Why Showing Up Everywhere Is a Myth: Strategic Visibility for Entrepreneurs - The Visible(ish) Podcast Ep.2

Why Showing Up Everywhere Is a Myth: Strategic Visibility for Entrepreneurs - The Visible(ish) Podcast Ep.2

Stop burning out on visibility! In this episode, visibility coach Melissa Howard busts the myth that visibility means showing up every day on every platform saying something life-changing.

Instead, she shares her permission-based visibility framework that honours your life, capacity and energy—the same framework she uses with her 1:1 clients that has them breathing sighs of relief.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure to be everywhere all the time, this episode offers a refreshing alternative. Melissa reveals how to find your "minimum effective dose" of content, choose your visibility playground wisely, and set rules that work FOR your energy, not against it.

She also gets vulnerable about her own visibility chaos (yes, even as a visibility coach!) and how her ADHD diagnosis helped her understand why certain content creation modalities were challenging for her.

Key topics covered:

• The truth about sustainable visibility for established business owners
• How to define your visibility baseline—your minimum effective dose
• Why choosing platforms strategically matters more than being everywhere
• Setting visibility rules that honour YOUR energy and creative rhythms
• Implementation steps to build your own framework
• How AI and other tools can help overcome content blocks
• Why "visible-ish" is a journey, not a destination

As Melissa says, "Visibility is not about being on all the time. It's about being aligned when you are on."

The Visible(ish) Podcast celebrates progress over perfection and understands that visibility is a practice, not a destination. New episodes every Thursday.

Show Notes with Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction to permission-based visibility 

01:08 - Busting the "be everywhere" myth 

01:49 - The reality of slower growth with strategic visibility 

02:20 - Melissa's own visibility chaos 

03:48 - The power of unplanned, authentic content 

04:44 - ADHD struggles with written content 

07:03 - How AI helps with content blocks 

08:54 - The "tripod voice" phenomenon 

10:12 - Being your authentic self online and offline 

11:15 - The gap between online and in-person presence 

12:14 - Step 1: Finding your visibility baseline 

14:27 - Step 2: Choosing your visibility playground wisely 

17:17 - Step 3: Setting rules around your visibility 

18:13 - How to implement this framework yourself 

22:35 - Addressing FOMO and missed opportunities 

24:17 - Final thoughts on permission-based visibility

Connect with Melissa here:

Ways to work with Melissa: https://itsmelissahoward.myflodesk.com/

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/itsmelissahoward
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/itsmelissahoward/
LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsmelissahoward/
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ItsMelissaHoward
TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/itsmelissahoward

