The Fearless Marketing Show

Why Being Visible Is Non-Negotiable If You Want to Grow Your Business

• Episode 17

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You could have the best offer, the most incredible transformation, and all the expertise in the world, but if nobody knows you exist, your business won't grow.

In this episode, I'm getting really honest about visibility and why it's absolutely non-negotiable if you want to build a successful business. I share my personal journey from taking 100 takes (yes, really!) on my first TikTok videos to now being comfortable creating content in one or two takes.

We dive into:

  • Why invisibility is killing your business growth
  • What visibility actually means (hint: it's more than just social media)
  • The real reason you're avoiding being visible
  • How to practice showing up even when it feels terrifying
  • Why marketing IS the work, not something you do "when you have time"
  • What happens when you commit to being visible for 90 days

If you've been hiding behind the scenes of your business because showing your face feels scary, this episode is for you. The fear doesn't go away - you just get better at doing it scared.

Important links

Connect with Nicole on TikTok @thefearlesscollective, on Instagram @thefearlesscollectiveco or Facebook @thefearlesscollectiveco

(00:01):

You are listening to the Fearless Marketing Show for fearless entrepreneurs ready to grow a thriving business with smart digital marketing from websites and SEO to email and courses, I'm Nick, your marketing mentor here to help you turn your ideas into income. Without the tech overwhelm, you can have the best offer in the world, the most incredible transformation for your clients and all the expertise. But if no one knows you exist, then your business will not grow. I get it. The thought of putting yourself out there and showing your face on camera can be, or even just honestly posting a photo on social media can sometimes feel absolutely terrifying. But here is what I want you to understand is that visibility isn't really optional anymore. It is really the difference between a hobby and a thriving business. I'm going to really quickly show you through a few tips on how to be a little bit more comfortable on camera and why you do need to be consistently showing up to have a successful business in 2026.

