The Visibility Trap That’s Wasting Your Time [Vanity Metrics Detox Series Part 1]

It's not about being everywhere. It's also not about being where everybody else is. It's about being in the right places for you, for your business, for how you are going to connect with your audience, to grow your revenue.

This is the entrepreneur school podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you, the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO, while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair, and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under three. I'm a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste doing things that burn you out on this show, you'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to entrepreneur School.

Hello friend. Welcome back to entrepreneur school. Okay, I need to start with a quick gut check to kick us off today. Have you ever posted something on Instagram and then immediately check to see how many likes that it got? Or maybe you jumped onto that trending audio because you felt like you should, even though it didn't really have anything to do with your offer or your strategy or your brand or anything at all. Meanwhile, there's someone important that you've been meaning to reach out to, a past client, maybe a collaborator, a dream referral partner, and that task has been sitting on your to do list for weeks, maybe even months, and you just keep putting it off and putting it off, and now it just feels awkward, so it's probably never going to get done. I'm raising my hand confetti. Yes, the me too. We've done all of those things, and I'm excited to have this conversation with you today, because this is episode one of a four part series that I'm doing this month that I'm calling the vanity metrics detox, and today we are detoxing the need to look busy or visible, because I think it's time that we clear out all the stuff that looks like visibility but doesn't actually move your business forward. So the core concept of this entire series is visibility. Roi, this is one thing that I get asked more than anything else, and it's always been a challenge in anything to do with the marketing space. How do I actually like track or prove or make sure or understand that what I am doing is effective and it's different for every single business out there, right? So if you've ever felt like you're doing all the things and you're just you know that you're busy, and you know that you're doing stuff, but you're not really seeing the results that you want. Then this series is for you, and in today's episode, we're going to start by calling out the trap that so many of us fall into. And it's a phrase that I have now just coined with the help of chat GPT, who made this up for me, and it's called performative visibility. So let's talk about what that means, and, more importantly, what you need to do instead. So what is performative visibility? Well, it comes from the concept of performative productivity, which is to do stuff for the sake of feeling like you're doing stuff, right? We all know that feeling. I didn't feel productive today because I rested my body, or I watched TV, or I didn't check off 25 things off of my to do list. Well, when it comes to visibility, this is this is stuff that feels productive, or we expect it to be validating, but deep down, we know it's not actually helping us grow. So here's some examples, posting on Instagram, checking back 10 minutes later to see who liked it, using trending audio just to keep up, even when it's not connected to anything to do with your business, re sharing your own content, to your stories and calling it a day, spending hours tweaking your website instead of following up with a real human putting off that real relationship, building task because they feel harder, even though they matter more, right? Or maybe you've like, spent hours editing an Instagram reel, and then you go to post it, and all of a sudden you sound like a chipmunk, and you're so frustrated because you just spend all that time making that video, or you're doing all the editing and it deleted. That happens all of the time, right? So many things that you pour. Energy into and limited energy at that, and then they don't produce what you want it to produce. Because the truth is, performative visibility can feel like working hard, but if it's not connected to a strategy, it's really just noise, and quite frankly, a waste of time. And friend, I am not here for you burning out on busy work, because there's one thing that is true, and that is that our resources are limited. We only have so much time, energy, money, and most of us are juggling businesses, families and about 1000 other responsibilities. So we do not have the luxury of doing things just to check a box or look busy. That's why this matters so much, because every hour that you spend trying to keep up with what everyone else is doing or what you think you're supposed to be doing for your business is just an hour that you're not using to build real relationships, connect with your audience, or take a strategic action that leads to results you did not start your business to chase likes. You started it to make a difference, to help people, to create freedom to do something meaningful with your skills. And so let's make your visibility match that. And this is where we enter into strategic visibility, because strategic visibility is intentional. It's targeted. It's not about being everywhere, it's about being in the right places. Oh, I feel I have to say that again, it's not about being everywhere. It's also not about being where everybody else is. It's about being in the right places for you, for your business, for how you are going to connect with your audience, to grow your revenue.