Transcript

0:00

You're listening to the visible ish podcast for the bold, confident ish, but ready to show up business owners that are ready to do visibility on their terms. Let's go. So this episode today is for all of us. Who have ever whispered, I just wanna be seen. I just wanna hide. Welcome to the Visible ish life where permission, pacing, and presence matter more than constant performance. Let's talk about a visibility framework which I love to use with my one on one clients that actually honours your life, your capacity, and your So here's a myth that I wanna bust, that visibility means showing up every day on every platform, saying something life changing, and to just basically bait the algorithm into showing your stuff every single time. That's a myth because the truth is, it's not only unsustainable, it's also completely unnecessary, especially if you're already an established business owner. Now if you're new in business, it's slightly different. But if you're an established business owner, you've already got clients, you've got systems, you've got momentum. You do not need to keep throwing spaghetti at the social media wall hoping out of fear that everything will stay the same if you skip a week. The visible ish mindset is all around not hiding, but choosing how and where you show up. It is strategic. It is soulful, and it is permission based visibility that works. That said, I am gonna be really real with you. If you go slower, your growth may be slower. And that's okay if you're okay with that. Because here's the truth. What you say, how you say it, where you say it, it does matter. It absolutely matters, but it doesn't matter as much as you think it does and how much you're holding yourself back from actually starting. But we do cover content strategies in the future. Alright. So now let's pull back the curtain, open the kimono on my own visibility chaos, and it absolutely is chaos. I am gonna be honest. I teach this. I make a living off this, and my own is still chaos. It is a journey. It is not linear. There is no destination. And when I first started out and I've come so far, I really have come so far, but when I first started out, I wasn't technically everywhere, but I was like a rash on the platforms that I was on. So likes of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, I was doing my thing day in and day out spending hours upon hours upon hours putting content out that was teaching people, giving them value, etcetera, etcetera. It was relentless. I was doing more than that than delivery. And when I did get to do delivery because I got some business from it, I then had to do even more content outside of hours. I was spending so much time putting it together because I was trying to be perfect. I was trying to do what everybody says is you need to give value, you need to teach, it needs to have this, it can't have this. And I found that actually when I did a post just off the cuff, just off the cuff, didn't overthink it, didn't plan it, it just came and I posted, I got loads of engagement. I got loads of comments back. I something had landed. And it took me years to realise the reason why it landed was because it wasn't planned. It was me. It was 100% me, what I was saying, what I was teaching, the value I was giving. It was through me and my own experiences. It was me and my own tone of voice with my personality, with the chaos. It was everything. But until I realized that I didn't have to show up perfectly with the perfect post, did I realize that this is actually strangely a strategy. Now a method of showing up that I really really struggled with and I still struggle with now even though I do have, you know, some coping mechanisms was the written word, was emails, was newsletters, anything where I had to put, you know, pieces of text together. Now it wasn't because I couldn't do it it's just because it took me so long to do. I just couldn't write from a blank sheet of paper or a blank screen. I just couldn't do it. It was a huge huge blocker for me and I didn't realize until I understood how my brain worked and until I you know learned more about ADHD and got my ADHD diagnosis that this is a huge area on that that a lot of people struggle with and one that I really, really struggled with all through growing up even just writing. You know I've spent years and years beating myself up about why I can't just do what everybody else can do, why can't I just write like everybody else, why does it have to take me hours to do something, literally hours. And it wasn't because I didn't know what to say and it wasn't because I didn't want to do it, I did want to do it, but I wanted it to sound like me. I wanted it to give something to somebody else, but it also had to be perfect. Now if I had a deadline breathing down my neck, goddamn it would be done. But it was stressful. It was always stressful. It was always last minute. And for me knowing that was probably one of the key lightbulb moments that really unblocked this I should be able to do this to actually my brain obviously struggles to do. And I literally spent years and years beating myself up about this. Had I known that this was related to neuro neurodivergence, I probably wouldn't have been so hard on myself, well I definitely wouldn't have been so hard on myself. And it would have allowed me to give myself permission to, it's okay to post less than perfect. It's okay to just start and, you know, learn as I go. Now I know AI gets a really bad rap. I don't know why. Like, chatty is my bestie. But let me tell you it has been a game changer for me in the past twelve to eighteen months because it allows me to get unstuck. It really energises me now that I'm like I need to write something. I know what I need to write. I know what I wanna say. I know the message that I wanna convey. But actually could you just start it for me and give me something to pull apart rather than me pull apart three words that I've put on a piece of paper that, you know, isn't really helpful because I'm not getting anywhere. So I use AI personally now to get unstuck. But before AI really took any sort of shape for me up until about twelve to eighteen months ago, I was able to use this permission based strategy that I'm gonna talk to you about now to be able to actually get this shit done. So let's now talk about video. I am way more natural on camera, on live streams than any other modality because when it's live, you've literally got one shot, and you've just gotta keep going. And I'm very good at laughing at myself, laughing at my bloopers, but when I have to record something that's not live, a little bit like a podcast, sometimes the need to be perfect and stop start comes in, and it is natural. It happens to all of us. Now although I do feel it's my best modality of showing up is video sometimes I do struggle with having some sort of I just call it a tripod voice. Don't know where it comes from but you know sometimes when you have a telephone