 
(01:11)
Welcome to the Fillers Marketing Show. I'm your host Nicole Davidson. I'm a marketing mentor website agency owner, a course creator, mom of four, and I'm the founder here at the Fearless Collective. I'm really here to help you create an online business of your dreams where you are able to create a business that fits in with your lifestyle or your dream lifestyle so that you are able to make more money and also really enjoy being in business. Now, today we are diving into why visibility is absolutely non-negotiable, and if you want to grow your business in 2026, it is really important that you start to feel comfortable being in front of the camera and working on visibility around your website even when it feels scary. Now, this episode is really for you if you've been hiding behind the scenes of your business or you could have be just posting occasionally or maybe you've been honestly working on launching for months and you've been in the backend doing everything that you can to launch your course or your program.
(02:19)
But then when it actually comes to promoting it and doing the actual marketing, you are avoiding it like the plane. There are people out there who can run a successful business without being visible. But in today's marketplace, especially when it comes to service-based or online business, you really do need to be showing up and you need to be focusing on being visible. Now, visibility does not mean that you have to dance on TikTok or share your entire life online. In the episode, I'm actually going to touch on exactly what it is around why visibility is essential, but also why it does not just mean social media and sometimes it can actually mean other areas where you are going out and trying to be visible, whether it's jumping on a podcast or working on your website. Let's dive into the very first part. It is the uncomfortable truth around invisibility.
(03:13)
Let me be really upfront. If you are not visible in 2026, you are not going to have a business, particularly if you're a one person operator or at least it's going to be a lot harder. You are going to be a well kept secret in the market. Let's put it in a different way. Would you ever walk into a networking event? Would you sit in the corner with your back to everybody and then expect to book clients? Absolutely not. That is exactly what you're doing when you are avoiding showing up online. So when you stay invisible, it means that your ideal clients cannot find you. They are going to choose competitors who are showing up over you if you rely entirely on word of mouth, and honestly, you could do that and you have been a lot of the time. When I started out way back in 2007, you could almost rely on word of mouth pretty much to get you from.
(04:10)
That's pretty much how I built my business was word of mouth, which is, but now with how fast everything moves, word of mouth doesn't always cut it. Obviously, word of mouth is still an amazing way to grow your business, but it can sometimes be slow and unpredictable. People are so busy right now, they're not really necessarily thinking about how they can refer your business. The other thing that happens when you are invisible is that you are constantly stressed about where your next customer is going to be coming from or your business will plateau because you've maxed out your personal network. Expertise is not going to be very helpful if people who need your knowledge and your solution and your transformation if they don't know you exist. Now, when I first started my business, like I said, it was quite a while ago, I kind of built a website.
(05:05)
This was before I even had a website design agency. I was running a VA business and I was like, oh, I need a website. I set a website up. It pretty much got me quite straight away, but this was a, like I said, it was a long time ago. I think that was in 2008 when I created the website websites.work like that anymore because there is so much more competition back then there was hardly anyone in the area. But now that it is 2025, it is so much further along and there are so many people doing it. And you know what? I didn't really have the problem of visibility back then. It has only become a problem over the last few years where people are really, social media has been a thing. I was always visible in terms of I was posting content and maybe a photo here and there, but I was never really jumping in front of a video or anything like that.
(05:59)
So even now becoming visible and like I think I've said before, I'm on TikTok a fair bit. It took some time to really get used to how to be comfortable in front of a camera, and I was honestly terrified. I felt like the biggest idiot. I honestly just, I would look back and honestly cringe at these videos and just want to sink into a hole. But from that, my business did start growing or I started to grow a little bit of a network. So it is really important to not be invisible online going into the next year. And number two, visibility and what it actually means. And I'm telling you right now, it is more than just social media. Where here is where a lot of people get it wrong. A lot of people think that visibility means only posting on Instagram or making TikTok or posting on your Facebook page, but visibility is so much more than that.
(06:57)
Visibility means being findable, being known, and that can happen in many other ways. So let's break a few of those ways down. Your website and your search engine optimization is one of the other ways that you can be visible. It is very easy to set up a website, but it is not so easy to set up a website that gets customers and also gets traffic and then customers. It is really hard to do that and it takes work. It takes creating a strategy around what you need to do with your website, whether you are writing blog posts, whether you are really structuring your website and having different learning page for certain services. If you might have a Google business profile if you're local or you might have a clear services page on your website that explains what you do and who you help. So many people don't even have the basics like that so that when people come to their website, people don't know how you can help them.
(07:51)
That is visibility. So when someone is searching for a marketing coach or service providers or how to build a website, these are things that you ideally or if you are in that industry, but what are the things that you would like to see your website coming up? And if someone's searching for your business or the types of services that you offer, if you are invisible and your website is invisible, then you are going to miss out on huge amount of potential customers. Social media, obviously the obvious one that everyone thinks when we're talking about visibility, showing up where your clients hang out. I think I've just recorded another episode around picking what platform you would like to use or what platform you should use in your business. And that one really touches over the different types of the platforms and what kind of people are on those platforms.
(08:42)
