Last week I spoke about the three areas to focus on in your visibility strategy in order to grow your brand: traffic, connection, and authority.
This week we’re exploring the visibility blocks that might arise in relation to each.
It’s so important to understand that different blocks arise in relation to different focus areas. Seeing is the first and vital step. Because once you’ve seen them, you can actually clear them. Until that happens though, you’re stuck trying and trying to achieve results, frustrated that things just don’t seem to be working for you although you’re not sure why.
TRAFFIC
Stranger danger! If you were ever taught to be wary of the world, to distrust strangers – and there were probably very good reasons for you to be taught that as a child – as an adult, they may well be affecting your willingness to be seen by more people.
If you’re carrying around any sort of fear of people you don’t know or about being seen beyond the confines of the safe space you’ve created around yourself, then here’s what you can expect if you don’t clear your blocks:
- any efforts you put into traffic will either not lead to the results you’re looking for,
- you’ll jump around from strategy to strategy never landing on one – thereby ensuring none of them are effective – or
- you’ll direct your attention toward the most time-consuming tactics that yield the least results.
CONNECTION
Some of the big blocks here relate to intimacy, being vulnerable, and feeling exposed. It can manifest as a fear of people really seeing you and realising you’re not perfect, you don’t have it all together, or deciding that you’re not enough.
My personal experience is that the posts that always get the most engagement are the ones where I’m at my most vulnerable and where I share a part of my personal story. People connect with stories. Your stories.
The critical thing to remember is this; you don’t need to be perfect, you just need to be willing to be seen as you are.
With all of this, there’s a line that all business women – particularly those building a personal brand – must explore for themselves between over-sharing and not sharing enough. Oversharing is both unnecessary and borders on narcissism. Under sharing is distancing and there’s a lack of generosity about it that people turn away from.
So having a few guiding questions is helpful. Questions like, ‘What’s the purpose of sharing my story? Is there some deeper intention for sharing? Am I emotionally dumping on my community or am I sharing because there’s a benefit for them in hearing what I have to say?’
AUTHORITY
The big fear here is around claiming space. The doubts that arise being; ‘Who am I to step forward and claim space? Who am I to be seen as a leader? Do I dare claim that leadership role? How do I have the self-confidence to presume that others might want to receive guidance from me? Does my voice matter? Does my opinion matter? If I express myself, how will people respond? Will it bring out the trolls and haters?’
As a businesswoman, you have to claim the space. No one gifts it to you.
In order to do that you need confidence and you need to be comfortable with being seen as both a leader and as successful.
For me, the big block with regard to authority building was around being seen as successful. Having an experience of being bullied as a child for being too successful, I was terrified of the consequences of anyone seeing my success. It wasn’t a fear of success itself, it was a fear of being seen and judged for my success.
You may have a similar fear or yours might show up differently. The important things to remember is when you’re developing your visibility strategy, it needs to include strategy, tactics, and block clearing.
When you start by clearing your blocks, you’ll then open to the strategy and tactics that will lead you to the results you want (as opposed to the results your blocks will allow you to achieve).
Ready to do some block clearing work? Our foundational visibility block clearing class for all business women is ‘7 Blocks to Business Growth’. It’s one of the classes you gain access to when you enrol with us in our signature visibility mastermind and leadership development program ‘Women Speaking Up’.