voice when you're working, I sometimes have a tripod voice. And I say a tripod because if I was to hold my phone I don't know where it is. If I was to hold my phone and record, it's me. It's like funky. It's movement. It's crazy. The second I put it on a tripod, the tripod voice comes out. So I've really had to train myself and check-in with myself to make sure that it's still me. So you'll probably see as we go along that at different times of this podcast, especially if you're watching it, you may see that I do certain things to get out of my tripod tripod voice. It's something that I do to, break the pattern of what I'm doing so that I am actually showing up as I am telling you guys to show up, which is you, your% true self. I also say quite a lot. And do you know what? I don't mind that. And the thing is some people will be put off by that. They absolutely will be put off by that. And honestly, they're not my people. When I've been growing and I go, oh my god, I say a lot and oh god, I wasn't even looking at the camera for about five minutes. I didn't realize I was doing that. My people don't notice that. Or if they do notice it, they're like, but that's why I watch you because you are so real and it's not perfect. And although it looks super confident great and you get your message across, and I wish I could be more like you. That's the reason why I watch you, and that's where I wanna get you to. So whatever your modality is of showing up to begin with, that it is a way that suits you, that gets you across the line, that helps you show up gloriously in your amazingness. So if you're too much, you're not enough, or you are somewhere gloriously in the middle, your voice is for somebody, and I will help you find them. So the other thing is when I started out in the online business world and then started going to events, a lot of people who'd seen my content or online would come up to me and be like, oh my god. You were just like how you are online, which is brilliant, but you're actually even better in person. Now although that sounds like a beautiful compliment, it really was gutting for me because it meant that they were seeing something different online. Now, yes, you could say that this is me overthinking, but I could feel it. So if I could feel it and they could see it, I needed to make sure that I wasn't watering myself down. It wasn't a watered down version of me. I wanted my online presence to feel just as energized, just as alive, just as me, just as messy, just as real, just as amazing as when I'm on stage or meet people in person. And that's when I knew something needed to change. So key one of the permission based visibility framework is understanding your visibility baseline. This is about finding your minimum effective dose. So like a vitamin c dose of content. It's enough to keep your business nourished without you choking on it. It's enough for you to be showing up and people know that you're there and you're posting and the algorithm's ticking along, but not that you're ghosting them. What's the least that you can do and still feel present in your business and in your personal life? Is it a post a week? Is it on one platform rather than four platforms? Is it a newsletter? Look at what that is and define it, and give your permission to let that be enough as your visibility baseline. I say this because it's so easy for us with all of the different platforms there are to do and all of the different modes of creating content to get into the all my days. I've gotta do three reels for Instagram, three reels for TikTok. I don't know how to use TikTok yet, and then on Facebook I need to do four posts, go into groups, and make sure I'm mingling and giving value and bread crumbing all my days. We are giving ourselves such a hard time, and this isn't about just showing up online. This can be doing PR, running workshops, going and meeting people at networking events, wherever it is that you feel comfortable as your minimum visibility baseline, write it down. And then think about the modality in which you do it. Is it writing? Is it video? Is it doing carousels? Is it actually in person in person networking? Because online might zap your soul at the moment. Whatever it is, find out what it is that is your minimum visibility baseline, and then we go from there. The second step is choosing your visibility playground wisely. So if we're talking about online, not all platforms are made equal. You don't have to give your energy to every platform. You don't have to give them to any platform, and this is why strategy really, really matters. So where does your audience hang out? So I'm not talking about your superfans. I'm not talking about your mom or your next door neighbor's cat who likes to like all of your posts. Where is the audience that buys your service, your products, what you do? Where do they hang out? And be truly honest. Now if it's like you don't know, that's something else that we're gonna talk about in another podcast. But if you're showing showing up on Facebook, but actually you know that your clientele are on LinkedIn, well, maybe we need to shift where you are posting that content. So I've been working with one of my clients one to one recently who is a great example of this. She is a corporate trainer. She is epic. And she goes in and helps organizations have difficult conversations more easily without all the bullshit. Now she has previously been told and was under the illusion that networking was the place to get these clients, but she wasn't getting those clients. So I went along to an event with her, a networking event, and her people were not in that room. There was a lot of amazing people, and probably people who could have referred her to others. However, HR decision makers were not in that room. They were small business owners. So making sure that even though networking might be your thing or being online as your thing, posting on socials as your thing, that it is the right audience, the right people are there. Now, yes, she could go to networking events, and they could be really, really good with a strategy that we're working on together, but they needed to be somewhere where the HR peeps would be hanging out. So we adjusted her strategy, and we've pretty much saved her days and days of wasted effort a month by travelling to networking events, showing up at events where she's probably not and hasn't had any business before. So it's really, really key on finding out where your audience, where people who were going to buy your services, not just your cheerleaders, are hanging out. Now I'm not saying because I know there's gonna be people here that go, oh, network and runs great. It absolutely are. And I'm not saying she can't go to networking events, but they are not the event to go to for her to pick up business because they're not the right people there for her. The third one is setting rules around your visibility. So visibility can feel a bit like a punishment when