So if you haven't listened to that episode, I would suggest you go have a listen. Social media can be, you don't have to always be in front of the camera, you don't have to always be posting photos. You can be creating content that's helpful and educational and builds trust. I don't want you to just jump online and do quotes, but obviously they do work sometimes too, but I also want you to be in there trying to create conversations and building engagement and relationships as well. So it is not just posting all the time, you want to be in there talking to people as if they're your friends. And another way that you could be visible is through podcasting. That can be through your own podcast. I like this one. You could be a guest on other people's podcasts or audio content is going to really help build authority for you.
(09:28)
And there's a really great way, if particularly if your website is not ranking or you're not doing a lot of social media, is to jump on other people's podcasts because that is going to open up a whole new audience to you. And people are listening to these things when they're driving, walking, doing dishes, so you can always be in their ear if you are looking to do that. It's pretty easy with AI now to help you create a podcasting bio that you can start emailing out to people and offering to be on their podcast. Another way to be visible is via email marketing. People say that email marketing is dead, but I really do not believe that email marketing is a list so that you are visible in people's inboxes. Sending regular campaigns or newsletters are going to really keep you at top of mind.
(10:17)
And then the other thing that I would recommend you do is setting up email sequences so that when people come to your website, because people will go to a website, jump off and leave, and very rarely do they come back unless you're constantly in their face. So then an email sequence that nurtures a relationship with people coming into your world. I touch a lot on nurturing when it comes to visibility and nurturing as part of the feel is impact methods. So we have a five step program or a five step method for you to grow your business. And part of that is number two is a visibility. So they kind of float into each other where you're being visible online and then you get people into your arena or into your aura, and then from there they are coming in. And then you want to nurture that relationship with that person.
(11:09)
And this is kind of like before the selling happens. So these two steps are more like a pre-sale step that you would take. And then once you actually have or convert that customer, then you go through other steps in order to nurture that relationship too. Another step to being visible is networking collaborations. A lot of people forget actually to go and do networking, particularly when you're running an online business. Most people just are so busy that they don't really worry, worry about doing that. So going to virtual summits, bundles, guest teaching and other people's communities. So for example, our membership, we will be inviting people to come in as guest teachers. If you hear something in the background, am recording this with my son here today. So I do apologize if there's any background noise, but you know what? I've set a commitment to myself to ensure that I'm getting episodes out.
(12:04)
So here we are. So in terms of networking, you can collaborate with other people's complimentary businesses. So for example, I'm a website designer. It is really important for me to have a networking with coaches that might be recommending that someone needs to have a website, things like that. Speaking at events either online or in person are another really great way for you to be able to get in front of another group of people. One thing I'd love you to do at the moment is to try and audit your current visibility. So go through all of those areas that I've just spoken about and have a look at things. Where are you showing up consistently? Are there any gaps with what you're doing? Is there a particular visibility channel that you would like to focus on for the next 90 days? I love 90 day sprints because they're short enough to be able to pivot if you need to or make changes, but they're long enough to also start to see results.
(13:01)
Now let's get into 0.3 and I think this is going to be one of the most important parts of the episode. The absolute real reason why you're avoiding being visible. And there are many reasons that people are going to worry about being visible online. It can be very scary to show your face and a lot of people talk themselves out of being visible online. They might be like, oh look, I don't look good today. I'm tired. I don't look professional enough. They're worried about saying the right thing. They dunno what to say, they dunno what to talk about. Being judged by other people can also be a big one in particular when it comes to the online stuff, you might see that other people have had negative comments and so you don't want to put yourself out there. You might not be ready yet. The tech might feel too complicated or trying to do things that might be trending that might just be not you.
(14:05)
But the good thing about that is you don't have to be doing the trending things a lot of the time people are really afraid of being really seen by people and putting themselves out there to be rejected. That is completely normal. I have felt that before too. It can be very, very vulnerable to put yourself out there and say, Hey, this is who I am. This is what I do, hope you like me, that kind of stuff. The problem is that the fear does not go away. You do just get better at doing it. Let me talk a little bit about what I've been through because I think this is a pretty common experience. So when I started firstly doing the podcast a long time ago, I did take a break from doing the podcast. When I very first started doing it, I was so nervous.
(14:55)
I probably, if you go back and listen to the very first episode to now, I'm a lot more comfortable in terms of speaking and talking about the topic. Even though I know the topics inside and out, it would take me a lot of takes or I would say arm a lot. I say I would get in my head about all the things that I was saying when the podcast now is pretty easy. But now I've introduced YouTube. It's then added another part of wanting that to sort of be okay, when I originally just had a really plain background, it was just literally me with a plain wall behind me, which was completely fine. But then I'd look at other people's videos and go, oh, well I want mine to look better than that or better than what I was doing. So I've kind of created this little space to be able to record in so that I feel more comfortable doing.
(15:53)
So. Now, outside of that, when I very first started doing TikTok and reels again, I was very, very nervous. It would honestly take me a hundred times to record a 15 second video. I'm not even exaggerating. I would hate how I looked. I hated how I sounded. I would feel silly. I would feel like I was being just not doing it right. I would practice my script over and over. I'd refix my hair, I hated, I didn't like what I was wearing. I'd go to different lighting. By the time I'd get through to a certain level of the video, the lighting would've changed. So then I would go somewhere else and use better lighting there. So I've done all those things. But you know what happened when I very first started doing it is that hardly anyone honestly watched my first few videos because I didn't have a lot of followers.
