How to Build Real Visibility Beyond Social Media w/ Lauren Najar

Real visibility isn't built on social media alone.

Many entrepreneurs spend hours trying to perfect their content, believing that posting consistently is the key to getting noticed, attracting clients, and growing their business.  While social media can be an important part of your marketing strategy, it shouldn't be the only way people discover you. In this episode, I share why expanding your visibility beyond social media can create meaningful opportunities and long-term business growth.

Discover how collaborations, podcast guesting, networking, email marketing, and strategic partnerships can help you reach new audiences without relying solely on the algorithm. I also share the mindset shift behind my challenge to collect "100 no's" and explain why pitching yourself consistently can lead to bigger opportunities, stronger relationships, and the kind of visibility that lasts.

Chapters:

00:25 Why social media isn't your whole marketing plan

04:27 Perfection is hurting your visibility

05:43 Other ways to become more visible

07:18 The challenge of collecting 100 no's

08:39 What opportunities should you pitch? 

09:20 Why people appreciate authentic pitches

11:16 Why pitching yourself gets easier 

12:08 Why asking creates more opportunities

13:02 My visibility challenge for listeners

This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Liz Chapman & CO

Upcoming Events:

Napa Retreat - October 5-8, 2026 - https://laurennajar.myflodesk.com/cetj223rsr

Growth & Connect Events - https://laurennajar.myflodesk.com/hb2a0mwbqw

Save 25% with Flodesk - https://flodesk.com/c/OR8VKL

Let’s Stay Connected:
→ Follow Lauren on Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurennajar
→ Learn more or work with me: www.laurennajar.com
→ Follow Business Over Cocktails on IG: www.instagram.com/businessovercocktails
→ Attend Growth & Connect retreats & events: www.instagram.com/growthandconnect

