Being visible is something that people really struggle with. But the reality is that visibility is the only thing that is going to make you stand out from the masses if you believe that your contribution and service will positively impact the broader community. The simple but hard truth is that your business is not unique. Someone is already doing it, and may be even better than you if you compare purely with sales and profits.
But there is one crucial difference—there is only one of you. Your business is not unique but you certainly are. The only way to cut through the clutter and noise of your competition is to make yourself visible and relevant. And by relevance, you need to have an intentional presence that changes your branding and business into a timeless essence. Ten or twenty years from now, people need to look at you and think wow he or she has come a long way and is still rocking and relevant.
Express Yourself
It’s about using the power of words to leverage your opportunities. It’s about expressing yourself in a way that is bigger than yourself, and more independent of your external environment because you can never control other people’s words or actions but you can control the level of importance you give those words or actions.
If they hurt you, don’t let them own you by giving your power to negativity. Staying visible takes ample resilience and grit, so it is incredibly important that you focus only on what you can control and give it your best.
More than Just Sticking Your Neck Out
Firstly, being visible does not equate to putting yourself out there mindlessly at any cost. Just because you see a lot of something out there does not necessarily mean it’s a good thing, especially when people don’t directly benefit or even learn from it. If whatever you are hearing or reading contains negative subliminal messaging to curb your progress in society, increased exposure to it could even be detrimental to your lifestyle, especially when you don’t realize you are being influenced to some extent
Learning to be visible and relevant is a combination of art and science. Being visible is about being invested in your target market’s success and happiness as much as you are invested in your own success and happiness. It is about knowing how your audience could benefit from your service and products in a way that your competitors can’t cut it. Being visible is about bringing the solution to the table, even if it is initially for free.
What Growth Means
Visibility could take many forms. You could pitch about your business and how it is scaling impact, to editors and get published in relevant magazines, you could be a guest blogger for blog sites, you could write an article for different platforms that are aligned to purpose and fit your branding, you could get interviewed in a podcast, or you could be invited to speak at workshops and conferences. Growth doesn’t come from stagnation, it comes from movement so in order for any of this to happen, you need to step out of your comfort zone and actively source for opportunities that could elevate your branding.
You need to offer incredibly valuable content that can serve your target market and resolve their concerns. If you don’t know where to start in terms of content, start by processing your authenticity and sharing parts of your story. Your struggles, your pain points, how you overcame stumbling blocks, even though all of this may be deeply personal, people see their real vulnerable selves in your experiences and can truly connect with you. This is where people start to take notice, when they feel they can invest in you to invest in their own happiness and success.
Sharing your behind the scenes and the backend journey is actually a marketing tactic. Your connection and engagement levels will grow tremendously if you use the power of emotions to tell your brand story as your story. That’s what makes you human and very visible. Everything you achieved is not done overnight. It was done over time and there was a process you followed with trials and errors and your followers and fans genuinely want to know what makes you human or more importantly what makes you vulnerable.
Probability of Success
The worst mistake a new entrepreneur can make is to assume that somehow people will find them in the realm of things. Nothing can be further from the truth. The law of averages tells us that the higher the number of attempts, the larger the probability of success.
Simply put, the more you put yourself out there, raw and real, the better your chances of finding the right kind of clients to work with or the right demographics to sell your products or services to. You know that wave of euphoria or relief (depending on your circumstances) that rushes through you when you find that one business that has what you want in the middle of the night and they are open when others aren’t.
That’s exactly what your brand should be striving for because you have that one thing to offer that others don’t even want to contemplate. Being different and visible doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. You just need to know how to build an irresistible package that connects and coverts.
Building a personal brand is now more important than ever. In a world filled with business brutality and ruthlessness, people are looking for genuine, human connections and if you can offer it to them, they will hold onto you. Don’t be afraid to be visible.
The post The Importance of Being Visible appeared first on Entrepreneur and is written by Gaayathri Periasami
Original source: Entrepreneur