(16:49)
I'm still working on how many followers I have on TikTok in particular. But once I started posting, the world didn't end. No one was really laughing at me and honestly, if they did laugh at me, nobody told me that they were apart from maybe my kids. They do laugh at some of their stuff. I'm probably really cringey to them, but that's okay. But my friends never said anything and I'd honestly told my friends that that's what I was looking to work at. So they were really supportive and generally were the ones commenting on my videos to start. But what happened over time was that I got more comfortable with everything and that video that would take a hundred times now takes maybe two goes sometimes maybe five. It just depends on how long I'm recording for and what I'm really trying to do. If I'm now talking, when I very first started doing face to camera, it was really nerve wracking and I would stumble my words or I'd bumble around, wouldn't even know what I was saying.
(17:49)
And even though I knew the topic, I was just that in my head feeling like that I was on camera. When I do that now, I really try and talk to the camera as if I'm talking to a friend, just kind of like what I'm doing now. And it just got so much easier. The more I did it, the more the easier it became. I've even had my cousin the other day said, just made a comment about how she's like, well, how long does that actually take you to do it? And I'm like, oh, when I first started, it took a while, but now I'm used to it. It's much less of a time suck now. But the good thing is, is that I just kept going and now that procrastination and now I actually really enjoy it. I don't really get too worried about what I'm doing now, whereas before I would just be all up in my head concerned about everything.
(18:35)
So the point of this is that you don't get comfortable and then start showing up. You have to start showing up and then you become comfortable at doing the thing. And that goes with anything. It doesn't matter whether it's visibility, whether it's a brand new job, whether it's becoming a mom for the first time. You start to get thrown in the deep end and then you learn as you're going. So what I want you to do is I want you to commit to posting around 10 pieces of content. You can pick whatever platform you want, I don't care what one you use, but I want you to do at least 10, not one, not two, not three 10. And I don't care how long you space them out over ideally one to two weeks. And then I want you to give your self permission at being really bad at first because that's how we all start.
(19:24)
But I want you to then look at how you start to then how you finish your posts and let me know from that. So the fourth part, what I want to do and what I want to teach you is give you a few tips on how you can improve being visible without going crazy. So as I've just spoken about, visibility gets easier as you're going, but how do you really practice? Start out small and then build momentum. You don't have to go and jump on a live video straight away. I honestly don't do lives. They're definitely not something that I'm comfortable with doing right now. I prefer to do the podcast or the video where I can pause and edit things out if I need to, but some people are really good at doing lives and other people are just not. So here is what I want you to do.
(20:10)
So I want you to kind of step it out is you could start with written content, start with. So your face is not required. You don't have to do that. You could start at working on a blog post. You could write an email list, you could do some text-based social media posts, LinkedIn articles. These things are going to start to just build up your confidence and post these out without you needing to be direct to camera or you taking a photo of yourself. That's the very first thing. That's your level one. Level two, I would like you to maybe try doing say your voice with no face required. So that could be audio only content. So podcast episodes, maybe going on someone else's podcast where they're not videoing you or you could do a voice note over Instagram story with a photo or a graphic, or you could do a voiceover reel where you're doing more of a b roll.
(21:10)
So you might be following yourself around for the day and then you can talk over the top of it when you're ready to. That's a really great way to get started and to start feeling comfortable because you can pause and delete the video if you need. The next step would be level three. So that's the photos of you, not video photos. So we could do static photos with the caption carousel posts with your photo potentially behind the scenes of your workplace, and then you can really talk about what you're doing, that kind of stuff. So you stepping your blending the photo and your written content here. And then level four would be a video of yourself without any talking. There are a heap of trends on TikTok and reels that you can do with this where you don't actually need to be talking. So you can just have an outfit of whatever it is.
(22:02)
Or like I said, just having a B roll of you walking around or even just a photo of yourself with some sound over the top. And then you could also just do some captions over the top of the video. They're pretty easy to do that in video in TikTok and reels. So that would be the next step that I would take. And then level five is you're talking on camera. So that's where this kind of stuff is happening. So the Instagram reels where you're talking to the camera, you're giving hints and tips. You might be talking about your day giving a life update, whatever it is that you are doing and whatever is relevant to your audience. If you are really doing business to business, you're probably not going to talk about what you ate for breakfast in the morning, but if you are doing more e-commerce, you could potentially do an order.
(22:51)
So you're packing orders, you can talk to people while you're packing orders, so that's obviously your reels and TikTok. You could do YouTube, Instagram stories, maybe some live videos. So that's five different levels that you can really get started with where you're not just going straight into level five and jumping straight on camera. If you want to jump straight on camera, absolutely you can do that, but start where you're comfortable. But I don't want you to stay there. I want you to give yourself a timeline. So maybe you spend two weeks at level one, two weeks at level two, whatever is comfortable for you. The goal is to make progress. It is not to be perfect. If you want to, I would actually be happy to set up a 30 day practice challenge and I might even just do that anyway, pick a format and then we'll commit to doing that for the next 30 days.
(23:44)