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Business Chaser, your quick pour of strategy, clarity, and momentum. We skip the small talk and get straight to the strategy here in these bite-sized episodes. We're here to help you grow smarter, market better, and chase what matters all in 15 minutes or less. I'm your host, Lauren Najar. Tune in and let's chat. Hello, hello. Welcome back to Business Over Cocktails. I'm your host, Lauren Najar, and I'm so excited to talk about visibility today. So I just got back from hosting my July Growth and Connect retreat. And a lot of the conversations, not only during that retreat, but I've been having with a lot of my clients this year, is around the frustration of social media and spending so much time, energy, brain power, whatever it is, on perfecting your content. And it's really wild to me. I guess how easy it is to go down this rabbit hole. And I've been there, I think, but I don't, you know, to be completely honest, in almost the eight years I've been an online business coach, because that's most of my business has been that. I personally have never been down a rabbit hole to where I am so laser focused on how my content is doing. I do care how my content performs. I do care about growth. I care about engagement. And I will say, probably the first few years of my business, I would be like, well, I didn't get any likes. But I don't, because I don't remember a huge shift because I definitely don't feel this way now. And I don't ever remember thinking like I needed to really train my brain around this. So I really want to give you this perspective that I've always had. And it's it's probably a hot take. It's not common for people to say this. But I will say that yes, I have bought content planners and content templates and graphics. And I have bought, I've spent a lot of money on all of that stuff. Have I ever used it? No. Like a lot of those things are still sitting in my canvas somewhere and they're probably really outdated. Or an interactive content or a swipe file of hooks or real audios and things like that. I've bought that all, I've bought it all. But do I ever feel like that's going to help me grow my content? Maybe when I purchased it, yes, but that I never use it. I just do my own content anyways. And I definitely think I've played the consistency game really well over the last eight years. There has not been a time other than like having my daughter and I really didn't go on social media for two and a half months that I really didn't post for a large span of time on my Instagram. And then like when I use Facebook a lot, I was in Facebook groups every single day. So in full transparency, I'm just kind of laying the groundwork here. In full transparency, I am really not somebody that is a proponent of like, oh my gosh, you need to analyze your content to death. And oh, this one only got six likes, or this one only got five whatever comments. And those are really not the statistics that you really want to look at. And I really want to challenge you with this. And I really want to challenge you with different ways to think about your visibility, think about your social media presence and growing your visibility as a whole. I think that it's very easy and it's free to grow your presence on social media. And it's wonderful that we have this ability to have a business on social media, regardless of what platform you're reaching. And yes, I'm not gonna argue with the case of like the more engagement you get, the more visibility you get. Of course, if it's the right kind of visibility, you're going to grow your clients. Yes, I understand that. So that's why I do keep track of certain stats, but that is not 100% of the weight of your marketing plan. That's not 100% of what brings you your clients. You have to make sure that not only are you saying the right things, but you're in front of the right people and you are hitting them in different ways versus just a post on social media every single day. Your marketing plan, your visibility plan, your strategy needs to be a lot more than that. So, what I've really spent time with with a lot of clients is really trying to break free, helping them break free from the perfection that they think that their feed needs to be. Now, this could be a personal preference. I've had a client over the last few months who really was into aesthetics on her feed and how it looked and how it felt. And again, that is to a certain degree. All of your eggs in that basket does not make sense. The most important thing that we are doing is that we are ourselves. And, you know, people are no longer resonating with the perfection, with the aesthetic feeds. They are resonating with a presentable brand and a recognizable brand, but how do you do that? And without coming off as being surface level, it's make sure you're going deep in your content, make sure you're telling stories, make sure you're just popping on and being like impromptu with your stories and things like that. Another way, though, is like not even thinking about social media at all. What are some other ways that you become visible? You can do collaborations with other people. You can make sure that you have an email list. You can make sure that maybe you're going in person to in-person networking. Maybe you're doing podcast guesting, maybe you're writing articles for other publications. There are a lot of, a lot, a lot of other things that you can be doing. And I think a lot of those things we're holding ourselves back from that. We don't think we're big enough, smart enough, ready enough to do all of those things. And we forever will force ourselves to be in the confinements of social media versus there are a million other ways to get in front of our people. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Well, YouTube's not really a social platform, but those platforms have millions upon millions of people on those platforms. So you can go on any of those platforms and find your clients. It depends on your strategy. It's not just posting, right? It's just, it's making sure your content is saying the right thing, speaking to your clients, all of those things. But again, as a reminder, that is one piece of your puzzle. It is not the full puzzle. So thinking of other ways. What are some ways that really excite you? You might even be thinking of some ways right now that you've been scared to try. However, you have been like wanting to do it. Well, I'm going to give you permission to do that. Pit yourself. Another really cool thing that we did, and this is kind of like a side note, but another cool thing that we did at our July retreat, we talked about this at the last breakfast. So it was our last meal all together with most of us. One girl, she had said that she wants to start collecting nos. And someone inspired her to do like, oh yeah, like someone, like I know someone who's doing a thousand no's for this year, like wants to pitch herself enough to where she gets a thousand no answers from various things. And what I was really inspired by is I want to get a hundred no's. And she, that, and then that client also too, or that retreat intended who's like, yeah, like I'm gonna try for a hundred and see where it where it takes me. And I think that that to me like motivated me. And I actually am like, I'm gonna go home after this retreat and I'm gonna write a list of a hundred no's that I want to get. And so, how do you get a hundred no's? You think of things that are so big that you want to pitch yourself to that I think that would be really uncomfortable, really big, but you really want to do it. And so I really want you to think of that when it comes to your visibility of okay, cool. Like, how do I pitch myself to things that, yes, I want to do this, but I don't know if they're gonna say yes to me, but you really want to do it? Like, make a list of that. I bet you there's five things you can think of. Either collaborations or podcast episodes you want to be on, or articles you want to write, or interviews you want to do, or like brand collaborations, partnerships you want to do. I encourage you to pitch that. And I will say this too on the flip side is that so this is my personal story. There's two sides to this, right? We are nervous to pitch somebody fear of rejection, fear of not fulfilling our like follow-through, whatever it is, fulfilling our end of the bargain. So I really want you to think about this. Yes, you're nervous, but really walk yourself through of like, no, I got this. I know that I could be a very good partner. I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that I'm a good referral partner, business partner, partnership person, whatever it is. You are setting yourself up for success. But I want to then remind you that the other person that you're pitching to is also another human being. I have gotten pitches a lot in the last year and a half where I know that you know they have like I what I guess what I'm trying to say is like that person is nervous to pitch me, and in my mind, I'm like, why are they nervous to pitch me? It's so crazy. You have to realize that that other person is also thinking they're nervous too. And and if you're nervous, sorry, I'm getting over a cough. If you're nervous to pitch somebody, I bet you that person's gonna be so flattered. Unless like they have an ego problem or whatever, or like and maybe not, maybe they have confidence and that's a good thing, but like, or like in a bad way, it's an ego problem. But I will tell you that whenever I've pitched someone and I've been scared about it, like I've gotten a lot of compliments of like, wow, like I can't believe you pitched me, or I can't believe I'm working with you, or I loved your pitch, like it was so like human and wasn't copy and paste. And and I think like when you really articulate why someone is worthy of partnering with you, or why you want to partner with them, and you really bring it to the forefront of like how this can be an equal partnership, I think that that's really important. So I really encourage you to like just kind of take out those feelings because if you are nervous, chances are that person is wanting to collaborate with somebody too, but just isn't sure if you want to collaborate with them. It could be you specifically or just anybody in general. And everyone's looking for more visibility, truly. And if the opportunity aligns, it's gonna be a yes, especially if you paint that really pretty picture of how it aligns. So the one last thing I want to leave you with is if you're thinking of someone who you want to collaborate with, like whether that is to be on a podcast episode, to guest appear somewhere, to write an article, to do something that is going to partner with somebody else and be in front of their audience, I bet you it's gonna be a yes. And if it's a no, maybe you go into collecting some no's finally, but at least you asked. And when you put in those reps, it's gonna become a lot easier. And it's gonna be so amazing for your visibility. And for me, I know that there are people out there that probably want to collaborate with me and I wish they would ask. I'm not afraid to ask. And I like immediately when I think of an idea, I'm asking people. But I know that there are people out there that are probably like, I wish more people would want to collab with me or pitch themselves to my podcast or something like that. Like, I definitely have those feelings sometimes. So if you're feeling that way and you're like, I really want to like collaborate at an event or brand partnership or something like that, like I bet you there are people out there that are going to say yes to you if you just let them know. It never hurts to ask. It's always gonna be a no if you don't ask, right? We hear those sayings all of the time. So if you are inspired to collect no's or if you are inspired to have like a list of people that you want to pitch, I want to hear about it. So message me at businessover cocktails or at Lauren Najar, and I want to hear how you do that. And I want to celebrate you and cheer you on. So if you get yeses, if you get a yes to a big pitch, of course, want to hear that too. But I hope you have a great weekend and we will see you back here on the podcast soon. That's your quick hit of clarity and momentum for the week. If it sparks something, share it with a friend or tag us in your stories at Business Over Cocktails and or at Lauren Majar. We love seeing what resonates. Don't forget, Mondays are for full-length episodes with rich conversations, and Fridays are the Business Chaser episodes. These are bite sized insights pulled from our guests to keep you inspired and aligned throughout the week. Do you have a question or takeaway? DM us at Business Over Cocktails. We just might feature it in a future episode. Cheers.