Trying to balance the obligations we have toward clients and our own business can sometimes be a challenge. Client work must come first, but unless we carve out intentional and consistent time for ourselves, this neglect risks leading to stagnation and even business decline.
In a recent livestream, Zoetica founder Kami Huyse spoke with Sheena Abraham, Persuasion Strategist at Carved Lemon LLC, about the simple strategies she uses to stay visible and keep her business pipeline flowing.
Here is how Sheena transformed and grew her online presence over the past year – without being glued to social media 24/7, adopting complicated strategies that ate up valuable time, struggling with tech overload, or feeling burned out.
- Be honest with yourself. No one knows you better than you do, so rather than pretending you’re invincible, know what your vulnerabilities are so you won't get tripped up by them later on. Despite proven success in helping her clients, Sheena felt a bit exposed suddenly putting herself more out there on social media. However, knowing it would help her business strengthened her resolve to deal with the temporary discomfort and do what needed to be done. “We have to create the ecosystem that will push us, drive us, to do things that otherwise would take a lot of effort to do,” she says.
- Reframe marketing and self-promotion as tools for serving your clients. Promoting products and services is a necessary element of maintaining a viable business, but for some people, the thought of marketing and self-promotion puts them into a panic. Sheena’s suggestion is to reframe how we look at them, namely not as boasting or singing our own praises, but as a way of letting our audiences know how we can serve them. Sheena’s approach is to talk less about what she actually does, namely copywriting and messaging, and more about what she is passionate about, namely helping people with their mindset and strengthening their emotional intelligence so they can effectively position themselves in the marketplace. “Good sales writing inspires your audience to action,” she says.
- Embrace your learning curve. Everyone has to start somewhere. Even professionals at the top of their industry were beginners at some point. Accepting imperfection and committing to consistently doing the work will help in the long run. As Sheena points out, “You don’t have to be the best at something to do something… at first it’s overwhelming and we’re making a lot of mistakes and doing things the hard way, [but after some time you will] do it without thinking.”
- Recognize that social media is for everyone. Some professionals or business owners and executives have a skewed view of social media, thinking it’s something that’s not for “serious” professionals or traditional industries like financial services, law, and so on. But social media is one of the best ways to directly connect with one’s target market and stakeholders. As Sheena explains, “social media is just about grabbing the content you’re putting out there already,” whether that’s speaking one-on-one with people, at an event, or something similar, and putting it in a different format.
- Support others to strengthen and increase your visibility. When it comes to visibility, people need to be intentional about what they do on their own platforms and others’ as well. Visibility can grow exponentially when we’re proactive. “We’re not successful in a silo just building our own kingdoms… it’s really about interacting together and supporting people in their [own] visibility,” says Sheena. “Visibility is not just like ‘here’s what I have to say,’ but it’s like ‘look what this person is saying’.”
- Measure success in a variety of ways. Nowadays marketing success is often measured by views, likes, and click rates. But what can make the biggest difference is engagement in the form of comments, direct messages, and even offline conversations. Sheena notes that who she has meetings with as a result of her visibility and what conversations they have are key. Social media numbers “aren’t always going to reflect what’s happening offline,” she notes.
You can watch the full video replay here for more insights and suggestions.
And if you’re interested in increasing YOUR visibility, make sure to sign up for the Instant Authority Workshop! One of the things you’ll learn is how to create 3 months of authority content ideas in 2 hours. Register here for free.