Business | The School of Visibility

Establishing your visibility intention

One of the reasons you might struggle with being seen and heard in the world – particularly as a business owner – is the lack of a visibility strategy. A visibility strategy is the approach you’re going to take to ensure you’re visible to the people you’re here to reach. It considers how and where you’ll connect with them and what you’ll talk to them about. It supports you to grow your business by ensuring that a large enough group of people know about you, and buy from you, to keep the business healthy and profitable.

If you have a communications strategy, you may be wondering whether a visibility strategy is absolutely necessary. That depends on how extensive your communications strategy is. Visibility strategies and communications strategies are business besties and it’s entirely up to you whether you clump them together in one document, break them up into two complementary … [Read More...]

A short history of women’s economic empowerment

Economic empowerment has always been high on the feminist agenda. In capitalist societies, economic power ensures you have a greater voice and more political influence than you otherwise would. When you’re economically secure, you’re able to provide a secure, safe environment for yourself and your family, you can take up educational opportunities you might not otherwise have access to, and you can enjoy greater levels of ease as you pursue your creative dreams.

One of the reasons I love supporting female entrepreneurs is because building a business is a feminist act. It’s the next frontier of women’s economic empowerment and we are thrilled to see so many women taking up the opportunity to take hold of their economic future.

Below is a short (and in no way exhaustive) timeline of women’s economic empowerment in Australia, the UK, and the US.

Aus, 1902: Women* are granted the right to … [Read More...]

How to spot your visibility blocks

The most common hurdle to overcoming visibility blocks is actually seeing them. They’re so embedded in the way we think, the way we act, the way we respond to people, that they don’t seem like blocks at all.

They seem like ‘Just the way life is’.

So in the interests of not being bogged down by visibility blocks for the rest of time, here’s a useful tip for spotting a block; What behaviour really annoys you?

Perhaps it’s sales funnels – you just can’t stand people selling to you or hosting webinars where they sell something at the end or mention the product they have for sale in a live video.

Rather than raging against the machine, here’s a question to ponder; How comfortable am I with selling my service/product/program?

A fear of being judged when you ask for the sale is a huge visibility block that impacts significantly on … [Read More...]

#girlboss is not empowering

The women’s empowerment space is an interesting space. On the one hand it attempts to boost women’s confidence and claims to be about women standing in their power.

On the other, there’s so much unacknowledged patriarchal conditioning there that it actually serves to entrench inequality and disempowerment just as often as it attempts to liberate women from it.

#girlboss is a prime example.

#girlboss is not empowering for women.

For girls? Absolutely.

But you’re not a girl. You’re a woman. Which means if you’re going to hashtag yourself, and feel the need to include a gender marker in order to connect with other women, let’s at least go with #womanboss.

Calling yourself ‘girl’ when you’re a woman is a nod to the long time infantilisation of women. It’s a tool that’s been used by the patriarchy to keep women submissive.

It sounds empowering because the word ‘boss’ is in it. … [Read More...]

The Visibility Compendium, July 2019

We covered some juicy topics in July; the one thing you can’t be doing if you want to call yourself an intersectional feminist, the visibility flavour of entrepreneurship, the value of listening if you want to be a good leader, and one key action to take if you’re feeling depleted, particularly as a mother. Below is where you can scroll through everything we shared and catch up on all the goodness. So grab a cup of tea, wine, or kombucha and let’s get into it!

FROM THE BLOG

Failure to act
[Topics: visibility blocks | women speaking up]
‘…in encouraging you to take action, I’m not suggesting you quit your job and spend every waking minute initiating conversations about race or class or sexuality.

I’m saying, when the situation arises, have the courage to speak up.

I can think of many people in my life who haven’t spoken up in

… [Read More...]