So I will get be in touch with people about that. If you're interested, send me a DM either on Instagram or TikTok or you can contact me via the website. What I want you to do is practice. So when you're looking at a camera, just pretend you're talking to a friend. Speak naturally. Try and not to go off a script if you can. Like I said with the podcast, I do write up a bit of an outline, but eventually I pretty much just start talking. The other thing, which is a really good tip when you are doing this is sometimes I will make a mistake. I will be talking on here or I'll be doing a TikTok video. If I make a mistake or I say, or there's too much of a long pause, you can edit those out. So don't be too stressed. The pauses are actually your best friend when it comes to editing videos, and that's something that I have learned when, because quite often I can talk really fast. So then I'll just stuff my words around is I will.
(24:50)
So what I will do when I'm doing this, as I start to record my video, if I do make a mistake, I'll pause. I generally know where I was up to. So I pause, I'll take a three second break and then I keep going. And then that break is what I then use in order to edit that down. So I can cut the video in TikTok or I can cut the video into in Camtasia when I'm editing the podcast, the YouTube video. And the other thing I want you to do is post it. I don't care if it's perfect. You don't care if it's perfect. No one cares if it's perfect. No one even knows actually what you were trying to do, so no one knows if it's perfect or not. Okay? Just post the video, just post the content. That's all you have to do.
(25:32)
Send that email, try and just get used to doing this instead of getting in your head and worrying about it. And if you're really worried about it, record a video, pause, look it over, look at what you're doing, give yourself some feedback, rerecord it, practice, go back and keep watching it. You don't have to post these things, you can just practice. So we're going to dive into point number five. Now, the marketing reality is visibility is the actual work that you're doing. Marketing is what any business needs to do. I don't care what business you are, you need to be doing marketing. You do not just build a website and expect people to come running to your website and make sales overnight because it does not happen anymore. You need to be marketing all the time. One of the things that I was really bad at doing, and sometimes I can still fall back into that trap, is that when I'm really busy with client work, I stop marketing.
(26:30)
And then what happens is when I'm finishing that client work, I would have a dip in when I would having new customers come into the business. That doesn't really happen now because I'm always marketing my business, but it has happened before and so many people make that mistake. Marketing is not separate from your business, it is your business. I want you to really think about any successful business that you admire. Even having a look at, say, Virgin Airline, obviously Richard Branson's really popular. He's constantly, they're constantly marketing. They're visible. Everyone knows who they are. Gary Vaynerchuk, he's always creating content. There are so many of the top people that you know about and you know them because they are visible. You see the content, you hear their name. That's not by accident. They are making an intentional and consistent marketing decision to be there. What counts as marketing?
(27:26)
Creating content on your social media, email marketing, optimizing your website, guest posting, showing up in Facebook groups or LinkedIn and sharing some advice, having sales conversations, building relationships with potential referral partners. This is all counted as marketing and something you should be doing all of the time, even if it's just two hours a week. It doesn't have to be huge, but you need to be doing this all the time no matter how busy you are, because sometimes, or most of the time, once you're finished working with those clients, then you will have a break between clients. But if you have consistent marketing going, you're never going to have a break. You're always just going to have a consistent flow of leads coming into the business. And I get it. I know that you would probably prefer to be doing the real work, serving your clients, creating your courses, perfecting your offer.
(28:19)
They are all extremely important, but visibility in your marketing is also very important, and you cannot fill all of those things if you're not creating something to fill the pipeline and bring clients into your business. By doing the marketing, you are able to serve more people. So for me, the thing that shifted for me was when I stopped treating the marketing in my business as something that I'll do when I get time, I would block out time in my calendar for content creation, for engaging on social media. It has become a non-negotiable, and I think that's really, really important for you to be doing. Like I said, you don't have to do everything. And in that other previous episode that I mentioned earlier, you don't have to be on every single platform. Pick one or two and do that. Well, I don't want you to try and be doing it five different things because that is draining and it can be really hard to do.
(29:13)
So what I want you to do, I want you to look at your calendar over the next month, and I want you to block out every single week. I want you to book out two hours to focus on marketing. Even if you do it on a Monday morning when you've come in and you've coming in after a refreshed, after the weekend, you set up aside that two hour period, and then that way you can then focus on your marketing and it's done for the week, and then everything else is around your clients. I really hope that you have enjoyed this episode. Let's really quickly recap. Visibility is a non-negotiable in 2026. You need people to know that you exist to be able to get clients. Number two, visibility is way more than just social media. It is your website, your SEO, your podcast, your email list.
(29:57)
Everything is part of that is visibility. Number three, the fear doesn't go away. You just get better at doing it scared or being a little less, more uncomfortable. Number four, marketing is the work. Visibility and marketing are not side activities. You need to be focusing on this all the time. If you're ready to get serious about visibility and your marketing and you're really not sure where to get started, I would absolutely love you to come and join us at the Fearless Collective membership. We have monthly workshops or monthly bundles that you receive on different topics throughout the month with visibility, strategies, templates, everything that is going to make your life a little bit easier around showing up. And we are also building a supportive community of women who are on the same journey. I would love if you could head to the fearless collective.co and you can learn more. There's a join button right there for you to do, and if you're not following me yet on TikTok, I'm there at the Fearless Collective, or I'm on Instagram and Facebook at the Fearless Collective Co. Come and say Hi. I would love to chat with you on there. I always share marketing tips behind the scenes of running my business, and let's be honest, proof that I can sometimes get uncomfortable on camera because anyone can. Until next time, stay bold, stay kind, and keep being your feel. So.