, they're going to start picking up in there. They're connecting to more and more things.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:17:51

So you start to get discovered, you start to get invited to things you don't have to do all of the outward energy. So amazing things come when you take action now. And so my challenge to you is going to be think about that thing that's on your to do list that you just keep pushing it to the next week to the next week to the next week. And do that right now. Because I know that it's going to take you less than 10 minutes. And it is going to create some amazing results for you even in just the way that you feel after you've accomplished that thing. And when you do it, I want you to come over to Instagram, and DM me the word action. And I will start a conversation with you to hear about it to talk about what your next steps might be to like, give you some tips around how to assess the effectiveness of what you did. And see where you can go from there. I'm cheering you on. I'm excited for you. Thank you for listening to this episode. And I will see you again next week.

Kelly Sinclair: 00:18:48

You did it you just listen to another episode of the Entrepreneur School Podcast. It's like you just went to business school while you folded your laundry, prep 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.