we haven't got a good relationship with it. It can feel something that we have to do, something we should do, something we must do, but we're not looking at it as a form of expression. So a way of growing our business in a way that is intentional and that is in alignment with us. Now you might be thinking, what the hell is she going on about? Well, it's not just about what you post, how you post it, and where you post it. It's around the rules around that of how you are honoring your energy, how you are honoring the time off that you have from doing it, the seasons of your life, your creative rhythms. If you are somebody that prefers to batch things and do two days of filming or two days of writing and that's you for the whole month, amazing. That doesn't work for me creatively. I've gotta do things on the hoof. If you are somebody that has a really active weekend or you've got a young family and you wanna be present for them, base your visibility rules around doing it Monday to Friday. And, yes, now and then you might have to do something on a weekend if there's an event or whatnot, but it should not feel like a punishment. It should feel like we've got this working for us not against us. The next bit is showing you how you can implement this. So how do you build your own permission based visibility framework without me in your room? The first one is going back to basics. It's about defining your minimum effective presence. What is your baseline? What is it that you need to do to keep your business ticking over? Is it posting three times a week? Is it sending four emails a month and doing two lives? Is it go into two networking events? What is it? Now if you're sitting there thinking, I don't know. I don't know what the, you know, the MVP is, what the minimal viable product of me showing up is, think about where your audience shows up, what they currently consume from you, what they like to hear from you, where you get the most people commenting or engaging or sending you messages. What is it that people love to hear and get from you? Then you can see that that is sort of the baseline. The second one is identifying the core platforms or the core modalities that you can do to release yourself from doing everything else. So is it that, say for my corporate trainer, it is posting on LinkedIn because that is generally where a lot of her, audience are gonna be and hanging out. And the second one could be in person HR networking events around the country that she feels she's able to attend. If you are a dog groomer, it might be that Google reviews and building a presence on there is actually much more useful than being on LinkedIn. Maybe it is being in particular Facebook Facebook groups locally or being in on Instagram and making sure that you've got the right tags. Have a think about where your audience is, not what you're currently doing right now, and then we can build from there in terms of repurposing content and building it forward when we've got the infrastructure to do that, but we don't have to be everywhere all the time all at once. And the third one is writing out those visibility rules and being really, really intentional about the boundaries that you keep so that you are energized and not exhausted, but you are also really real of how and when you are showing up. So when we define what that baseline is and you you set out your rules and you know where your your platforms are going to be is that that's mapped and you are sticking to that. So regardless of where you map this out it's not about perfection it's about clarity. It's knowing where it is that your audience is, where it is that your energy is, and where you feel the less resistance of showing up. Now it might be you're thinking, well, brilliant. I'll just write posts forever now. I'll just post that that on Facebook and that's me. I'll grow my business how I wanna do it. No, my darling. This is just the beginning of the framework. This is so that you can take the pressure off yourselves to get going. Get more consistent with visibility, less shamey without the burnout spiral, and just get going. But there is always going to be a need to diversify, but building that muscle from a place of courageous confidence rather than a place of should and must is so, so much powerful. The results of that will allow you to be in more places than one without you feel like you are in more places than one, without the burnout, without feeling like you have to be on all the time. Now I know you might be thinking, what if I miss an opportunity? This goes against everything that GuruX says and that all of the ads on Facebook tell me day in and day out of posting this and posting that five times a day here, five times a day there, that's absolutely fine. You get to choose who you listen to. You get to choose what works for you. And I'm giving you permission to find out what works for you, what works for your audience, and what works for your business. You will miss things. We are a human running a business, especially if you are a solopreneur. We are not robots running content machines. And if we are and if we were doing that, we're not gonna be attracting the people that we really want to be working with, helping, and providing that value to. But the opportunities that you do and could attract by being more intentional, by showing up more like yourself, feeling more aligned, happier to do so, that feels like the battered opportunity in itself that you may be currently missing. I'd love to hear from you what your permission based visibility rules are. Share them with me on any of the socials. You can find me on at it Melissa Howard, and let's normalise this approach. You're not lazy. You're not flaky. You're not messy. You're just being intentional. We're slowing down to speed up. And I've already had people that I work with say, god, you are so different because rather than telling us to do more, you're telling us to do less. And it's doing less to be able strategic in what we're doing, around our energy, around our energetics, about what we wanna do. So rather than being driven by the musts and the shoulds, we're driven by what works for us, for our audience, and for our business. So before I wrap things up, I just wanna leave you with a thought that visibility is not about being on all the time. It's about being aligned when you are on. Visible ish works. It's a journey. It's not a destination, and it's not linear. This strategy allows you to show up as you and not as a content robot. Until then, come and join the conversation. Make sure you like, subscribe, and leave a review, and tell me what your own rules are. Own your rhythms, and stay Visible ish. You've been listening to the Visible ish podcast. Subscribe, share, and show up again next week. Every Thursday, we will be dropping the huge with messy chats all around visibility and showing you how you can find your voice, get visible in your way, and then grow your business. See you next time.