The importance of being visible in your business (and how to feel more comfortable doing it!)

Be honest, do you hesitate to post photos of yourself?  I recently spoke with Katie Allen, an amazing self love and wellness coach, about why we should be visible in our business, what stops us and how we can overcome that hesitation.  Read on for the details…

1.Why is it important to be visible in your business?

You are the secret sauce!

We like to think our businesses are very unique but there are thousands of businesses like ours. For most people, the business in itself its not actually that unique. The unique thing about your business is you – you are the thing that makes your services and offers are different. If you are a coach and we have the same target market and same offering, we are still organically going to attract different people and help people in different ways BECAUSE of who we are – different people.

I know its old school but its also basic but in order for people to buy from you they need to know you like you and trust you can help them solve their problem. And if we’re hiding in our business – whether that’s behind stock images or pretty quotes, we are not actually giving people the chance to get to know us – as human beings, as business owners or as service providers. So they do not know if they like us. They don’t have enough information to make an informed decision on whether they like us. You really should be choosing a service provider that you genuinely like. When I go to hire a mentor or a coach, I need to genuinely like that person. Genuinely liking that person is important because these relationships require you to be comfortable and be yourself with them. So people need to get to know you. People need enough info to decide that they like you. And then you can move onto the trust phase – I trust that you have integrity, I trust that you are going to do what you say you’re going to do and I also trust that you can help me solve problem and you are the best person to help me overcome this obstacle.

If you are not being visible you are blocking yourself hugely from connecting with potential clients.

2. What do you think are the main things stopping people getting in front of the camera?
What I see in my line of work (and of course there are lots of different reasons) is a lot of people just hating what they see. A lot of my clients don’t even look in the mirror. They don’t feel comfortable being with themselves, in their bodies, they don’t like looking at themselves, even avoiding family photos. So when it comes to suddenly having to be professional and have a brand and curated images – its the farthest thing from what they want because they are just so geniunely uncomfortable being in their skin. Whether its that they feel ugly, not worthy, not good enough or they don’t fit with the vision for thier business ie. I’m selling health but I’m overweight. I look like this, people aren’t going to want to see me, why should I get in front of the camera? It’s their old limiting beliefs, their old stories, really poor body image and self talk. All of that is a huge blocker for people.

3. Any tips on how you can overcome that really really crappy body image and not wanting to see yourself to get the benefits of being visible and being the face of your business?

There are lots of different things you can do – of course you can work with somebody like me – because a lot of these limiting beliefs and stories and thoughts and crappy self image have been with you for a long time. It’s really important to note you have a problem or belief system that has been limiting you for decades, usually a little activity isn’t enough and you need to dive into the beginnings of where did this belief system start and do the belief change work so that they can be a different person now with different behaviours, outcomes and beliefs.

That being said, there are different things you can do:
1. make sure you are surrounding yourself with people that lift you up (and that includes curating your social media to elevate you. You are in charge of the media you take in so unfollow accounts that make you feel bad about yourself, mute or unfriend people so that they’re not coming up on your feed and intentially following people that make you feel better.)

2. Listen to my podcast – Self Love Ignited – it’s all about this. Lots of tips, tricks, strategies and exercises and interviews with women who tell their story of self love and acceptance. It aligns with curating the information you take in. Hearing other people overcome the same obstacles that we are stuck in it can make us realise there’s a lot more options and opportunities out there and things don’t have to stay the way they are.

3. Don’t view your body as an ornament – they are so much more. Have a daily grattitude practice specifically about your body – create a relationship on what you are grateful for instead of what it is lacking.

4. Become visible to yourself – if you cannot bear your own reflection of course you won’t be visible in your business. Mirror work allows you to be seen by yourself first before stepping out and allowing others to see you. An example of this (detailed in the podcast) is standing in front of the minute and set a timer and say ‘I love you’ repeatedly. It can be really confronting so use ‘I see you’ and progress this from looking in your eyes to your body to the advanced naked version!

5. Be patient with yourself – it’s not an instantaneous jump from body loathing to body love – there is a journey in between through dislike, meh, neutral, acceptance, like to love and it’s a lifelong journey. So be patient and compassionate. At the beginning you are going to resist being on camera because it will feel unsafe and not okay. Understand if you have anxiety or panic, you might not love it but its about being open to the experience and beginning to experiment with it.

4. And how do people follow and work with you?

Self love ignited podcast is a great free resource that comes out weekly. You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram or via my website. With the nature of this work, I work predominately 1 on 1 with people to ensure we have a deep custom solution to overcome your challenges. In saying that I hosted The Body Peace Summit recently with 12 experts to educate, motivate and inspire you to make peace with the body you’ve got and feel at home in your skin and the all access pass is still available via my website.

Website: www.katieallen.co
Podcast: www.anchor.fm/self-love-ignited
Facebook: www.facebook.com/katieallencoaching
Instagram: www.instagram.com/katieallencoaching

 I have Katie in my curated socials feed – I love her authenticity and she shares a wealth of information.  I especially resonated with a recent thought she shared – “if people can hate, criticise and tear others down for no reason, I can share love and build you up just because.”  Hopefully you can grab a bit of that love and some tips above to ignite your self love!

p.s. I didn’t take any of the images on this page as Katie is based in QLD.  I grabbed them off Katie’s socials.