So think about it. This could be booking a podcast interview with someone who serves your ideal clients, sending a follow up to a path client who might refer you or might come back and buy more from you, pitching yourself for a speaking opportunity or a guest training, hosting an event, partnering with a complimentary business to run a workshop, a giveaway, a promo together. None of these things maybe feel like the trendy thing that you should be doing, or flashy, like, you know, the idea of going viral on Instagram, but they compound, they build authority. They lead to actual conversations and opportunities in sales and like I talked about in last week's episode about thought leadership, it's about positioning you as something more than just what your product is or what your offer is, right? Because then you're getting that attachment and that connection in your clients minds about why they want to come to you, why they want to experience more of what you have to offer. And these things feel so much better than that constant hamster wheel of having to show up just to prove that you're active. So let me tell you a quick story. I used to spend a lot more time on social media, especially in the earlier days of my business. Of course, like it's free. It's a free tool. It feels like something that should be easy to do should help you, like, potentially reach so many people, right? And I was trying to make it work as a visibility strategy as well. And I've had all the guilt feelings too. Like, if I wasn't posting daily, somehow I'm falling behind. I felt that pressure to be on all the time, showing behind the scenes, doing the lip sync reels. Seriously, you can scroll way back. You'll see me dancing on the internet and jumping into every trend. But I can't tell you of a single instance where someone found me on social media and then hired me. Not just cold. In fact, I even had one of my videos, my reels, back in the day, go super viral with like, 800,000 views, and I doubled my follower count, and that didn't turn into anything either, because those were just not even real people. They weren't people who were there to learn from me. It was people who thought I did a funny dance with my husband on the internet.

Again, if you're bored, scroll back. But I can tell you how other things have translated into clients, and most recently, it was when I decided to get out of my house and attend a local networking event. Just by being in the same room, I met a new client and helped her launch her business, and our work together tripled within a week, and within two months, we actually decided to merge our businesses together and become partners, which has been what I've been working on very excitedly behind the scenes for the last little while, and I now have this renewed sense of purpose and. Direction for my business and the work that's exciting to me, and I will be rolling that out very soon. If you live near me, if you've seen me in real life, you know what's up. But I'm going to keep the podcast strategy happening so that you'll learn more about that in the coming months. And truly, like none of this progress, none of this movement, none of this growth came from social media, came from showing up in a way that felt aligned, intentional and real for me, and that experience really underscores that visibility isn't about being seen to be doing something. It's about doing things that create actual connection and momentum. So here's the mindset reframe I want to leave you with today. Visibility is not a performance. You're not here to prove that you're active. You're here to make an impact, and when you release that need to look visible, you can finally focus on what actually matters, which is building trust, creating value and opening doors. So this week, I want you to ask yourself, anytime you're doing something that falls into that marketing bucket of your business, ask yourself, Am I doing this because it's strategic, or because I feel like I have to or because I think that it looks good on the outside, so that question can change everything. And if you're nodding along and going, okay, Kelly, I hear you feeling a little called out, yes, sending you a virtual hug. That is my tough love approach for you today. But you want to know, how do I actually know what is working versus what is just noise? And that is where I have some really good news for you. I am building something exciting. Her name is Valerie, and she is the visibility auditor, and she is almost ready for you. She is an AI powered tool that helps you score your visibility actions, track your momentum and make better decisions every single week. And yes, she will literally show you what's moving the needle and what to let go of. So if you've ever wondered, are my efforts paying off, this tool will help you find out. Now I will be rolling Valerie out very shortly and sharing more about that in the next few episodes, but for now, I just want to thank you for being here. I know you have a million things pulling on your time and energy, and it means the world to me that you spent a little bit of it with me today. You are doing amazing things. You are on the right path, and just like we detox the need to look busy or visible, today, we're going to keep clearing out that noise in the next episode so that you can focus on what actually drives results.

Next week, we're detoxing the habit of measuring likes instead of leads, because visibility that gets you clients looks a lot different than what racks up hearts on a screen. So I can't wait to dive into part two with you next week. And if you are really curious about the AI tool that I'm building, head over to Instagram and DM me the word Valerie. I will give you a sneak peek. Bye for now you.